User talk:Durin/archive2005

The content of this page is an archive of User talk:Durin. Please do not modify it.

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Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Thanks! --Durin 01:51, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

List of USN Ships

Hi! A few days ago I started to complete the List of ships of the United States Navy--and soon found it was way too big for one page. I split it by pushing all the decommissioned ships out onto the [[List of all ships of the United States Navy, <InitialLetter>]] pages, leaving only the active ships (and those which will be). So, I'm taking USS Fearless (MSO-442) back off the main page. Incidently, the ship's page doesn't say anything about the hull, but as a minesweeper I presume it's some sort of wood construction, which seems noteworthy. —wwoods 06:41, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Old Ironsides image

If you examine the history [1]., and look at the "last" links for the edits in January and December, you'll see that some anonymous editors were having a bit of fun. I don't usually remember to put image pages on my watchlist, which is how they got away with it for so long. Stan 02:51, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

24.164.211.25

Thank you for giving me credit for the articles I actually have completed. However, I still believe Dream Guy is a real creep (just read the things that other people have to say about him). I agree to cease and desist with the vandalism, you, unlike DreamGuy, actually come to me like I am a human being, instead of some idiot. I appreciate that a lot. I am going to try to contribute to Spanish Wikipedia, but I still get lazy writing those articles. On a related note, you can help me on the article on William Lynch.

P.S. I saw your notice on the W. Lynch ad and I agree that it needs clean up. I confess, I am not going to take "all" my time to complete Wikipedia articles (after all it is free). I am too lazy. (Why do you all do that) ... Just playing. But listen, please assist me on this article. The information is too hard to find on such a topic. Anything you can post regarding dates, or whatever, will really help me out a lot. I think that it important what people realize the impact he had on the Southern slave community. I also feel it is a shame that it took Wikipedia so long to have an article on such an important man. Please help me on this article.

Yours truly,

Signed (I don't know my IP address from memory) lol. (:

Sig

Dont forget to sig your posts/vots, like on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nick vs. Andy just add a ~~~~ and the system will sig it for you. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 06:08, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm well aware, thanks. --Durin 20:29, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

These family history vfds

Indeed, the same user seems to be putting up a whole bunch of family history articles. I've put notes (based on Template:Vanity) at User talk:70.242.12.105 and then User talk:Dbail999 - let's hope we can win this newcomer over to the good side gently. Samaritan 02:00, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Herman B Wells

Heyas. Wikipedia let me move Herman B. Wells to Herman B Wells which I saw you tried to do before. Just thought I'd let you know. I was going to update your user page since it was one of the links that pointed to Herman B. Wells but I decided that it was too bold. You can certainly change it if you want though! Anyway, just thought you'd like to know. -SocratesJedi | Talk 17:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

William Lynch Update

I moved the article that I had posted to William Lynch Speech, I added several changes and an external source, so I think it should be up to the quality-or at least close to- that of Wikipedia by now. Dbraceyrules 20:32, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

LSTs

Given the content of the tables seems identical I think it hardly matters which one goes. Just make sure that one of them is linked to on the ships wikiproject class footer table list. David Newton 06:49, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Paul Riker

I've moved the VfD pointer for this article. The user has created articles for all of his teachers. We might as well vote on all of them at once. --Xcali 21:47, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No worries about the user page comment. Last time I checked, we were all human. I've done it myself. --Xcali 22:10, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That Latin name article

Sounds good - I wasn't opposed to having an article there at all - just opposed to having that particular article there, which seemed wholly unhelpful. Snowspinner 23:40, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Maurice Goode,Jr.

content was "Maurice Goode,Jr. born( August 21, 1991 in Memphis,Tennessee).Phenominal basketball player who plays for Craigmont High School" i.e. substub speedied for little or no content, the kid can't spell and is obviously very vain. Dunc|☺ 20:54, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Additional resources for ship information"

(Belated) thanks for these links. I haven't had much time for Wikipedia lately, but when I do they'll be useful. —wwoods 03:17, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Re: USS Missouri

Thanks for the help. Some of the info pertaining to Missouri's historical status I incoporated into the "1993-present" section. Also, I reworked the pictures in the "WWII" sections to make the article more atractive to the eye. And a HUGE thank-you for the radar and other electronic specs; I had been hoping that someone would insert those into the article. TomStar81 1 July 2005 22:28 (UTC)

• I'll take you on your word about the Missouri being a super dreadnought; my original objection to that phrase was do in part to the battleship article, I was also under the impression that "super dreadnought" was akin to "supercarrier" in regards to having to meet with certin criteria. TomStar81 4 July 2005 05:19 (UTC)

Indiana Wikipedians

Please consider adding yourself to Category: Indiana Wikipedians.

Thanks! Kurt Weber 8 July 2005 21:21 (UTC)

Anon editor

You're absolutely right. I made the mistake of doing some RC patrolling during a stressful part of the day and the amount of vanity articles, vandal bot stubs and just plain weird stuff that came in during that time was overwhelming. Got a bit hot under the collar. Sorry 'bout the flare-up. - Lucky 6.9 21:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Username change

Thanks for the congratulations. There would be some links between your old and new name if you changed, though these could probbably be minimised. There's no real policy on this yet but what could be help is to record the change as "<name removed> changed to newname" rather than displaying your old name in the archived requests page. However, the automatic log isn't editable, and the old name would show up in that. You would need to change the links to your user page manually. Your original signature would still be in the page history. Angela. 02:14, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Strategic Policy Consulting

This article is not speediable. It is a candidate for VfD, but it does not meet criteria for speedy deletion. Please see this page for which articles can and cannot be speedied. Thanks. Denni☯ 02:04, 2005 July 17 (UTC)

• It is a candidate for speedy deletion under general criteria (4). Please see the associated VfD at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Strategic Policy Consulting which closed June 18, 2005. Since then, the article has been recreated twice, with essentially no new material other than a mild re-write which made it a non-copyvio. --Durin 02:47, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Oops - my bad. You are of course correct. I didn't read the speedy tag carefully enough. Denni☯ 02:54, 2005 July 17 (UTC)

SmartCOP copyvio

Hey, dont mean to be writing on you page but I didn't know any other way to contact you. You have marked my SmartCOP page as a possible copyright infringement. However, I am posting the paper on behalf of the author of the paper and the creator of SmartCOP. So, please undo what you did or direct me on how to post this information. Thanks unsigned edit by 157.127.124.134 (talk · contribs)

Lake Monroe

Thanks for the message, and I have added the category to my user page. I have also expanded the information on Lake Monroe, and if you have anything else to add it would be a great help. Thanks. Eightball 21:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for correcting that typo on my user page. I appreciate it! --Canderson7 16:19, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Horseracing-stub

OK - you convinced us :) {{Horseracing-stub}} is off and racing! Grutness...wha? 01:52, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome back. Yes, I must see about that IV treatment :). As to the stubs, feel free to replace the icon. I hunted through quite a few horse racing articles without finding anything that I was particularly happy with, so it will be no loss to see it go. With the other stubs, horseracingbio might well be worth doing - see how the horseracing one goes first. As to yachtracing-stub, perhaps extending it to yachting in general might be better, or sailboat racing in general (do windsurfers count?) Although the sport itself doesn't interest me much, I'm sure there are others from my part of the world (New Zealand) who could provide a few articles for the topic, too! Overall, it sounds like you're about to embark on a similar project with sports stubs to what I've done with geography stubs. Be warned, it's a lot of work and very addictive! What you're doing, with user subpage lists, is a good way of doing it though (it's what I've done with the geo-stubs). My advice would be to find a good number of stubs on a topic, then take it to WP:WSS/C - I doubt anyone will object if it's a natural child of ssport-stub and has a large number of stubs all ready to have the template attached. The most argument you'd probably get is quibbling over its name and scope (a bit like I've just done with the yachtracing :). Sport-stub and sportbio-stub do need splitting, so it's definitely a worthwhile task. Enjoy your holiday! Grutness...wha? 05:41, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Graphs of edits, data and such

Hello! I noticed in one your image contributions that you have made a graph of edits made to a page. Do you have a good solution to this question I asked on the reference desk a while ago? Please let me know if you do! Thanks! --HappyCamper 21:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the MediaWiki software yet, so I don't know how the data is stored. I'm interested in performing some stochastic signal processing on the edits to see if anything interesting comes out from it. For starters, it doesn't have to be the entire data set, even approximately say, 5000-10000 data points would be enough. I was thinking writing articles related to these topics, and using data from Wikipedia itself as examples. After all what else would be more fitting? :) --HappyCamper 21:23, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Olympic ownership

Although you created Image:Olympicsicon.gif yourself, the IOC owns rights to the symbol. You might want to mention something in the image description that there are restrictions on the use of the symbol. You already are aware of the message in Image:Olympic-rings.png. (SEWilco 17:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC))

• I created the icon as a derivative work of Image:Olympic-rings.png. Fair use, if applies to that original, applies here as well. I've added the {{logo}} notation onto my derivative work, and removed the PD notice. --Durin 17:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I was not challenging the image, just trying to keep the ownership of the symbol apparent for future users. (SEWilco 18:47, 16 August 2005 (UTC))

Thanks!

Hiya. Just wanted to thank you for supporting my recent RfA. Cheers! --Ngb 19:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

USS Princeton (1897)

I considered using PG-13 for the title of this ship, however, this appears to be a neoligism at best. The hull classification system wasn't instituted until 1920, and this ship was decommissioned and struck by that time. The DANFS history makes no reference to this designation. However, I don't feel strongly about it and would be fine with a move and redirect, if you'd like. She apparently was called "Gunboat Number 13," and her sister ships received the hull classification of "PG" and you have the NHC reference, so it isn't completely outside the scope. Jinian 19:30, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Stadtteile

I renamed them because Frankfurt has a rather complicated, overlapping division structure that includes larger Stadtbezirke which, I think, more closely correspond to the word district (it also has smaller units as well). At least one of these categories will probably have to use a foreign word. These still need to be added. What really needs to be done is translate all of the German articles about different German forms of city organization and federal organization. Gemeinde, Kreise, Stadtteile, Stadtbezirke, Ortsteile, etc. These are often not easy to translate to English. There are similar issues across all of German geography. Tfine80 15:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the reason that they are stubs first is that I wanted to transfer the templates in a methodical way and then let people translate the articles from the German during the creation of the Wikireader for Wikimania and then at Wikimania itself. I plan to continually update these. And a lot of other German cities have separate categories... See districts of Berlin, for example. But, you're right, a lot of work still needs to be done. You can join us at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Frankfurt if you are interested in the city's organization. Tfine80 15:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the categories should be in English... I will have a vote in the Wikiproject about what to name them. There should be a standard between all of the other German, Austrian, Swiss cities. Perhaps boroughs and districts are the best way, but I would need to ask someone from Frankfurt. Tfine80 15:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Btw, I just realized I didn't even rename it in the first place. I made the template and was working on it from the beginning. Tfine80 15:45, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Re: Image:USSJohnHancock.jpg

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. It get confusing when taking pictures from NavSource sometimes as the majority of them are usually US Navy images. Every once in a while there's one of these copyrighted ones that users have submitted and it must have slipped by me. Thanks for catching it and replacing it. --ScottyBoy900Q∞ 21:52, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

• A source I frequently use for ships of the modern era is combatindex.com. The images have in my experience all been attributed to U.S. Navy or U.S. Military sources. That is where I grabbed the image that's now on the USS John Hancock (DD-981) page. --Durin 21:59, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Looks good. I upload a lot of ship pics so I'll definitely consult that site. One thing I noticed though was some things on combatindex.com are credited as US Navy photos, but on NavSource they are listed as copyrighted by individuals. Thanks. --ScottyBoy900Q∞ 00:48, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• That's interesting. I have seen images on both that were 'turned in' to Navsource by a particular individual. But, that's not the same as copyright. In general, images taken by naval personnel while on duty are in the public domain. They might be turned in by those same individuals to Navsource, but they are copyright free. I'd be interested if you have seen some that were definitely copyrighted at navsource and appear as not copyrighted on combatindex.com. I'm particularly sensitive to copyright issues because I feel it constitutes a serious threat to Wikipedia, so I'd like to see if there are cases like what you mention above. --Durin 02:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

If I come across one again I'l ldrop you a message. I know I've found that to be the case before so I had stopped using the combatindex. And I definitely agree that copyrights are serious and important...luckily there are enough of us who monitor that kind of thing and make sure everything is acceptable.--ScottyBoy900Q 02:53, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair use (August 06)

I only just now saw your reply to the Wikipedia:Copyright problems#August 11 section where you claimed that several book covers did not fall under fair use. I'm afraid your arguments don;t really make sense. Yes, those images were taken from the website and not scanned, but that makes no difference. Yes, they claim ownership of the image, but then that's not any different from any other image, scanned or not. Doing your own scan of a book does not effect the ownership of that image in any way, even though you scanned it it is still owned by the copyright owner just as if you lifted it off their website. Fair use is a legal exception to copyright law, so the fact that you can quote a sentence from their website saying that they owned it doesn't matter. I strongly recommend you not lable any more book covers as copyright violations, and I hope you withdraw your complaints about these, as the page is already overflowing with real violations. Thanks. DreamGuy 04:17, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

• Do you know for a fact that the image is an exact facsimile of the book cover? Maybe it's a version of the book cover that never went to print. We don't know. What we have is an image that may or may not be the book cover. What we do know is that the image is an exact copy (same dimenions, same format, same number of bytes) as the one on the Prentice Hall site. It is thus highly likely it was taken from Prentice Hall's site. What we do know is Prentice Hall's user license:

"Modifications of any materials on this Site or use of the materials for any purpose other than as contemplated in this Site is a violation of Pearson' copyright and proprietary rights. You agree not to reverse engineer, duplicate, publish, modify, or otherwise distribute the materials on this Site unless specifically authorized in writing by Pearson to do so."

Barring confirmation that this is in fact the book cover, the {{bookcover}} tag does not apply. Given that the person who orginally posted the image posted at least two other images that clearly violate copyright (and possible many, many more), I am not comfortable with a copyright judgement being left with the original poster. Please see User_talk:D-Day#More_copyright_problems for some discussion regarding this user's uploading behavior.

This user is a student in the New York State system. He most likely has the book in his book bag. Scanners are nearly ubiquitous today. I do not think it is asking too much to have this image removed and instead have it replaced with an image that has definitely been scanned from the book itself, removing any uncertainty about fair use. Wouldn't you agree?

Copyright is a very serious issue. It is one of the main things that threatens the very existence of Wikipedia. I am neither a deletionist nor an inclusionist when it comes to articles. When it comes to copyright questions, I have and will continue to favor removing content if we can not verify its copyright status. In this particular case, we can not definitively verify its status as a book cover (I did look for other images of this book, and found none). As such, it's copyright status is questionable. --Durin 23:40, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, copyright is a serious issue, but your arguments here make no sense legally. Scanning a cover does abslutely nothing to make it more fair use than taking it from the publisher site. And, yes, the owners say you can't use it, but then those claims do not affect fair use criteria in the slightest either. The status is verified, it is a bookcover, and by listing them as violations you are wasting a lot of people's time on a page that is overflowing with legitimate complaints. DreamGuy 00:14, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

• You've making a claim that its status as a book cover has been verified. I do not see where on any of Image:Matha s.gif, Wikipedia:Copyright_violations#August_11, Image_talk:Matha_s.gif, or any related users pages that its status as a book cover has been verified. If you can provide some proof of this verification, or a public domain release statement from Prentice Hall for the image, then I'd be quite happy to drop my complaint. Until such time as this is done, it's copyright status remains questionable. If you wish to continue to insist that it is a book cover without this verification, please understand that we disagree. As such, it is not up to us to decide the issue; it is up to an admin. As a result, the complaint should remain on the copyright violations page. I do not think that being concerned about copyright issues and raising them on the Wikipedia:Copyright_violations page is a waste of anyone's time. Your case regarding this image relies on the image being a replica of the book cover. When you prove that, you will have made your case. Until then, the copyright status is questionable. Thanks for your time. --Durin 03:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course I'm making the claim it is a book cover, and of course it has been verified. Being in denial that it's a book cover without any evidence (or logic) to support that position is just sheer stubbornness. Stop wasting everyone's time with nonsensical arguments. DreamGuy 16:37, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

As I noted above, we disagree. From my view, it has not been verified as being a bookcover as you have provided no evidence that it is. I believe our discussion is complete. It is up to others to decide. --Durin 16:44, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

In that case, I suppose I'm deciding. These are textbooks. I recognize the format, although I've never seen the New York version in person (not being from New York). You can buy one here. The images are practically thumbnails. I can hardly think of anything that would better qualify as "low-resolution images of book covers" (per {{book cover}}). -Aranel (Sarah) 18:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

your request

Not much we can do about the log since it's read only and recreating and redeleting the page will only append to it. The log entries won't show up in mirrors or in most web searches, however, so you may find that it doesn't matter much in practice. Since other users follow the deletion log to check for out-of-process deletions, I had to supply a reason when deleting the page. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:07, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Admin graphs

Hey could you please, if its not a problem, make a graph showing my edit count [2] and put it on my Rfa. I'd think it'd be interesting to see how my edits are. Jobe6 22:15, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

• I'd be happy to add such a chart to your RfA. It'll have to wait until Thursday though. I'll have it up less than 12 hours from now. --Durin 04:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

• I've added the chart now, and it is linked from Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Jobe6. Enjoy! --Durin 15:32, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Joolz's RFA

Hey Durin, thanks for your vote on my recent RFA, your support was appreciated :) -- Joolz 11:27, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• No problem. Normally, I do not vote on RfAs for nominees with >2000 edits. Reason; almost all RfAs for nominees with edit counts higher than that are approved. Thus, it's a fair bit of a waste of time for me to analyze nominees with larger edit counts. I did in your case because several people voted in favor of you before you even accepted and answered the questions. So, I placed a "neutral" vote to highlight that and then changed it to the obviously well warranted "support" after you accepted/answered. I'm sure you'll make a fine admin. Unanimous 31-0 decision, TKO in the 1st round :) --Durin 13:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC) (PS: If you're really bored and unusually curious, you can have a look at my admin voting measures...if you fall asleep, don't blame me :))

User Page Cat Change

Hi! Just wanted to let you know that your user page wasn't vandalized. Category:Indiana Wikipedians is being merged into Category:Wikipedians in Indiana. Just wanted to let you know ;-). Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist} 03:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Explanation of gap

Greetings. I did not take a voluntary break from editing Wikipedia from June to August of this year. My husband and I had been sharing a house with a (now former) friend from January; in early June, relations with her began to deteriorate, culminating in my husband and I needing to flee our former residence at half past midnight on a Sunday night, after our roommate flipped out and started making threats of violence against us. We then needed to find a new place to live, extract our possessions from the crazy woman's house (still not entirely complete—she refuses to turn over some of our more valuable possessions, like my husband's wedding ring), and get our Internet connection hooked back up, in the middle of a telco strike. --IceKarma 18:33, 19 September 2005 UTC

Edit graphs

I like the edit graphs you periodically put on RfAs. How do you make them? I was thinking of doing some myself. Andre (talk) 19:15, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for the compliment! For information on how I make the charts, please see User:Durin/Admin nominee charts. --Durin 19:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed you use a lookup table to convert month name to number. A slightly simpler way would be a function call, such as:

=MONTH(CONCATENATE("1-",F2,"-05"))

so H2 would now read:

=IF(C2<>"",MONTH(CONCATENATE("1-",F2,"-05")),"")

Of course you can change the "1-" and "-05" to any strings that give a valid date. (But by this point you could simply concatenate the original three fields into a valid date...) Owen× ☎ 20:20, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

• There's a variety of other ways I can improve the spreadsheets. I'm just not doing the upgrades right now. I've got a working system. I might upgrade it later. --Durin 20:25, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Your suggestions about RfA

Hi, thanks for your helpful suggestions. I had already decided to wait until I had at least 1,500 edits. I expect that I might get from 1,500 to 2,000 quite quickly, as I'll have finished exams at that stage. I don't expect to go up before November, anyway, and if I don't feel confident at that stage, I'll wait even longer. There are a lot of things I want to find out, first, so that I really feel like an experienced Wikipedian. What does "bot" mean? When should I use – and when should I use — ? Should references (linking to documents of other websites) be done like [this] or like ^[this]? And so on.All the information is there, but I have to browse through Wikipedia a bit longer to familiarize myself with it. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 00:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Well put

Thanks for taking the time to spell out your views on User:V. Molotov's RFA on his talk page. (I took advantage by following it with a "me too" message.) FreplySpang (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Award

For your charts making the WP:RFA process easier to understand, I give you the The Graphic Designer's Barnstar. Congrats. Zach (Sound Off) 21:10, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for the barnstar. Very much appreciated! --Durin 21:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Graph

Hello, Durin, great work on the graphs on the RfA! I read your explanatory page on the graphy, and I would be interested in seeing a graph of my edits. I am an admin already, and do have 4000+ edits. I know you're busy, so you might not have time to fulfill my request, but I thought it would be nice to see a visual of all my edits. If you do one for me, thanks, and if you don't, thanks anyways for creating such a great service! Your efforts are appreciated. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 21:28, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for the compliment! As for a chart for you; Ok, but it might be a few days. Currently trying to wrap something up here at my desk and head home for the day. Then, I'm gone for the weekend and may not edit again until Monday. So, if you don't see it for a few days please do not be surprised. If I don't get it to you by Tuesday give me a nudge. You're actually the first person to ask me for a chart who was not an admin nominee, so I don't mind. I just hope I don't get requests from dozens of people :-) --Durin 21:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

• • Thanks! Take your time- I'll still be here in a couple of days... :-) Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 21:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Quarto

Yes, I meant the Wikimedia Quarto -- hmmm, no Wikipedia article yet. The Statistics part of the reports page is its most popular section; we're planning to have a separate page for statistical reports starting with WQ 4 & 5 (covering April thru June and July thru September). Brian0918 and Erik Zachte have been very helpful so far; but there is enough work to merit a proper stats team each quarter. It would be lovely to have some extra statistics on users of the English Wikipedia, which is still many times larger than the next few largest projects combined... something like % of edits with summaries, or % of new articles by IPs, or # of edits per week by the week's top 10 editors [maybe per day, if there are interesting variations]. There is a lot to work with; perhaps you have better ideas of your own! +sj + 21:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Signing on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/bob rulz

Oops! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black... I accuse bob of not using Edit summaries and then I forget to sign! I guess I shouldn't be editing past my bedtime. :P Thanks for filling in my signature! Owen× ☎ 22:08, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

• No worries. I've done it myself. We're all human :-) --Durin 22:17, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Your graph

MarkGallagher told me you made a graph for someone's edits... did you use a script for that or did you do that all manually? Cause I'd like a graph like that for myself, but I've got over 8000 edits so thatd take me forever if its manual... Redwolf24 (talk) 04:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

On the same vein, please could you release the images as PNG images? And would also prefer if you would use the date neutral ISO 8601 format ie YYYY-MM-DD. Thanks =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:04, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I've done the chart for you. You can view it at Image:Redwolf24-edits.png. I won't be placing it on my contributions subpage so please feel free to delete it whenever you're done with it or keep it if you want.

Some comments:

• You use edit summaries just 39% of the time. Over the last 500 edits, just 30% of the time. Please use edit summaries, ok? :-)
• I did a chart for User:Flcelloguy yesterday. He had an average of 32 edits per day. That was the highest I'd seen yet. I was floored when I saw yours...almost 52?? Wow!
• Please have a look at User:Durin/Admin_nominee_charts#.22Will_you_do_a_chart_for_me.3F.22. This is the second time in the last few days that a non-admin nominee with less than 2,000 edits has requested a chart from me. I don't mind doing them for those admin nominees with less than 2,000 edits because I feel it helps focus the discussion on those nominees. Since you're just the second person not in that group of people to ask, I went ahead and did the chart. However, I really don't want to get in the habit of making a chart for anyone who requests one. It takes too much time; time I could be spending on other wiki stuff. I'm not upset at your asking! :-) I just don't want word to spread around such that I suddenly get hammered with a million requests for charts, ok? :-)

All the best, --Durin 13:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Nichalp; I'll use png and date form as you suggested. --Durin 13:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Was wondering what my graph would look like. ;) =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh God, that's the 3rd request in as many days now for non-admin nominees :-) --Durin 15:30, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I've done the chart for you. You can view it at Image:Nichalp-edits.png. I won't be placing it on my contributions subpage so please feel free to delete it whenever you're done with it or keep it if you want. All the best, --Durin 16:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the graph. Noticed that one of my days wwent through the roof! :) Minor quibble: the ISO format is yyyy-mm-dd not yyyy/mm/dd (The - vs / in other words) =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:04, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Chart

Thanks a lot! I gotta go to school REALLY soon so I'll make this quick. 52 edits? If you take away May, where I have 0 edits, I have 68 edits per day! Also, edit summaries, I dont summarize on user talk pages, look at my edit distrib. Gtg now. Redwolf24 (talk) 14:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

• The problem with not using edit summaries for user talk pages is that an RC patroller has to learn what your particular editing peculiarities are to know that the lack of an edit summary for a user talk page is normal behavior for you. This might be fine if it was only you that had this editing behavior. However, there are others that I have seen who do this as well. Thus, there's significant scaling issues with this behavior; how many editors will RC patrollers have to know the editing behaviors of? I used to not use edit summaries for my own user, talk, and subpages. I figured it should be obvious I'm not vandalizing my own page. Now, I use edit summaries 100% of the time (unless I just click "Save page" by accident before entering edit summary). Please consider doing the same? Thanks, --Durin 14:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks for making the chart for me! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 20:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Damn, I got 470 edits in ONE DAY!? Thanks a lot for it though Durin, and by the way, I nominated you for adminship!. Redwolf24 (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

• I just wanted to drop by and let you know that I love your charts on people nominated for admin, such as this. I hope you are not discouraged by anyone who does not like the charts. If they don't find them helpful, they are certainly free to ignore them. Johntex\^talk 23:00, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

request?

I know I'm not an admin nominee, nor that I have less than 2000, so my chances are slim to none, but I had to ask ;) would you consider doing a chart for me? -- (☺drini♫|☎) 03:00, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Can you please do one for me too ? tia, Tintin 12:40, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I had missed your page on how to do this. Will try to learn to fish, instead of asking you for fishes from now on :-) Tintin 16:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I would love to get a chart done. :) Already an admin and I have well over 15000 edits, I'd just be interested in seeing how my editing has evolved. Thanks in advance. :) --Golbez 03:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

My dear Durin, I am touched by your words of encouragement, and deeply moved that you took the time to send them to me. This shows your quality as a great person, and you can be sure that I'll never forget them. In moments like this I should hold myself from becoming too emotional, something that I'm afraid has become all too evident at my RfA :( But I can't help it; hey, that's me!

All I wish to say is a plain old boring "thank you", said from the heart. As I said, I know that you acted with conscience and good will as a responsible member of the community, and for that, I praise you wholeheartedly. You are a hard working contributor, an extremely talented one, and I rest assured that you'll be a hundred times better as an admin as I could ever aspire to be. I sincerely want to put your mind at rest that I never felt attacked from you, nor by any other voter. My unrest came from the mantle of suspicion that I felt in Grace's words, that my late edits looked too much like I was pumping up my edit count. From a neutral perspective, I understand her position, and I don't blame her in the least; as you said, a 12 sigma change is an astonishing change (whatever a sigma change is! I have no clue of technical statistics, but I can infere the meaning ). The thing was, I explained the motives with nothing but the truth, yet I saw more people adhering to Grace's idea, and no word of reply from her. That's when I felt like "hey, I've never done anything wrong, my record is clean, never been in a serious edit dispute, always treated everyone with respect, worked hard to provide everyone with only the best quality material I can write... does that mean nothing to you guys? What happened to the 'Assume good faith' thing?" But your beautiful and truthful words, the caring support of my dear Wiglaf (you know you two can get along, do you?) and those of other good friends, and everyone else who gave me their support; even those who, like Ryan Norton, had good things to say about me but felt they needed to see more, have shown me the truth. I must get used to the idea that 'Assuming good faith' is something that some people will never embrace, and that's doesn't make them any worse than anyone else; it's just how they are. Only because it is deeply rooted within my nature doesn't make me more true than them. Grace herself strikes me as a great person, and echoing her words, I don't want to be critical; perhaps all she needs it to know me more.

These last three days have been the most intense wikitime I've ever had; and at the moment, all I can think is that, whatever the outcame is, I've gained more than I could have expected. I've gained lots of experience and most important, new good friends that I hope to keep as long as I can. I hope you like to consider me as such from now on.

You know, I really get carried on when writing? Jesus, look how many words! You know how many edits I could have done in this time? (bad editcountitis joke). I think it's time to release you. Thank you so much for your words. They really meant a lot to me. Btw, I guess I should go and vote at "someone"s RfA... Will you excuse me now? Hugs, Shauri Yes babe? 23:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your support

Thank you for your kind support of my recent nomination on RfA. The chart you compiled of my edit history was of great interest. By the way, I was delighted to support your own candidacy once mine had run its course - you'll be a fine admin. Best regards, RobertG ♬ talk 09:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Tickler file

Hi, Durin, I noticed your comment here. I'd like to be able to remind myself of stuff. What's a tickler file, please? Bishonen | talk 18:32, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

• "Tickler file" is a generic term to refer to any list one keeps of reminders of things that will need to be attended to in the future. There is no feature in Wikipedia called "tickler file". But, you could create a subpage off your user page to keep a list of such things for your own periodic review. --Durin 13:26, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

A Barn For Your Charts

Durin's Admin Barn

Per my personal tradition, whenever I vote yes in RFA, I offer the candidate not just a barnstar, but a whole barn due to the vast responsibilities that they'll soon have to face. Maybe you can store the extras of your awesome chart in there :-)Karmafist 00:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Graft's nom

Could you provide one of your charts for Graft's RFA nom? I think it would be useful. Dragons flight 13:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• Certainly. Give me 10-15 minutes. --Durin 14:01, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Question On The Charts

Hi, I just tried to use your chart from the formulas you had on User:Durin/Admin nominee charts, but no dice. Can you help? Also, I redirected the link at the bottom of that page that went to your contributions page directly towards the charts section. Excuse me if that was rude, I was just trying to help. Karmafist 16:31, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I can't help you without knowing what the problem is. What is your skill level with MS-Excel? If you have substantial experience with it, you should be able to recreate everything I've done using what I provided on User:Durin/Admin nominee charts as a model to follow. What problems are you having in particular? I reverted your change to the Admin nominee charts page because the section heading for that section changes every time I add a new chart. I update the number of images available in each section as I add material to them. Thus, referring to "Admin nominee edit analysis graphs (15)" will be quickly obsolete. I have the numbers on the ends of section headings so that I can more easily keep track of how many images in total I have contributed. Thanks, --Durin 16:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I just copy and pasted the contribs and formulas directly out of your table, with the contribs going straight as they're seen in the "My Contributions" page. It was mostly alot of "#VALUE!"s. I was able to do the same thing as your table with a few more steps using the COUNTIF function and two worksheets, but i'd like to know what I did wrong with your formulas. I can e-mail it to you if you'd like. Also, I apologize about the user page edit. I know that usually user space is considered sacred, but that kind of bugged me when I was going back and forth and I figured some other users that were using your graphs may be having the same problem. Karmafist 00:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Crucial step (maybe I missed it in my description); select all of column A. Then replace "(hist) (diff)" with "--". Poof, all the #value!'s go away :) If that doesn't work, let me know. --Durin 13:35, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
      • The #values went away, but now I got #N/As on everything past the H column. Karmafist 14:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Again, hard to know exactly what's going wrong. This would probably be easier if I just sent you a copy of the what I have. Could you please give me your e-mail address? Thanks, --Durin 14:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
          • Sure, use [email protected]. Karmafist 14:53, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
            • File is incoming. 7mb. Hope that doesn't overload you. --Durin 15:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• Nope, everything worked fine. Except for a few rows where the edit summary count isn't working, your edition worked perfectly on my data. It's encouraging to see that Graft is having a fairly successful RfA (granted, it's not on your level, but 16/4/2 isn't bad) and he only averaged around 2 edits per day while I am currently averaging around 15. I haven't checked the edits themselves though, quality may win out over quantity. That's the one of the few flaws I think is in your chart, it doesn't capture what's inside the edits themselves. I also disagree with there being a different standard between talk pages and non-talk pages(on the edit summaries). Talk pages are every bit as vital to the health and wellbeing of the Wikipedia community. What makes this place so special is that it's not just an encyclopedia, but it's also an experiment in Sociology. Karmafist 22:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oh I absolutely agree that the charts do not capture any value to the edits. I think the subjective measures are considerably more important than objective measures. Also, I agree with your disagreement about talk pages and non-talk pages; I think edit summaries are important everywhere. See this diff for my rationale [3]. I only did the talk/non-talk numbers because Lord Voldemort raised it as an issue on his RfA. --Durin 22:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Chart Question

G'day Durin. May I say that I share your views about edit counts. Regarding the chart, I followed your instructions and it was all successfully bar the formula for column G in the second worksheet.

Your instructions state:

Then, in column G I add in this function:

"=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(F2,$A$2:$B$175,2,FALSE)),0,VLOOKUP(F2,$A$2:$B$175,2,FALSE)")

and copy it to every subsequent row used in column F.

This formula kept generating zeros. In the end I had to manually enter the no. of the edits per day into column G. Can you tell me if this formula is correct. Regards Ianblair23 04:16, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• Remove the quotation mark before the last ). That should make it work. Also, if the user has more than 174 days on which they edited, then the $B$175 notation needs to be increased an appropriate amount. --Durin 13:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Durin. Congrats on achieving admin status!! I still can't get that formula to work. Would mind taking a look at it. Also could you tell how to figure the percentage of the use of edit summaries. This would be much appreciated. Regards Ianblair23 00:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Adminship

Congratulations, you are now a sysop - and well deserved too, on a 61/0 vote! If you have not already done so, now is the time to read the Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide and Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list. All the best, Warofdreams talk 14:43, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Adminship

Disagree? Can you explain on what basis (I am confused). Thanks. Guettarda 17:01, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

You said, "Your point makes sense if one pre-supposes an administrative function for admins". On the surface, this seems like such an amazingly reasonable conclusion that you must have been inferring something else. After some thought, I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that you are viewing adminship through the perspective of what is the lowest common usage denominator of admins and admin priviledges. Within that context, I think your statements make sense; trustworthiness would be the only criteria. We thus would only have to know if the nominee can be trusted with those powers. This view is in fact supported by much of the introduction text of Wikipedia:Administrators.

However, there is a crucial component of that introduction that speaks to other issues. In particular it says, "Since administrators are expected to be experienced members of the community, users seeking help will often turn to an administrator for advice and information." Consider the position a newbie to Wikipedia has. She's relatively new, and had some concerns regarding a rollback that was made by an admin that qualifies under your criteria, but has a very low participation level (such as Graft). She asks this admin for clarification, and days go by with no response. This could produce a negative result for the user.

Additionally it says on WP:RFA, "[admins]are often perceived as the 'official face' of Wikipedia". It isn't only about having extra tools to conduct editing. If a low participation admin becomes involved in a debate, the potential exists for them to badly inflame a discussion with comments that are not wholely and satisfactorily explained; text based communications have significant limitations. If the admin is not around frequently enough to stay involved in debates and discussions, they could harm the community (however unintentionally) by their lack of participation.

Another related point is the ability of the admin to respond to requests about a block they have placed. If the admin makes the block, they need to be available to respond to the user who was blocked. A low participation admin is probably ill equipped to do so.

I understand your points regarding Ed Poor, 172 and EveryKing. I've had interactions with two of them (for example, see the poll I started regarding an action by Ed Poor). My concerns regarding participation levels are not undermined by some exceptions. There is no inviolate rule in play here. We are not machines displaying bits guaranteeing we will be successful admins, and never suffering from changes in thought and direction.

Participation levels are simply one and only one metric in helping to evaluate a candidate with a somewhat low edit count. There are many, many others. Some are objective, some are subjective. For me, the participation level is an important issue. For you, it isn't. I understand your perspective and respect your view. I hope, based on what I've written above, you will respect mine. My whole point in producing the charts and statistics for admin nominees with edit counts less than 2,000 is to get people to stop debating the merits of how many counts and instead consider other related points. The very fact that we have had the discussion we have had is evidence it is working. All the best, --Durin 18:34, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Congrats!

Congratulations on your new adminship! And thank you for your helpful comments and chart on my RfA. Owen× ☎ 17:25, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Congrats, Durin!

Yay! Congrats on your well-deserved adminship, Durin! Let's have a drink, everybody! Durin's paying! *Hugglz*, Shauri smile! 20:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• And congrats on yours...and no I'm not paying. :) I was glad to see your admin RfA succeed. On an emotional level, I thought you should become an admin. On a logical one, I wanted to see the pattern continue. I hope it does! You're a great editor. --Durin 21:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I won't disappoint you, Durin, I'll do my best to. And - come on, just one beer...? please...? Shauri smile! 21:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Congratulations from the land of ice and snow. CambridgeBayWeather 04:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Ahh! Too Many Asterisks!!!

• I figured i'd start a new continuation to that thread down here, it was getting crowded up there.

Maybe "edits of more than 1,000 characters that aren't reverted" or something like that could be added in the Durin Chart 2.0 to help quantify the subjective. Quite frankly, I couldn't figure out how to do that without building a bot(which is beyond my current expertise, but i'd love to learn) or a series of huge delimiters in Excel that is currently beyond what I could see with the contribs page. In Excel expertise, if you were a 10, i'd be around a 4-6. I only use about 6-10 functions at all currently, but 95% of Excel users I know never use anything other than SUM or maybe AVERAGE. Karmafist 22:32, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• Excel is amazingly powerful. In the early 90s, Dennis Conner's design team used it to test prototypes of Stars & Stripes (yacht) prior to building a single hull; they tested the engineering specifications in thousands of trials before building anything. If it can do that, imagine what it could do? Anyways, I don't have the expertise to build a bot either. I might be able to build something to do SQL queries. Maybe something for down the road; I've got other sticks in the fire right now to tend to. --Durin 22:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• That's cool. Hey, when you get a chance. Let me know what you think of This. Karmafist 19:06, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

• That's looking pretty good. You might try putting the average on a secondary axis. Select the line, right click, click "format data series", then click the "Axis" tab, then click secondary axis. Also, moving the chart legend to the bottom leaves more room for the chart left/right. To do; right click on center of chart, click on "Chart Options", then the "Legend" tab, then click on "Bottom" under Placement. --Durin 20:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Voldemort as imposter

Shhh... don't tell anyone. So what if he/she was here first. I'm the genuine article, baby. I'm the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees. He/she is the fake McCoy. :-) --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Alright

I'll concede...I am not particularly mad at you, though. (i.e. I didn't oppose you on your RfA). However, I do get upset when dealing with several arrogant users on this site; I can't always hold my temper - and I have seen other Wikipedians who have also blewn their cool. Molotov (talk) 22:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

As a sign of not being angry, have this barnstar:

Take care, Molotov (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if I can make that promise. If somebody provokes another, it simply is not natural to tell them politely "oh please stop saying that, or whatever." That is not the real world, and that isn't even Wikipedia. I am really being put in the spotlight when vandalism - such as userpage vandalism on my page (see my page history) is way worse, and I have been called everything but I child of God there. I think that Fvw needs to realize that "bad words" or whatever, are simply apart of life - and such a lack of discretion and thinking that she or he can tell people what to type or say is simply not understandable. I will try to keep a better temper - which by no means I have one that bad in comparison to others - in the future, but I won't make any promises. Right now, I see another user on Fvw's talk page confirming his anger at him or her for another one of his/her silly warnings. He is not being confronted as I am. I even had an IP whom I know nothing about agree with me. Furthermore, Wikipedians are hella rude, so why should I be so good to them? I honestly think I have done the work set out for me on this site, and due to academic strains, I probably won't be around as much as I was during the summer. (There has been a slight decrease in my edits already). Plus I have midterms coming up. I agree to an extent on what you say, but I sincerely know that cutsy tutsy wutsy words and behavior and what not are not reality. I do not care for Fvw - I wouldn't say hate him/her only because I never met them. In fact, if the entire world was consumed with people like that, I probably have to go off and shoot myself. I know that sounds crazy, and you are probably drooping your head in disbelief about what I am saying...but it is true. I can't expect to keep such a calm level minded head all the time. Hell, I know I have done that at least 90% of the time on this site - the part that gets me is the fact that so many users are so concentrated on the little time I have gotten upset that they have found reason to put me on the spotlight and tell me what I can say. I am here, I edit this site without reimbursement, and have tried to do so with the highest quality. With that in mind I believe I have the right to type, write, say and do what I please. If not, fine, because Wikipedia can find another editor...they always do. I will stay here and try to resolve some differences, but the prospect of me not telling a nucklehead where they can go is above my head. I am sorry, but I am not going to make the promise not to tell people when they were idiots - which Gadugi is - and to tell Fvw that s/he was right in opposing me for that incident. If you want me to be completly honest (and this is going to be a personal attack, by the way) I think Fvw is haughty, arrogant and is pissing off a whole bunch of users because s/he expects them to kiss his/her ass...which I am not going to do. Bottom line is that I am old enough to make my own decisions about which words to use (not that I have actually used a profane word here since the DreamGuy incident) and if folks decide to piss me off, it is time to let them have it. Note that I do not do this all the time, I do even do this the majority of the time - but have only done this a miniscule part of time. I thank you for trying to help me, but I do think that several users here need a since of reality. Oh, and about the RfC - they try filing one of those things on me, don't expect to see me around this camp - and I already plan to leave again. I only came back to do those ranks which one of my relatives asked me to do. I leave Wikipedia, I am only gaining spare time which I could incorporate into doing whatever. As I have already stated on my RFA I don't need WIkipedia, but rather WIkipedia needs users - i.e. you and I - who dedicate time and energy to take a bunch of crap off imbeciles. Sorry to not make a promise, but I can't do it. I can't go against human nature and let someone slap me in the face and turn the other cheek. I can't allow arrogant users to believe what they are doing is right or to kiss their ass. I can't allow my freedoms to be taken away. And the bottom line is that this is so bad, I can leave Wikipedia and we can both be happy.

I did make one promise that I already have broken - on my RfA, when I said Wikipedia and I were split. I wanted to see ranks uploaded, that's all...not to hear complaints from whiny unrealistic and arrogant users like Fvw who think they control the world, or to have a parade of sermons added to my talk page about what I am saying is wrong. I really am swamped with school crap, which I sincerely know will always be a much better and less stressful investment than Wikipedia can ever be. I plan to upload those ranks and think about coming to returning to this site for good. I never forgot about that crap on the RfA, or these arrogant pompous users, and definitely not about the swarms of attacks and vandalism that I received when I had been gone for two weeks. I also never said I was coming back for good. I was happy to be here while I was here, and have attained a large amount of satisfaction when it comes to creating articles, uploading ranks, translating Spanish articles, and generally being a part of the largest encyclopedia in history...but I refuse to be a part of a whole lot of folks taking crap for no reason. I cannot and will not let that happen. Tell me I can be better or that I shouldn't say this or that, but there is an extent that I am willing to go.

As I have said before, I sincerely believe that you are a good - no, let me say, great - person, and I want you to know that I have respect for you, but not all the things you say. I wish you much luck and success in whatever you may do in life - and the same for myself, even if it is not on Wikipedia. I am sorry for wasting your talk space (this is the largest message I have ever written here). Again, thanks. Take care, Molotov (talk) 21:47, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

---

(next response) D'Juan; not meaning to gloss over anything you've said, but I want to highlight a particular section because I think my response will help to address the remainder. On my talk page, you said "I can't go against human nature and let someone slap me in the face and turn the other cheek. I can't allow arrogant users to believe what they are doing is right or to kiss their ass. I can't allow my freedoms to be taken away. And the bottom line is that this is so bad, I can leave Wikipedia and we can both be happy."

Allow me to give you a hypothetical set of responses to, as you have said, an "arrogant pompous user" who has greatly angered you with something they have done to your user page. You could respond by undoing the vandalism and...

1. Sending them a message "Please do not vandalize my user page, or indeed any other page on Wikipedia. If you continue to vandalize, I will take appropriate steps to have your account banned. Thank you."

or

1. Sending them a message "You fucking asshole! Good fucking grief, is your life so pathetically empty that you have to go vandalizing people's user pages to find a sense of self worth in your worthless existence you call a life? Go get a fucking clue, and get off Wikipedia while you're at it! Oh, and have a plate-full of shit and eat it with a fucking rusty fork! When you're done with that, stick your head up your ass and lick up your desert, prick!"

Now, you haven't responded like the second response above. But, your responses to people have been considerably closer to (2) at times than to (1).

Let's take a step back from this and take an above-the-trees look at the situation. What are your goals? The only goal that I can see is to stop the user vandalizing your user page, or any page on Wikipedia. Defending your honor in front of these people is not a worthwhile goal. You've never met these people, likely never will, and their opinions of you have absolutely no bearing on your life. Furthermore, your anger with them will not cause them to stop vandalizing your user page. Nothing that you can say to them in anger is going to do anything to stop them from doing more vandalizing. You have no physical way of stopping them. Using anger at them isn't going to make the situation any better. If instead you warn the user and later involve an admin if they continue (feel free to ask me to step in by the way), you can get the individual blocked, and/or have your user page temporarily protected.

When a user angers me (and they do at times) it's not a matter of turning the cheek. I recognize the relative importance in my life of the people here; they have no..zero..zip...nadda..impact on my life. Their opinions of me do not matter. Anger is not a response that is going to yield anything productive. When you removed my comments to you on your user page following your withdrawn RfA and in the edit summary said "rv assholes", I could have taken great offense, and responded to you in like manner, calling you an asshole for ignoring my attempts to help you. Instead, I attempted to re-engage you in discussion. Result? We're talking again! That's good! That's productive! If I'd gotten angry with you, you'd be pissed off, I'd be pissed off, and nothing positive would have happened.

I can write just as much vitriol as anyone else can. I spent 8 years in the US Navy Reserves. I can dress someone down with insults with the best of them and leave them crying for their mommies. But, it sure doesn't prove to anyone that I am any more of a 'man', or get them to do what I want them to do. As you say, human nature is to respond to anger with anger. Where does it stop? FOCUS on the goals you want to achieve. IDENTIFY what tasks you need to do to achieve those goals. GO AFTER those tasks with all of your intelligence. With those steps you will achieve great things. If you instead choose to get angry whenever someone upsets you, you are no better than an animal force to respond to the demands of your DNA; completely subservient to 'human nature' and incapable of rising about the primordial muck and becoming something more.

Nobody will respect you for being able to dish out hate-filled vitriol. People will respect you for being a leader, and resolving situations in a calm, mature manner. You are very intelligent. Don't waste yourself in the primordial muck of 'human nature'. Aspire to be better. --Durin 22:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I am not an anrgy person, I am not hateful and I am not willing to show people "hate filled vitriol." I am sorry for calling you an asshole, but that was after I read a comment on my RfA you had editted saying I would be a poor adm. and etc. I do not agree to the your insinuation that my edits are close -even remote to the number two episode you had illustrated. I use these templates for almost every episode that I have encountered with a vandal

{{Anon vandal}} {{test1}}

Besides encounters with Gadugi and DreamGuy, I have been very calm here on Wikipedia.Molotov (talk) 22:42, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Please note that this [4] was an exception. But this worked (see under joking about vandalism). Thanks. Molotov (talk) 22:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I see that there has been no response. Please do not believe I am impossible or hateful or satanic or whatever. I respect you, I apologive for the statement and I hope for a improved relationship between us in the future. Thanks for everything. I still don't know how you figured out my name - that was kinda spooky. (No entiendo cómo pudiste enterarlo) Take care,Molotov (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• I haven't replied yet because the next reply will have to be carefully crafted. I am seeing a pattern that I am trying to break up, but will need to carefully consider the response in order to have the best chance of doing so. Please do not take my silence as having any other meaning. I might not get to this until tomorrow. As for figuring out your name, it's right on your user page :-) --Durin 23:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Chart

I know you do it for almost everybody, but thanks anyway for the chart on my RfA. :)

--Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 22:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• I do them for almost everyone under 2,000 edits. I didn't do one for Wikiwoohoo and won't. In his case, I think it's pointless. Already, the first five votes against him are strictly based on edit counts/time on Wikpedia. A chart won't change that. --Durin 22:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I know, I read your how-to's and everything... still think it's a nice gesture that shouldn't go unthanked. :) --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 23:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Adminship

While it hasn't "officially" closed yet, your RfA is technically complete. With 42-5, I think it's safe to say you passed :) Congratulations! Welcome to the Cabal! ;) --Durin 14:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! The comments and chart you posted there made a big difference, I'm sure. I appreciate it! It's funny that during the RfA week my edit count has passed the "magic 2000 mark" which so many seem to consider a threshold...

I've noticed that the RfA for the guy behind me (NicholasTurnbull) has just ended too. Should I alert a bureaucrat, or wait until they get to it? Owen× ☎ 14:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Make that three finished RfAs. Oh well, I can survive a couple more hours without that "rollback" button... Owen× ☎ 15:13, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Just wait. They'll get a around to it. Reminds me; my mother once gave me a round piece of wood with a metal plaque on it that said "to it". I finally got a round to it. :) I'm glad the chart helped. People were far too focused on the number of edits over the entire time span, rather than the obvious big increase in interest and participation on your part. --Durin 15:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Congrats from the leprechauns to the dwarves :-) Dlyons493 Talk 22:36, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Charts

Durin!!  :-) You've inspired me. Traveling, I am often stuck in a hotel room for hours on end and decided to see if I could emulate your charts. I followed your guidelines and developed a script in .php to perform the download and generate the chart. Considering the variability of Wikipedia's speed ;-), the ones I did for you and I took 4 minutes from beginning (downloading the contributions log) to end (generating the charts)....completely automagic...and doesn't require MS--woo hoo.

I need to cleanup the chart formats. Some of the labels are not legible in the x-axis...probably need to adjust the tick marks....and the pie labels need to be adjusted--I don't like how they are placed.

Anyhow. As the "father" of charting here, I was wondering if you could provide any suggestions on the posting I made to User:RobyWayne/Sandbox. I have a similar page of information for you, but I didn't want to post it without your permission.

P.S. Congrats on the Adminship. You truly deserve it.

Best regards. >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist• E@} 16:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

• DROOOOOOOL!!! Wow. I mean REALLY wow! I love that page! One request; add an average edits line to the bottom graph. Such a line shows increase/decrease in activity averaged over time. What I'd like to see happen is to have this turn into a tool that I can pump someone's User ID into and have everything generated just like that page. Think you can make that happen? If so, my charts are history :) I wouldn't mind really; I enjoy doing them but I could spend the time I spend on them doing other things. I wonder about the load this might induce on Wikipedia? Thanks for the congrats on adminship! --Durin 16:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

• Done. I added the line as you suggested. Though, I think my color choice was bad ;-). The line shows the average edits per day over the accumulated edits thus far. I can see now why you wanted to have that on there. We all start at zero, but you can definitely see if there any major spikes or lulls in activity.

You are correct about the 1.13. That should have read "Avg Edits per Page" just like Kate's. I've corrected that and ammended several other stats on my test page. I will have to manually go through and look for the edits missing edit summaries. I knew I had missed some throughout my travels, but when I was running the script, I got cross eyed trying to find them and failed to go back and correct the calculation. Your continued comments and feedback are much appreciated. Have a great weekend! >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist• E@} 22:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

My RfA and old account

Firstly thank you for your kind words both on my RfA page and my talk page. It doesn't look too likely that I'll be an admin just yet does it! :) I've taken your advice on board, thanks again for taking the time to want to help me out. However, I've had a look through the list you have compiled (thanks for that too :), you really didn't need to put yourself out that far but thanks) and I don't recognise any of those. I must have got it a bit wrong, my memory is a bit blank though. I was sure it started with Grant but it doesn't seem that way now. Grant, Grantwin and Grantslaw definitely aren't me though. Wikiwoohoo 18:43, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for my RfA. I finished answering the fist question and then my mom called to let me know my grandfather has had a heartattack. It would be the third one in as many weeks, so hopefully, he'll pull through this one just fine. Once I make sure he is okay, I'll answer the three questions and make the appropriate date/time changes and include my RfA on the RfA list.

Thank you for trusting me enough to nominate me. I promise to serve the community well. Best regards, >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist• E@} 23:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Since I'm thinking of running for admin soon, I was wondering if you could tell me what percentage of my edits have edit summaries. (I noticed you did this for ALinkToThePast.) I was formerly WikiFan04, as well. --WikiFanatic^{Talk Contribs 21:10, 7 October 2005 (CDT)}

Skip Bayless

Oops, I'll be more careful next time.--Shanel 00:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Signed Posts

Durin,

I didn't realize that I had claimed another's account when I signed an earlier post. At the time, I wasn't even sure how that was done. I do; however, appreciate you bringing it to my attention.

Doctor9

Carolina Forest, South Carolina

Please do not remove a {{copyvio}} notice from an article while the copyright issues are still pending. Most of the article is a copyright violation, including the large portions of text that I removed, before determining that the opening sections of the article also constituted a copyright violation. Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text, period. If you would like to re-write the article to help clear the article from being a copyright violation, you may do so at Carolina Forest, South Carolina/Temp. However, please do not remove the {{copyvio}} notice until this issue is resolved. Thank you. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 14:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

• Please see Copyvio#Instructions, the very first instruction under "Article?" where it says "Revert the page to a non-copyrighted version if you can — and you're done!". Reviewing the prior versions of the article, there are clearly versions that did not violate copyright. You should, therefore, revert the article to a prior version that did not have copyright violations rather than placing {{copyvio}} on the page. In the future, please follow the instructions as they are written. --Durin 18:25, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
• I have now reverted the article to an earlier version that did not have the copyright violations, per instructions as referred to above. In the future, please follow these instructions. While the copyright issue is a serious one (and I am well aware of it) we need to follow Wikipedia policy on these issues, rather than immediately presuming the article should be speedy deleted. Please feel free to review the article as it now stands for possible copyright violations. --Durin 18:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Personally, I would disagree that there was "clearly" a non-copyvio version, but as far as I can tell, the version you have located seems to be in order. However, consider that if there was clearly a non-copyvio version, why did you not immediately revert to that version, instead of
    A. reverting back to the version immediately prior, which was clearly in copyright violation, and
    B. stating in your edit summary: "there is good content here. Need to recover from history", which implies (in my mind) that you felt that the copyvio material that I had already culled from the article should be replaced?
    I double checked on the speedy deletion criteria, and removed the tag when I realized that the article did not meet the criteria. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 19:52, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Take this in this spirit it's intended, as I mean nothing harsh. If an editor makes an addition to Wikipedia that is in error, other editors that detect the error should move to correct it. The speedy tag was clearly in error. In addition, the copyvio tag did not follow procedure so it was also in error...even though in reverting it there was still copyrighted text in the article. It was an incorrect edit in itself, and needed to be reverted. I was hoping, given my edit summary, that you or someone else would take the time to review the history and ascertain what was the last good, non-copyvio version. When it was obvious that was not going to happen, and I had more time available, I took the time to find the last non-copyvio version in the history stack. There may be additional material past that which is non-copyvio, but the version I eventually reverted to is the clearest case I could come up with. In so doing, I was complying with what Copyvio#Instructions indicates should be done. You are about to become an admin; be certain you are following procedure, or if you find a reason not to follow procedure, be prepared to back up your decision with strong rationale. I have confidence in your abilities, and I voted in favor of your RfA. I do not often vote, and most of my votes are oppose. I think you will make a fine admin; just be sure to follow procedure as others will be looking to you for direction. --Durin 01:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I appreciate your support on my RfA, and your thoughtful reply. Likewise, I mean nothing harsh, as I value civil discourse and discussion. However, I do not feel that it was neccessarily intuitive that you expected someone else to immediately revert to a non-copyvio version. When I initially examined the article, I did actually look at earlier versions, searching for a version not in copyright violation. When I looked at the version that you later picked, it still seemed to me like a potential copyvio. Having already cleared a major section of the article for copyvio, and finding a significant part of the opening to be in copyright violation, I did not feel the need to check each and every sentence for copyvio. It seemed that most of the edits to the article were from the same anon IP that had engaged in copyvios, so I wasn't really willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the remainder of the article. As it turns out, that was, in this case, an incorrect assumption. I have no problems with other editors correcting my work, it's been a frequent occurence in my time here, and I have no issue with that. However, please understand that from my perspective, after you initially reverted my edit, at that time: A. I wasn't convinced that there was any part of the article not in copyvio and B. It was not immediately obvious to me that your intention was for a non-copyvio version to be changed to. All I saw was another editor removing what I felt was a clearly justified copyvio tag and reverting to a version that was in copyright violation, which to me, is not an acceptable resolution to the copyright issue. I feel that once a copyvio tag is in place, it should not be moved unless the problem is fully addressed, lest a known copyright violation exist on Wikipedia, even if only for a short amount of time. Reverting to a copyvio version does not address the problem, and therefore I do not feel is as good of a solution as going ahead and reverting to a non-copyvio version. That is why I disputed the initial removal of the template. I feel there better choices both of us could have made, but I feel we have managed to arrive at a better understanding through discussion. Best regards, Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 02:27, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
        • All I am asking is that in the future, you follow the appropriate procedure. You didn't follow it in this case. I reverted the edit (placing of the copyvio tag) that did not follow procedure.--Durin 04:29, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Closing RFAs

Sorry about that. I've been doing it for months (only if there are at least 10 more oppose votes than there are support). Nobody even brought this up to me before. Either way, I'll stop. Thanks for the heads-up. Acetic'^Acid 16:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Concerns

Hmmm...I think you may be right, he shouldn't be blocked indefinately. I'll unblock immediately and remove the indef block notice. If he returns to vandalizing, I'll let another administrator handle it, after all, there are 600 of us, I can't be the only one who finds profane user page vandalism inappropriate.

Feel free to review my blocklog to your hearts content, as well as my other logs, and my contributions. I stand behind all my administrator actions and all my (6100+) edits. If you find anything you disagree with, please feel free to correct it, I don't mind at all. I stay around here because it's fun, not because I need the power.

I'm very concerned that this block calls into question all blocks I've made in my three months as an administrator, but seeing as there is obviously question in the community over whether I am able to responsibly utilize my administrator powers, or for that matter, make any positive contribution to the community, I will file an RfC against myself to guage whether the commmunity believes they were in error to have placed their trust in me. If you wish, I will also agree to go on Wikibreak (enforced by a desysoping and block, if necessary) until the RfC concludes. If the community does not trust me, then I do not want to be left in power; if the community does not want me to contribute, then I will go back to spending my free time elsewhere. Please feel free to add your concerns to the RfC after I have filed it. -- Essjay · Talk 18:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

• Ahg! That ISN'T what I wanted or meant at all. Consider an analogy; if you found a vandalizing edit, you'd check the other edits of the user in question too, wouldn't you? This is a reasonable step. I think your block was out of line. It seems you agree. That's good. Let's move forward; many of your indefinite blocks are obvious sock puppets. There's no problem there. Where they are not, I want to be sure they are reasonably based blocks. You do NOT need to start an RfC on yourself, go on a wikibreak, or feel I am questioning your value! Please, let's work together ok? --Durin 18:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

You're not the first to suggest that I might be overusing/abusing my admin powers (not even the first this week), so I think a guage of community consensus is in order. I've said all along, I welcome anyone in the community to review my activities and call me on anything that is out of line; I strive to be an accountable and approachable steward (in the non-WP sense) of the community's trust. I don't want power that the community does not want me to have, and I don't want to be immune from challenge on inappropriate actions. There are admins who are not responsive to question of their activities, and who, either because of their community perception or their longevity, are immune from community outcry. I don't want to be one of those admins. I strive in everything to build the community's trust in me and to obtain, retain, and advance the respect of the community.

I think your analogy is exactly right, and I think it applies to what I've said perfectly: When a user commits vandalsim, the other edits are checked. When there is question that the user's actions in the community may be inappropriate (i.e. vandalism) they are taken to RfC (or RfAr, as the case may be). I see this as the logical extension of the process. -- Essjay · Talk 19:18, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Durin! Thanks for the very kind words you left for me last Friday. It was a dreadful weekend, but everything seems to be okay right now. My grandmother ended up in the hospital (a different one, of course, to make it logistically difficult), too, with blood clots while my grandfather was stabilized and is still in ICU. Anyhow, I wanted to thank you for your kindness. It is truly appreciated. Best regards, >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist• E@} 21:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Unvoted

Unvoted. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have come to work this week, either. I've apologized and thanked each and everyone for their comments. Hey, if it doesn't happen this time, it will some other. I still appreciate your faith in me and continued support. Big noob error on my part that I have tried to cleanup. My commitment hasn't/won't change.  :-). Any more ideas on the charts?? I cleaned up a few things...still need to fix that Edit Summary calc. Since it is in "raw" format, I have a few more html tags to sort out to get it quite right. After I fix that, I can run yours so you'll be more experienced with the information. As you have preached stated repeatedly, counts don't make the editor and there is no script in the world that can possibly determine if someone is doing a good job. >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist• E@} 22:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!

A big thank you for your help and support, I look forward to meeting you in more productive contexts, Yours, Trollderella 23:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Brain Teasers:

Hi, I'm just posting a friendly notice stating that I have got Brain Teasers on my user page that you're welcome to have a go at. Will post new questions one day after they have been answered. Thanks... Spawn Man 05:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Useful graphs on WP:VfA

Noticed your graphs at WP:VfA (eg: Image:Sebastiankessel-edits.png), very useful. How are they generated? I think they could be useful for tracking growth rates of disambiugation pages, as a part of Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages maintenance.--Commander Keane 09:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

• Please see User:Durin/Admin nominee charts. If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to answer. --Durin 13:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I should have kept scrolling down your userpage to find the link, it's very informative! Unfortunately I was hoping for more of an automated process that accessed the data from the servers (using MySQL or something, I really don't know) rather than the copy/paste method. If you knew anything about that I would like to know about it. --Commander Keane 13:53, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
    • You might inquire with User:RobyWayne. Have a look at User:RobyWayne/Sandbox. That page is automatically generated (on request). --Durin 13:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Block of User:66.189.47.112

Done, thanks for that. Martin 16:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries...

Thank you for your support - re the edit summaries - you are right! I will redouble my efforts! Trollderella 00:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Just out of interest Durin, as you seem to be knowledgable on edit summaries. How does one find out overall use of edit summaries? In the instance of a nomintation I made, I took his edit summary usage over the last 500 edits, but I dont know how to check overall. Can you tell me? Thanks Banes 19:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• I do something like [5], and copy/paste the results into a spreadsheet I have that supports the nominee charts I do. I frequently do this even when I'm not going to make a chart just to see the usage of edit summaries and average edits per day. Since it's an automatic generation (I actually copy the data, then click a button on the spreadsheet, and it does the rest), it's quick and easy to do. --Durin 20:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Excuse Me Durin

I would like to know what I deleted that you think I shouldn't have. I would be more than willing to explain why I did. unsigned edit by Grahamc03 (talk · contribs) 22:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• The content you deleted is shown by this diff. You deleted it without explanation (use edit summary to do so), and the content appeared to be pertinent and relevant to the article. --Durin 22:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I know for a fact that Krayzie Bone is heterosexual, but if you would like, I'll put the rest back. unsigned edit by Grahamc03 (talk · contribs) 22:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe so, I don't know. But, removing content without an explanation and/or cite that supports the deletion is usually looked upon as vandalism. I've reverted your change, and due to heavy vandalism on the article for many hours, I have temporarily protected the page. Also, please add "~~~~" on to the end of your comments on talk pages. The Wikipedia software uses that to sign for you, including date and time of your comment. Alternatively, you can click the second to last button on the buttons above the edit window to do the same. Thanks, --Durin 22:58, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I will do so from now on, sorry about the inconvenience. Grahamc03 23:05, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• No worries; we all have to learn sometime. Thanks for doing it, and thanks for being polite. --Durin 23:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries use...

I noticed you always post the use of edit summaries percentage for candadiates at RfA, is there a way I can get that checked for myself (just for reference)? Do you have an automated way of doing that? If you do, you should host it for public use like kate's tool, it would be a great feature. -Greg Asche (talk) 03:02, 14 October 2005 (UTC)--Durin 14:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• I don't do it for every RfA. I do try to do it for every RfA for a user with <2000 edits, and do it sometimes for nominees with more. I'm trying to encourage people to use edit summaries, and I think it's slowly working :) The data for you; use of edit summaries is 90% overall, first 500 edits at 69% and last 500 at 97.8%. Doing great! I generate the data in an MS-Excel spreadsheet. It's automated for me after I copy the data. I just click a button. But, it's not a script tool I can put online. I think Kate's tool could be modified to include the capability though. --Durin 05:07, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that for me, I really appreciate it, I hope it wasn't too much work. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Just out of interest, why can't you put it online? Security issues? --Celestianpower ^hablamé 14:55, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• It's in an MS-Excel spreadsheet. It's not a script that I can put up like Kate's tool. --Durin 14:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

No but what I was getting at is you could offer it for download. Or if you don't have webspace, send it to someone (I'm sure there are plenty of people including me) and they'll upload it to their webspace. --Celestianpower ^hablamé 15:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, perhaps. I'd like to clean it up more before doing that. --Durin 15:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, let me know when it's ready/it's available for download. Thank you! :) --Celestianpower ^hablamé 15:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Welcome to the cabal

I'm worried that your compliment may have been premature. There are some pretty serious opinions in the oppose section on my RfA, and one of the people who opposed my nomination was a bureaucrat. This may mean that even though the vote tally on my RfA is 34/4/0, my nomination will still be rejected, and my nomination's deadline has now passed.  Denelson83  18:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Really? I looked through past successful RfA's, and the only opinions of opposition I could find suggested "editcountitis", and had nothing to do with emotional conduct. But I will take your word for it.  Denelson83  20:02, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

And it worked. Thanks for the reassurance.  Denelson83  23:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Stats request

Hi Durin, rumour has it that you are the guru when it comes to compiling statistics and such; would you would be willing to take a look at the recent conversation at Talk:George_W._Bush#Protection_debate_again? It would be interesting to visually chart out the editing trends of this particular article, what the average time is between vandalism and vandalism revert, etcetera. Hall Monitor 22:08, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

• Caught me at a bad time; beginning of the weekend for me, and my computer use drops through the floor on weekends. I might get to this next week. --Durin 23:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

CIC image

As you suggested earlier, I found and uploaded an image for the Combat Information Center, from history.navy.mil. I also found one related for Navy Tactical Data System. You may like to check if everything is correct, as I am rather new to image handling. --Shaddack 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• Images a great. You tagged and sourced them properly. Nice work! For CIC, you might want to find a more current image of a CIC, not to replace the image that is on the article but to include a photo from 30 years on. There are many differences, and many similarities, as I suspect you know :) --Durin 15:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• • Found another one from 2001 from USS Carl Vinson. Uploaded, added to the article. You may like to check up if it is illustrative enough, my experience with warships is only theoretical. --Shaddack 15:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

cbw's rfa

Sorry, you've totally lost me, his first edit was on 11-06-2005 wasn't it? Martin 16:43, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

Thanks for the early congratulations. Had I not made the dumb mistake, maybe the % of support would have been even higher. ;-). I appreciate the time that you have spent on my RfA and I promise to serve the cabal community to the best of my abilities. Both grandparents are now in the hospital, such a mess! But one will be going home tomorrow and the other made it off the ventilator this weekend--so much progress! Thanks for asking :-) >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist • E@} 21:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, maybe congrats were premature. It seems this is being viewed as under 75% support at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#Close-call RFAs. Perhaps next time, though they're leaving it open a little longer to see what happens. ;-). >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist • E@} 15:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• You've been promoted. I may raise a red flag about this pending some investigation. Pakaran seems to be counting neutral votes as oppose votes. I believe this is improper. I will need to do some investigation though to put the issue in order, and clarify why I feel this was improper. Regardless, User:UninvitedCompany promoted you. --Durin 15:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I hate to be controversial.  :-). Counting neutrals as oppose would definitely make me not want to chime in on someone I could neither support nor oppose, but wanted to offer insight and some hints as to how I would vote with some nudging in the case of no-consensus. Maybe comments are best. Good luck in sorting that mess out!!! You seem to be the custodian of RfAs lately. >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist • E@} 15:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• I agree with your comments regarding neutral votes. Judging them as all oppose is a subjective exercise. RfAs are not strictly a voting, democratic process. They are attempts at gaining concensus. That said, Support/Oppose at >82% seems pretty clear to me. I've done some quick checking and found that since late June there have been 14 noms (not including yours) that had similar results to yours. 13 of them were promoted, and one was not (and their Support/Oppose was <80%). The one that was not was later promoted unaminously. I've placed a comment about this on the RfA talk page.--Durin 15:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: NickBush

Durin: Thanks for your note on my talk; I hadn't realized it was that far gone. I'm certainly open to mentoring Nick (and anyone else, for that matter) if they desire it. As long as Nick is agreeable, I think we can make a lot of progress. Thanks for the support! ;-) -- Essjay · Talk 18:24, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Durin why is it that my votes doesen't count. I read that all are invited to vote. Everyone has found an exuseless exception for me, so i have tried numerous ways to apply my vote. I should be able to vote!--Blueballs 20:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• Based on your edits, it is readily apparent that you are a sock puppet created solely to attack NickBush24. Same for Greenmonkey. Note that your votes as Blueballs and Greenmonkey were not removed, but simply struck through. Anonymous IPs are not allowed to vote, and thus your votes as User:129.15.120.186 were removed. Your votes as a logged in user were not. It is up to a bureaucrat to decide whether your vote should be included in the finally tally or not. Regardless, even if all three of your oppose votes were counted or not counted it would not make a difference in the outcome; his RfA is failing. It will be closed in about 7 hours, and it is highly unlikely he'll pick up the >20 new support votes he needs to pass. --Durin 20:44, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Redwolf24blanked my page. There is nothing in my page. I'm trying to be civil here and start something that I can occupy myself with. Why destroy it? Why is he allowed to do that? I haven't vandalized and yet everybody's out to get me?--Blueballs 23:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Blueballs was blocked because he was impersonating NickBush24 and txdiang and his user page was blanked because of impersonation. Jobe6 00:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Toothpaste

You must have not seen User:Redwolf24/Sandbox, view that if you think she'll fail her RfA. Plus she's always there to help in IRC, and do you know how NicholasTurnbull passed? Ah, IRC. And her edits have gone down I believe due to working on her German and Japanese. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 22:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• User:Redwolf24/Sandbox doesn't do anything to address my primary concerns; less than 2,000 edits, less than 50% use of edit summaries, and declining participation over the last 7 weeks. Yes, I know about NicholasTurnbull's RfA. In comparison, his use of edit summaries is 96% (Toothpaste is 33% overall), and leading into his RfA his participation was increasing rather than decreasing. If her edits have been decreasing due to efforts on other language Wikipedias, then I'd cite her contributions on those wikipedias so people can see them as well. Also, NicholasTurnbull's distribution of edits over namespaces is stronger than Toothpaste's distribution. As I noted, I am not saying do not nominate her. I am suggesting you be very careful about the nomination; make a thorough check of all user talk interactions, see where she is participating across admin appropriate work areas and note them in the RfA nom, etc. One suggestion; in your tentative nom statement, you say "Just having Featured Articles isn't quite enough to be an admin though" then follow it with just one more sentence. If you're going to include a line like that, especially after so much discussion of FAC issues in the nom, then I suggest adding in substantial material regarding her work in other areas. For example, 14 edits in Wikipedia:Peer review, 21 in Wikipedia:Science collaboration of the week, 28 in WP:AFD, and 34 reverts. Personally, I wouldn't include that quote at all. While participation on IRC is admirable, not everybody participates there (for example, me) and there's no record of her work there; people have no way of evaluating it. All the best, --Durin 13:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Possible admin nomination

Thanks for your encouraging message on my talk page regarding a possible admin nomination. Let me reply to your questions.

• Vandal fighting. Do you take "rv" into account as well? Anyway, please be reassured that I am really dedicated to vandal fighting. I was recently involved in specialized articles (especially regarding patent law), and I have to admit it is relatively calm down there on the vandal front. But whenever I see vandalism, I am usually quick to react (and when I identify one, I check its contribution list of course).
• Minor edits. The number of minor edits is probably due to the number of redirect creation, tyop, dab, avoiding double redirect and so on. Yes, I have the "Mark all edits minor by default" box checked on my preferences.
• Planned tasks as sysop. Blocking and unblocking vandals if necessary. Deleting article for which there is a consensus. Any of the admin tasks if necessary.
• Why do I want to be an admin? No special reason. I just think wikipedia is brilliant, and if I can help even more, I would be happy.
• Conflicts. See for instance Talk:Alicante#The template solution is not the right one, ask Google, Talk:Jerome H. Lemelson (recent conflicts). I have progressively improved how to deal with them (trying to prevent them, if possible). Old 2004 conflicts might not be good examples of how I act nowadays.
• Deletion policy. Some Afd/Vfd I started (I let you make up your mind):
  • Result: deleted: Storyline patent, Alejandro J. Fernandez, The Art of Invention Marketing,
  • Result: kept: Schwegman, Lundberg, Woessner & Kluth, P.A., Docketing software (kept)

Cheers. --Edcolins 10:46, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

RfA edit graphs

Durin, I appreciate the effort you are making in creating the edit use graphs in order to give the community another perspective and information source when considering RfA candidates. However, I am a little concerned about it, because I am of the opinion that as much as possible, each RfA candidate should be evaluated on as similar a base of information as possible. For example, when I am considering a candidate, I take into consideration their time on the project and number of edits, then I visit their user page and talk page to get a sense of their temperament and interaction with others. I also have available their edit history to examine if I desire. However, some candidates are being given the edit chart that you create, and some are not. My concern is not so much whether this is a help or a hindrance to those candidates, but more than it simply provides a different evaluation tool for some than for others. I appreciate that you are attempting to consistently provide the edit charts for users with less than 2,000 edits, but in my opinion, I think it would be more fair for all RfA candidates to have such charts, rather than none. I understand that creating the charts is a time consuming process, and therefore I volunteer to assist you with creating them, if you would care to help me learn how to do it. I propose that the charts be created for every RfA nomination. Again, I appreciate the effort you are making in RfA overall, and the thoughtful and well considered comments that you have. I appreciate the time and consideration you gave to my own RfA. Best regards, Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 17:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• User:RobyWayne who recently became an admin himself is working on a tool to generate the charts that may become accessible to all users. In the interim, I continue to do my charts for noms with less than 2,000 edits as you noted. I expect that I will stop doing my charts once his charts become readily available. For an example of his charts, please see User:RobyWayne/Sandbox. As for it unbalancing the process (paraphrasing you, forgive me if I misconstrue), I don't think that is the case. In no respect have I ever encouraged anybody to use it as the only tool. In my own evaluations of nominees, I take into account the things you do and have suggested others do so as well. I feel that prior to my introduction of the charts, the process had become badly unbalanced against users with less than 2,000 edits. Nominees with >2,000 edits pass 83% of the time according to my studies. In my opinion, they don't need the help. The charts have been a concerted effort to rebalance the process back onto matters of significance, and not focus on editcountitis which has become rampant in the process. I think it is working. In my study, I showed that RfAs with less than 2,000 edits were passing at a rate of 48%. Over the last 30 days, the pass rate for nominations (not including withdraws) has been 75%! Meanwhile, RfAs with >2,000 edits in the same time period have passed 86% of the time, a slight increase over the prior 83%. Admittedly, this is as yet a small dataset, but the early results are encouraging. I of course can not attribute the shift only to the charts; doing so would be difficult at best. But, the charts are one of the few things that have recently changed in the process. With this data in mind, I don't think the lack of charts for admin nominees over 2,000 edits is detrimental to the process. --Durin 17:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Durin, thanks for your constructive comments on my RFA. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask. See you around. —thames 18:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you'll be happy

...About what I put here. Molotov (talk)
20:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Argh

I was trying to be cool like you and do a graph for my own edits (just to see for myself), and was going along following your steps just fine until this paragraph (I've ellipsed it here for length purposes):

Next, I create a new column at column F, row 2, with first entry being equivalent to the first date for which there is an edit count for the user. For subsequent values in column F, I add one to the prior row's data (for example, =F2+1) and copy this to sufficient subsequent rows to cover the entire time frame of the user's edits from first edit through yesterday's edits...

Could you please explain this a little further if you get the chance. I don't really understand what you mean by the bolded part. Subsequent values? What if they skip a day editing? Is there an easier way to propogate a function that changes throughout a column than maually going in to the cell and changing the cell number (F2+1 would need changed to F3+1 then F4+1 right?)? I'll be away for a couple of days, and I know you're busy, so no rush. Plus I know I sound retarded and I am not your child so you shouldn't have to hold my hand, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• Awwww, does wittle junior want me to hold his hand? Just kidding :-) No sweat: Row F column 2; cell contents is data, no function; value is the same as the user's date of first ever edit. I usually manually type this in. Then, F3 is =F2+1. I manually copy F3 down, and since it uses relative not absolute cell references in the function (absolute would be =$F$2+1), it automatically increments subsequent values down the F column. Thus, cell F30 for example is F29+1. You do not manually need to change the function. Experiment :) I usually have to keep copying a few times until get the right number of cells to cover the entire editing range. The range is ALL days, not just days spent editing. You don't sound retarded, and your questions are fine. Keep asking :) --Durin 22:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Big Wikibreak Sign

Yes that would be the life

Prodego ^talk 22:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Ban v. Block

Hello Durin, just a friendly remember. At blueballs' talk page you say Greenmonkey is 'banned' indefinitely. The correct term would be block. To summarize, ban is per human, block is per account. My name is Matt Binder. Matt Binder can be banned indefinitely, and if he is, then no account owned by him is allowed to exist at wikipedia in any incarnation, even if I write 8 policies everyone loves, and every contribution by me is to be rolled back. But if I'm blocked indefinitely for blanking user pages, I can come back as Bluewolf24 and go straight. Compare WP:BLOCK to WP:BAN, and try not to mix up the terms. Only about 20 people are banned, most can be found at WP:BU and others from arbcom cases. Bans are reserved for those who piss off a) Jimbo b) the board of trustees (hasn't happened yet) c) the arbcom or d) the entire community, provided the community doesn't think the person has much chance of redemption. I.e. Mr. Treason, WoW...

The point I'm trying to make is never say ban, unless they were specifically banned.

Cheers Durin :) Redwolf24 (talk) 22:56, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

RFA

Regarding the RFAs. Well, I had removed the RFAs from the page, but wikipedia chose the most inopportune moment to go offline. I hadn't promoted any of the candidates, nor had I used the rfap/f tags. I kept trying for the next hour before finally giving up. I then emailed Taxman so that he could notify another bureaucrat about this since I would gain net access only 15 hrs later. I don't Taxman checked his mail though, but Pakaran noticed that the users weren't promoted and clarified this from me via email. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Nomination kick off

Thanks for the nomination. Just not sure whether I had to change the "current time + 7 days". The guidelines are a bit confusing on this. Please review this. Cheers. --Edcolins 12:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

My RFA :-)

Hi Durin, Redwolf24 pointed me to his talk page where you talked about me as a possible admin. Just wanted to let you know that I'm glad you see me that way! And yes, one day I'll be glad to take that mop and use it. However, I'd rather wait till my first three months are over, to avoid oppose votes for just the amount of time that I'm here. However, if you see anything in my work that I can improve on, let me know! --JoanneB 23:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

• I wasn't suggesting you be nominated just yet, just that he might be interested in nominating you when the time comes. I strongly expect you'll be nominated before you reach six months, which is the minimum at which I will nominate someone. I expect this because you are already quite active in vandal fighting, and are also quite quick about it too. I haven't reviewed your work, outside of the notes I made on Redwolf24's talk page. If I am to nominate someone, the review work takes literally hours, which should explain why I'm reluctant to do them unless I'm expecting to nominate someone :) If you make it to six months and still haven't been nominated, then I'd most certainly be happy to conduct the review. In general, there are ways in which you can improve your chances of becoming an admin. Reviewing my admin nomination standards serves to highlight a number of those areas. Make sure you use edit summaries. Be very patient and calm in your user interactions. Do not ever insult or mock someone, even with provocation. While you might feel very justified in doing so, a RfA voter reviewing your record will most likely not understand the full situation. Remain active in admin appropriate areas, but also keep making significant contributions to articles. I suspect you are active on the IRC channels for Wikipedia. This is admirable, but please remember that we are working on an encyclopedia, and not an IRC channel. Your record at IRC is unobservable and unreviewable. When the time comes that you would like to be nominated, feel free to ask someone to nominate you. I suspect, though have not yet confirmed, that non-self nominations are more successful. I have the data to help determine this, but haven't reviewed it for that yet. If you have any questions, please ask. --Durin 01:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your elaborate respons and your good advice. I will certainly take a look at your standards, and those of others, and keep them in mind. However, I fully agree with you that we are building an encyclopedia here, and that will remain my main focus, either by protecting existing content from harm or by creating new content. The latter is harder for me, since English is not my first language, but it was my reason for coming to Wikipedia in the first place! Regards, JoanneB 14:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Admin nomination criteria

Ha! I can't help but laugh at this:

Age. If I know the age to be less than 25, I will not nominate. Judge me harshly on that point if you will, but the older a person is the less likely they are to handle unusual, stressful situations in a negative way. There are plenty of people who can and will nominate people regardless of age, so this stance on my part does not prevent anyone from becoming an admin.

Why's it funny? The guy who nominated you is 15. Though I'm sure you could have had someone older nominate you. Ah well, it's fine. Keep on keeping on :) Redwolf24 (talk) 01:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• In stating age, I mean no insult. Any rationale person I think can easily agree that people who are 25 are, on average, more mature than people who are 15. There are always exceptions to every such rule of course. For all I know, you could be more mature than I! :) I actually figured you for 20-25. Age is probably a useless criteria; knowing age in this project is difficult; you count on someone stating it. I've already thought about deleting it in part because it's useless and in part because my criteria list is getting so long. If the candidate meets up with the other criteria, age won't be a factor anyways.
• On another point; I noticed your wikistress level is high, and your contributions may be dropping. Lots of other people are begging you (or will) not to leave. I'll echo that. I'd like to add something else; avoid burnout. You are a very active contributor. It is easy for highly active contributors to get caught up in burnout. LET GO. What happens here is, on balance, pretty meaningless compared to real life. Also, assuming this project lasts for decades or even centuries, what we do here is not fundamentally important. All we can hope for is to nudge the project in directions we think are beneficial, plant seeds and hope for the best. Whether you contribute X or X*10 content/value to the project will make not much difference to the project 40 years from now. You're doing excellent work. Don't let that diminish because people aren't acting in ways you expect or want them to. People have a way of disappointing others. Pretty depressing :) That is, until you learn to let go and just relax, and not worry if someone agrees with you, does what you think they should, or etc. Until you have kids (and even then it's marginal) the only person you can reasonably expect to live up to your expectations is...you. Everything else is a crap shoot. --Durin 02:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Pretty!

Despite my personal opinion of editcountitis, I like the graph... thankies.  :) Bushytails 21:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• It isn't about editcountitis. It's precisely the opposite of editcountitis. But, you're welcome :) --Durin 21:29, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

3RR violation

Where did I revert the article 4 times in 24 hours? I would like to see that. Show this to me. --Anittas 16:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• I responded to you at User_talk:Anittas#Potential_3RR_violation_on_.5B.5BMoldovan_language.5D.5D. --Durin 16:45, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Per your request: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moldovan_language#My_source_on_Grigore_Ureche_is_refused

--Anittas 23:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Re:Your response

Another editor making violations of Wikipedia policies and guidelines does not give you leave to do the same. If you act in opposition to Wikipedia policy, you should in no way be surprised if the outcome is action against you. I have tried, and tried, and tried to work with you to contain your emotions on various topics. It is apparently beyond me to aid you in directing your efforts in less emotion driven ways. That is why I have not continued my discussion from some time ago with you; not out of disrespect for you, but out of frustration at my own inability to coach you. I wish you the best, --Durin 18:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I did not break a guideline, what I had written was only a statement - not an action. Why does everyone stare at me and act as if Boothy is some angel? Molotov (talk) 18:27, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't particularly care about Boothy's actions or statements in any connected way with what you have said. Your response where you said "And as long as that person gets away with discarding WikiGuidelines to the wind, I might as well do so too." troubled me. I responded to that, without consideration of Boothy. --Durin 18:29, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I did not do that, I was making a statement, if Boothy can abide by no rules, it is not fair to the rest of the community. I did not mean to offend you. I am honestly thinking about leaving this site permanently, so don't worry yourself. Molotov (talk) 18:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Nobody wants you to leave. I took the effort to try to help you in the hopes that your efforts could be directed in a more beneficial way. I have always tried to do that where appropriate. Your statement troubled me, not for what you had done but what it indicated you might do. --Durin 18:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Please listen to me. I never tried to indicate or surmise that I would break WikiGuidelines on purpose. The point of the "blowing to the wind" statement was to state that it is not fair that Boothy is allowed to break rules, while most of the community follows them. Any indication other than that was a misunderstanding. I think, no I know I have contributed here in a beneficial way. I have patrolled and rv vandalism, and have added articles. Besides a few isolated incidents that you and other opponents on my RfA thought were good enough to reject me and the quality of my edits, I do beleive I do excellent work. If my statement troubled you, sorry, but I remained convinced that several people do not want me here. I never meant to indicate anything, besides, I could just as easily vandalize articles as I contribute to them; but I have never indicated or intended to do so. I think the accusation is a misconception of why I am here in the first place (which I often ask myself) and why a continue to edit for a site that I am beginning to hate more and more everyday. One particular vandal is correct, Wikipedia tries to control and intice every single editor to its whims. I have stayed here much to long for people to think tha "I might as well break the rules too" indicate that I was trying to start edit wars, add POV or whatever else. I think I have put to much good work here in the first place to allow a thought that I would intentionally harm the encyclopedia to surface. Thanks. Molotov (talk) 19:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

As I noted before, my opposition to your RfA had nothing to do with the quality of your edits. Again, you can be the best article editor on Wikipedia and make a poor admin. I have never made an evaluative comment about your article edits. I would like to judge you based on your entire set of contributions. However, people can and do change and their output can change as a result. Your recent edit summary where you blanked your talk page with the edit summary "fuck wikipedia" was, to say the least, troubling. Taking that as part of the context in which you apparently state a willingness to violate Wikipedia policies is even more troubling. I understand it isn't what you meant to imply; but it is how it can be read and I suspect most people would read it that way. I really, honestly wish you would not hate Wikipedia. But, as I previously noted, I lack the talents to coach you. --Durin 19:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

WP:RFAR/SVRFA

Ive finally gotten a chance to look at various comments about the process, and chimed in a little on some of them. -St|eve 18:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, DRR is a long time coming, and entirely rooted in the basic observation that Wikipedia has grown: Lacking any growth in oversight the due attention that can be given to issues of review quickly gets dwarfed. I can make a list of specific instances in my case alone where such limitations appeared to make for mistakes in the review process. In general, the main symptom of the above is in the lack of direct point by point responsiveness to questions on the talk or on email. Why is the Arbcom not expanded to twenty members? I think that small numbers makes it easier to control and maintain its appearance of unity.

As you in part observed, the RFA wound up being either a reflexive feedback circuit for the Arbcom's simplistic "findings of fact," or an abstracted commentary on the ruling and process itself. Because I feel this case is to some degree motivated by personal views (from my general sarcasm all the way back to the old accusations of anti-Semitism), Im going to personally stay away for the time being from the "humiliation" issue of the so-called "remedy." IAC, I have not yet noticed any public comment by the Arbcom on the decision, and have only the hints and indications (Fred Bauder, Mindspillage) as to what the nature of the internal debate was. The problems are institutional and therefore out of public review, but it would certainly be nice to see at least a summary of the private Arbcom debate about the "remedy." Sincerely, -St|eve 01:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks on J.J Johnson

I figured the WP:NPA thing was implied by the "hit list" at the bottom there more clearly than the gun, but the gun was unsettling. I was going to block him at first, but I also blocked one of the people on the hitlist, so I figured I might be tainted in blocking him as well. That userbox can't stay up though. Karmafist 19:11, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• The user page is indeed troubling. But, it is his user page. As such, there's a bit of grey area as to what he can and can't put there. I need to review policy regarding this. That said, I put a message on his talk page trying to get him to change it himself. Forcing a change on him is unlikely to produce beneficial results. I suspect he's a student of the school in question, and is a frequent user of violent language. He may not fully understand that the use of such language within this context is interpreted differently, and is inappropriate. --Durin 19:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The Land's RfA

Yeeeah, I would have gotten to it eventually. Something came up right as I was delisting it, and I just now was going back. Thanks for the heads up though. Good looking out. See ya around. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Hey - I'd appreciate it if you'd do for me like you've done for others and tell me what percentage of the time I use edit summaries. Is there a tool you use for doing this, or do you do it manually? Thank in advance. --Randy 20:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• 67% overall, 29% first 500, 94.8% last 500, 96% last 100. Good work improving! I use an MS-Excel spreadsheet to generate the numbers. Once I have a user's edits on a window (for you [6]), I just select and copy all the contributions. Then, I switch to the spreadsheet and click a button. It does the rest, except for tallying the last 100 (which I don't always need). --Durin 21:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
• Thanks a lot. Unfortunately I didn't understand the importance of using edit summaries during my early days at Wikipedia and that seems to be hurting my overall average. I guess I have been doing better recently, though. If only I could pretend like those first 500 edits never happened. Anyway, what button do you press to tally the results in MS Excel? Thanks. --Randy 21:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • A button I created that is linked to a macro that I created that performs all the functions in the spreadsheet that I need to arrive at a number of figures, including summaries. There's nothing built into MS-Excel that does it for you, as there's nothing in MS-Excel explicitly for Wikipedia. Darn :) --Durin 21:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Would you mind sending this to me and/or instructing me how to perform this on myself, and possibly others? --Randy 21:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
    • How advanced of a user are you on MS-Excel? --Durin 21:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Pretty advanced... I'm familiar with the entire MS-Office 2003 suite and use Excel regularly for various tasks. --Randy 01:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

My edit summaries

Thanks for the heads-up. Must be getting lazy lately. You reminded me of a question I had a while ago and then promptly forgot about, though. If I make an edit to a section, and the summary is autofilled with the section name, and I don't add anything to what's there: is that considered an edit with or without an edit summary? — mendel ☎ 20:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• Without. It's not enough to just have a mention of the section you're editing; that doesn't help reviewers to understand what it is you changed, and perhaps why. --Durin 21:03, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Makes sense, thanks. — mendel ☎ 21:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Statistics on future of Wikipedia

Thanks, that is also an interesting train of thought, do you believe that stopping anonymous editing will relieve some of these problems? I believe that, as you say, Wiki is more a social experiment than an encyclopedia, and that stopping anonymous editing will go a long way to fixing this by 1) Increasing our credibility and thus encouraging better editors to get involved 2) Much much less time would be wasted at AFD, Copyvios etc. 3) Bad faith editing and generally bad editing will be drastically reduced. Martin 22:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with the line of thought that if we ban anonymous IPs from editing, that editors with ill intent will just create account to do the same. So, I don't think banning anonymous editing will help. I hate the idea of adding heirarchy into the project. However, I think the following idea has merit (if difficult to implement under the current software): Identify the top 1,000 most vandalized main space articles using some periodically automatic method of doing so (this is complex). Restrict editing to those articles to editors who have been around for at least a month and made at least 100 edits (or some other arbitrary metric that serves to limit attacks on these articles). I am involved in a proposed wiki project for a hobby of mine, and the issue of vandalism has come up. My response to this has been to indicate that only members of the organization can have accounts, and only logged in users can edit. This makes people accountable. Here in Wikipedia, we can not realistically do that; there is no membership. But, we can take steps to defend the largest problems areas. All the vandal fighting that is being done, and which is so much of a focus of many an admin's work, is essentially wasted effort; it does not contribute to expanding and improving the encyclopedia. --Durin 23:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

  ooh, a proposed WikiProject sound highly interesting. Would you mind divulging some more information or is it all a big conspiracy? lol. --Celestianpower ^háblame 23:29, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is one giant conspiracy. Your edits are belong to us. ;) --Durin 23:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Ooh, another cryptic answer. How exciting. --Celestianpower ^háblame 08:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• No cryptic answer intended. I was just being tongue in cheek. Is there are particular question not covered above and below? --Durin 13:36, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Trouble with protecting some pages is the vandals find a new target and vandalise that instead, after all, most vandals are not serious and just do it for a laugh they don't really care which articles they vandalise; "George Bush protected? never mind, I'll just vandalise some page it links to instead". Although I have sometimes thought that being able to protect a page but allow registered users to edit might be a good thing. Also, I have considered starting a discussion forum/association/conspiracy to discuss these issues (mainly because I wonder how many people actually think Wikipedia can continue how it is) would you be interested? It would discuss ways to solve our problems and be revolutionary and anti-wiki-philosophy. Martin 13:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I would definitely be interested. I feel that the social culture in which the original social ethics were put into writing no longer exists. I am very much against instruction creep, but I am also all too cognizant that the social ethics originally crafted here are not scalable. The English wikipedia is by far the largest, and is encountering these issues first. But, other major wikipedias are going to run into this problem. We have an opportunity to create a new set of social ethics that are scalable, and have them be put forth before the other wikipedia communities. --Durin 13:36, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

TINMC

Please don't respond to posts on TINMC with a lecture for the requesting editor on the three revert rule or civility. People who are looking for mediation quite often merely need someone to listen to their problem and make constructive suggestions on how to fix it. Telling them how they're doing everything wrong instead just ticks them off even more.

I referred this editor to the MedCom for assistance after he IMed me for help (as an Arbitrator, I can't really mediate disputes) and he was referred from there to MedCab. I got an IM today complaining about how the MedCab is trying to get him blocked now, and I see that's because of your comments on his talk page. Frankly, I'm rather appalled. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Excuse me? Appalled? It is clear from the evidence at hand that he was potentially in violation of 3RR. I specifically did not take action because I wanted to give him the chance to improve, and appropriately directed him to the proper resources to resolve his dispute. If you find something in particular about my manner of handling his query with respect to what I said on his talk pages, then by all means state it clearly. I do not take this accusation that my behavior was 'appalling' lightly. --Durin 02:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Revert conflict

Hi Durin,

Thanks for your message.

However, I feel I should let you know a few things about this conflict:

1) It is due to one user's insistance on using a source that is over 400 years old and does not accurately describe the current situation. When it began, it was also due to the insistance of the same user that the page include some very POV phrases such as "Romania liberated Bessarabia" (previously "Romania retook Bessarabia"). 2) This same user (Anittas) has shown some very poor behaviour on WP in the past. As evidence of this, you can check his user talkpage, where there are dozens of messages from people who have been irritated or harassed by him, as well as more than a handful of messages from people which kindly and politely urge him to disengage from specific conflicts to which he replies with obscentities, personal attacks, or general rudeness (for example "Go away. Now."). 3) This user had no other users supporting them. He left a message on talkpages of "fellow Romanians", expecting them to come and help him revert, but none of them did because even they saw how ridiculous his revisions were. 4) Aforementioned user was blocked promptly for violation of the 3RR on that page 5) The last revision on that page occurred 2 days ago, which can *usually* be taken as an indication that the conflict has ended.

Cheers Node 04:33, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

All above is a lie and I can prove it. Anyone can. I never wrote the following sentence:

I didn't say that _you_ wrote that. I just said that at the beginning of the revert war, there was that phrase, which is true. You didn't put it there, whatever. But if you check the page history in the last week, you'll see that I am not lying.

"Romania liberated Bessarabia"

Romania did not liberate Bessarabia. Bessarabia voted in a referendum to reunite with Romania, but in either case, I didn't write any of that stuff. This can be verified by checking the edit history. The only thing that I added to that article was the fragment about Ureche. And I asked only Bogdan to revert the article, and he is away. The rest of what Node said is off-topic. We're talking about the legitimate of a source, not about my own behaviour.

Remind me... don't you claim to be a Moldovan?? _you_, of all people, should know that this is referring NOT to the referrendum, but rather to Operation Barbarossa in which the Nazi-allied Romanians took Bessarabia from the Russians.

You don't see me telling people that all Romanians are disgraced when they read your posts, Node, and that you lied to the members of the Moldovan Wiki. Am I exagerating? See for yourself:

"Members of the Moldovan Wiki"?? That's priceless. The only "members of the Moldovan Wiki" are myself, Ronline, Vertaler, Dmitriid, and Gabix. None of the other "members" you claim (Goie, Mihaita, Duca, yourself...) have made ANY LEGITIMATE CONTRIBUTIONS to that Wikipedia. Thus, you and that Wikipedia. Now, I remind you that you can't call all of these people "rusi" because Ronline was born in and lives in Romania, and is definitely a Romanian. Vertaler, Dmitriid and I are all Moldovans. Gabix is a Belarusan. So far, that's absolut 0 "russians". And don't say that Belarusans are the same thing as Russians -- Gabix has a deep problem with Russia because of centuries of Russian oppression of his country, people, and language, as he explained.

http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ronline/Alegeri_pentru_administratori

There you have it. Nothing can be hidden from the public. All that mess; all that chaos, was created by Node. But, this should not be held against him - not in this case - because all of that, is irrelevant to what we're talking about here; and I wouldn't be such an idiot as to trying to discredit Node for other conflicts that he might be having, even when they show that he is Anti-Romanian. --Anittas 05:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

So, is Ronline who voted to keep the Moldovan Wikipedia, "Anti-Romanian"?? What about the other Romanians who have supported it (Romihaita, for one)?? You have accused me so much of being Anti-Romanian. Well, the burden of evidence rests with the accuser. To cite one page and say that proves it is not sufficient -- you should have multiple sources.

Whatever. I'm not going to put up with Anittas' **** anymore. But I feel that this message from Anittas' own userpage is: "I do not commit myself to abide by the Wiki policy on "assuming good faith". Also, take a look at his user talkpage. He is consistently involved in conflicts, and consistently divides Wikipedians into an "us" and a "them". If you don't know Romanian, I'll give you some help with the things on his talkpage and that he's posted to others in Romanian: Essentially, they're all about how the Russians (including 2 moldovans and 2 americans) and their propaganda and that stuff are trying to vandalise pages in an anti-Romanian manner. He places a great importance on whether or not somebody is Romanian -- anybody with whom he agrees or trusts must be Romanian, and everybody he doesn't like is Russian or Anglo-Saxon. Now, I'll admit that I've been involved in my fair share of conflicts in the history of Wikipedia. However, the vast majority of posts on my talkpage don't relate to conflicts... and I don't have any posts archived (I have left all 100+ there since the first one). On the other hand, Anittas' talkpage is filled with talk of conflicts, revert wars, and the like, and he actually has split it in half by archiving older posts. Usually, when somebody begs with me nicely to disengage in a conflict, my response is kind. However, he is consistently rude, mean, ignores them, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam.

Now, none of that really has much relevance to this debate except for the fact that I am not the first person to have a problem with Anittas. Currently, it is me and C. Sundita against him. He has so far found nobody to support his position, and ignores the most important parts of the argument against it, namely: He is trying to use a source from 400 years ago to describe the situation on the ground today. It's fine to use sources from 400 years ago, but not if you're going to try to use them to give an idea of the current situation. --24.251.68.75 08:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

An addition: the vast majority of Anittas' contributions are on talkpages, and most of the rest are reversions. He has contributed next to no original content or good edits.

We're not here to discuss contributions; but if you are interested in my contributions, see my userpage. Where are your contributions? On the Moldova Wiki, where you steal articles from the Romanian Wiki? Thanks for the laugh! --Anittas 20:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

No -- I have plenty of contributions right here, on the English Wikipedia. --Node 00:47, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I went to your contribution page. You seem to go to various articles, add a comma, and call that contribution. Sure, that's contribution, but a modest one. And to answer to your comment about Belarus: sure, they're not Russians. They are Bela-RUS. And you are a Moldovan? Perhaps you were born there; perhaps you even have a passport where it says Moldova, but you will never, ever, ever, be a Moldovan. Not even if all gods from heaven and hell say that you are a Moldovan, will you ever be one. You are a Slavic colonist who settled on the land in the early 19th century. That's Russia's legacy: you. I, on the other hand, am a Moldavian. I can trace my family tree several centuries back, and the name on my mother's side is 'known' in the northern part of Moldavia. Your name, Mark Williamson, which is probably not your real name, doesn't sound very Moldavian. Or Moldovan, if you wish. Stop stealing other people's history. If you have an identity crisis, choose to be an American. I'm sorry if you don't fit in the American society, but give it a try. And move to San Francisco. They are very tolerant there. --Anittas 04:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

How many of my contributions did you check? I have some very meaty contributions. In fact, the vast majority of them are on a much higher level than just adding a conma: [7], for example, is an article I wrote entirely. The "rus" in "Belarus" actually refers to Ruthenia rather than Russia. As I noted before, Belarusan history is marked by long periods of oppression, invasion, and genocide at the hands of Russians. Tell any Belarusan that he is a Russian, and he will be very offended. Now, you say that I am a Slavic colonist who settled in Moldova in the early 19th century. In saying this you erroneously assume that I am of Russian or Ukrainian ancestry. My ancestors are from Moldova. I am not a Slav, my ancestors weren't Slavs. You seem to think that my point of view somehow dictates my nationality which is quite humourous. Mark Williamson is my real name, it is the name on my birth certificate. The notion that one can derive the ethnic identity of someone on their name alone is entirely erroneous -- it's possible to see Italians named Kukjung Kim, Germans named John Smith, Chinese named Wolfgang Ericsson, and so on. I know plenty of non-Chinese named Wong, for example. In most Western societies, names derive from relatively obscure processes, and in America whole families have been known to take new names upon immigration to the country so that they may fit in better (a Rubinowitz might take the name Rubin, for example, and all of their children and their grandchildren would have it on their birth certificate). You telling me that I'm stealing other people's history is laughable at best, insulting at worst. And what about me would nessecitate me moving to San Francisco where according to you "they are very tolerant"?? Tolerant of what? Me being Jewish? --Node 08:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• I am deferring my involvement in this conflict pending progression of the debate at Talk:Moldovan_language#My_source_on_Grigore_Ureche_is_being_refused and the involvement of other mediators at Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal#User:Christopher_Sundita_and_User:Node_ue_disallowing_me_to_use_a_source. --Durin 14:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Possible problems with images of minors

Thank you for your message on my talk page. I am afraid I am not able to answer to your question. I could answer to questions regarding European patent law and, to a limited extent, regarding United States patent law, but not regarding United States copyright law. I suggest you contact User:Mmmbeer who is apparently registered U.S. patent attorney, or User:Postdlf, a U.S. lawyer (who wrote articles on U.S. Supreme Court decisions relating to copyright, e.g. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony and more). I hope this helps. --Edcolins 10:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks Ed (I presume that's your first name). That's exactly what I was looking for. --Durin 12:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Re:RFA closing

Hey, sorry Durin, it was a bit late at night and I wasn't thinking straight. Thanks for taking care of it. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• No worries. I was happy to help. --Durin 15:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

thanks for advice!

I've withdrawn per yours and others advice. I really appreciate the kind words. peace, Tedernst 16:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

And thanks for cleaning things up after my withdrawl. Lots to learn around here! Tedernst 16:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• No worries. I didn't vote on your RfA, but had planned to if it remained. I have not reviewed your contributions in detail, but what I've seen so far suggests you will make an excellent admin in the future. Keep plugging away; you'll get there. --Durin 17:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Anittas, Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal

Dear Durin: I am the current team leader of the Mediation Cabal, and I would like to discuss with you the recent comments you made on that page to Anittas, and your subsequent reply to Kelly Martin's post on your talk page. I would like to endorse what Kelly said in her message to you - I would be most grateful if you would please refrain from dissuading users from seeking mediation from the Mediation Cabal by instructing the users they should not be seeking mediation; no matter how bad you may feel Anittas' actions have been, this user is entitled to a mediation if they wish to request one, and as a consequence of your message this user got the idea that a Mediation Cabal had issued your statement, which was not the case. The purpose of mediation is to reconcile differences, and come to common agreement, through a civilised and moderated process; it is clear that ad-hoc discussion on the talk page is leading to nothing but mud-slinging and ad hominem response, and so in my view mediation may have some value in this matter. Especially since the user had been referred to us by an arbitrator, it makes your rather officious approach to trying to prevent the user entering mediation even less conscienable, in my view. If you do have any further questions or concerns relating to this case, please contact me rather than attempting to control the mediation process yourself. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 19:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• I was out of line for posting on Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal since I am not a member of that group. I did so because this user was finding all avenues of dispute resolution unresponsive. This was a hostile experience for this user who was attempting to resolve a dispute. That was my motivation for doing so. I will not take this action in the future since my attempts at resolving this dispute are apparently not welcome at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal (both you and Kelly Martin have voiced that). As for the dispute resolution process itself, I encourage you to review my comments to User:Anittas. On many occasions I recommended that the user take their dispute to the talk page of the article in question as a first step in the dispute resolution process. Not the only step, but the first step. For backing in procedure regarding this, I refer you to Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, where it says "The first resort in resolving almost any conflict is to discuss the issue on a talk page.". This had not been done. I was not out of line in any respect for suggesting the user take this as a first step; in fact it is entirely appropriate. Such debates on talk pages can help to clarify the points at hand with people who are knowledgeable on the subject rather than people on mediation groups that have no personal knowledge of the subject. If the dispute can be resolved on the talk page of the article, it helps to reduce burden on the already over burdened dispute resolution processes. I stand by my actions in this regard and do not find fault with my suggestions in any respect. I was polite, encouraging, non-dismissive, and focused on getting the user to take that avenue of action. I also stand by my actions in noting that the user was potentially in violation of WP:3RR. As an admin, part of my responsibility is watching out for such revert wars and stopping them as appropriate. I am not heavy handed in such actions; I work first to get the users to willingly drop the revert war so that it doesn't crop up again right after blocks expire. My goal is to improve the users, not slap them with policy. I acted entirely appropriately in bringing this to the attention of the users in question, and would gladly do so again. It is standard behavior for conscientious administrators. I also stand by my comments regarding User:Anittas' incivility. I did not get hostile in response, and specifically said "With regards to "babbling", please observe Wikipedia:Civility. Thank you." Again, I was polite and to the point. I do not see any reason not to attempt to improve a user away from incivility by using such polite requests. It is entirely appropriate and I would do so again. My record here on Wikipedia shows that I am a calm, practiced editor and admin that admits error where appropriate, takes corrective action when needed, and has remained civil in a variety of tense situations. My RfA is testament to the community's support of my behavior. With that in mind, I would like to say very candidly that I have never been so offended here as I have been by your remarks and Kelly Martin's remarks. I have not been officious, my behavior has not been appalling , and I have most definitely been conscientious in my attempts at directing the dispute in appropriate ways. I feel that both you and Kelly Martin have not followed WP:AGF, but rather have assumed that I have tried to countermand the processes in place to handle dispute resolution when the opposite is clearly the case. Worse, you have taken to insulting my behavior as a consequence, rather than asking for clarification first as to what I was doing and why I was doing it (as I have given now). Good day, --Durin 19:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Durin: Thank you for your response.

Firstly, I am most deeply sorry that I have caused you offense - it was far from my intention to do so, although I see now why you may feel that my message was indeed offensive, and I do hope that I have not caused you any degree of long-term upset through my ill-considered message. I fear I misunderstood the scenario somewhat based on a rather cursory investigation on the matter which I should have spent more time over, and, as you quite rightly point out, a lack of assumption of good faith, for which I would also like to apologise most sincerely. In addition, the imperative and somewhat animous tone of my message was unnecessarily accusatory - which, indeed, places me in a position of hypocrisy to some degree, for which I am quite ashamed.

I understand now that you had no malicious intent in your actions regarding the mediation, and fully accept that you were attempting to do your best to assist the user. I should not have taken the user's response to your message as an indicator of your intent, which was a very ill-considered thing of me to do, and I should have done my own groundwork first before making such accusations - indeed, I should not have made them at all, but rather initiated discussion without an á priori assumption of blame.

Since we have a common point of agreement regarding the mediation now, I have no further issues with you regarding the mediation and I would like to thank you for your continued time and effort in working to make Wikipedia a better place. In particular, I would like to thank you for your hard work and dedication as a Wikipedia administrator, and I cannot apologise enough for my animosity towards you. Although I know an apology is rather hollow under such circumstances, I do hope I have not caused a permanent rift between us and that we may continue to be able to work together on Wikipedia productively in the future. I also hope that I have not discouraged you from future participation in the dispute resolution process; if I have, I am most ashamed of having done so, and I most humbly apologise.

Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 21:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Apology gladly accepted, and I thank you for your well considered and kind words. With respect to the mediation cabal, having been rather dramatically off-put by two members of nine total on the team, I find I am rather turned off at the prospect of working with that team. Personally, I'm rather shocked that a team which should be bent on resolving disputes managed to create one, no less with an administrator who was attempting to resolve a dispute. I fully accept your apologies on this, but I hope you will understand if I find it rather difficult to imagine myself participating with your team for the near term future. I hold no hard feelings, but I must adjust my behaviors to take into account what I have found. If you get burned at a fire, you don't stick your hand back in it any time soon, despite any claims by others that it is indeed safe. For the near term future, I'll keep away from contributing there. I was out of line for posting there in the first place; I was not familiar with mediation cabal prior to that posting, and did not read the page in entirety before making the post. I acted outside of your process and I can understand that I (unintentionally) ruffled some feathers. --Durin 22:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Durin, I wanted to amplify on my prior comments a bit. I don't doubt that Anittas did things that he ought not have. The point is that when an editor requests mediation, a mediator should sympathetically approach the editor requesting it and find out what the requester's problem is. Giving a sympathetic ear is critical at the onset of a mediation; otherwise there is no trust between the requesting editor and the mediator. I became upset because I was personally approached and I personally promised this guy that he could obtain useful assistance from either MedCom or MedCab. Your intercession enraged him further and resulted in me getting even more noise in my lap. Please respect the mediation process by assuming that mediation requests are made in good faith even when you have good reason to assume that they aren't, and by not using statements made in the course of requesting mediation as the starting point of an investigation into the requester's behavior. I deliberately did not research the prior history of the conflict (and still have not, although I gather from some other comments on your talk page that you have a prior history with this editor already) because my role as an Arbitrator requires me to try to remain neutral in situations which might tend to come before the ArbCom. I have no interest in whatever disputes either you or Anittas may be having; my interest in this case is in preserving the ability of our mediation systems to effectively mediate, which I felt your actions had undermined. Kelly Martin (talk) 17:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Kelly, you're operating from presumptions that are (with no insult intended), frankly speaking, false (I am not saying in bad faith, just false). I assert again that you and Nicholas failed to observe WP:AGF. You say you were personally approached. Yet, I had no means of ascertaining that this had happened since it was out of process, off Wikipedia, and beyond my ability to see. You can not hold me accountable for acting without consideration of his personal approach to you. Yet, you are. In no respect did I assume his mediation request was made in bad faith; in fact vigorously the opposite. Please read my response to Nicholas Turnbull's statements to me. Based on what I could see here on Wikipedia, nobody was responding to Anittas and offering him any means of resolving the dispute. I stepped in to aid him, and to help prevent him from violating WP:3RR. I had no prior history with this editor; you are incorrect. I was acting in my role as an admin to help avert a 3RR violation and to give advice on how the user could proceed according to policy.
• It states in the very introduction on WP:MEDCAB "This page will never be Wikipedia policy. It is, by design, entirely unofficial and out of process." MedCab has no special authority under which it operates. Meanwhile, Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, under which I was operating, is official policy. I stand by my actions, which were made in good faith, to aid an editor who was in need of assistance. As I noted to Nicholas, posting on WP:MEDCAB violated the process there and I have apologized for it. That said, my posting there was not in any violation of wiki-spirit, was done in good faith and was entirely inline with Wikipedia policy. Despite this, both you and Nicholas did not follow WP:AGF and instead took to insulting my behavior. Nicholas apologized for his actions in a very abject apology. I have to admit that when reading his apology I was expecting the other shoe to drop as it were; I was expecting there to be a "but,". There wasn't. His apology was well articulated, and heartfelt. From you, I have received nothing of the sort. Instead, I have received a continued assault on my behavior. I find this unacceptable, distasteful, and wholly undermining of my trust in WP:MEDCAB and indeed in ArbCom if your behavior is standard. You are attacking me without grounds in policy, doing so on the basis of not assuming good faith, and have been insulting in the process. I find no grounds for validity of your complaint except in so far as my previously apologized for breaking of process at WP:MEDCAB.
• Referring to WP:MEDCAB, it says "we don't ... judge anyone's actions". Clearly, you and Nicholas both did, violating the spirit of WP:MEDCAB. Further, it says "we are just here to ... be nice to people". Calling my behavior appalling, and Nicholas calling my behavior "Officious" is not being nice to people. I would also like to point out that in the very template for new requests at WP:MEDCAB there is a section for comments by others. I admit, as I did before, that I did not read all of WP:MEDCAB prior to making my posting. However, on seeing this template, I have seen that my comments would be acceptable under that section (and indeed it has now been placed under such a section after the template was applied to the case). So, my posting was not all that out of line with the process at WP:MEDCAB, else it would have been summarily deleted.
• Earlier, I asked you "If you find something in particular about my manner of handling his query with respect to what I said on his talk pages, then by all means state it clearly." You have done so here. As noted, I find the basis of your complaint as being false (I'm not saying it was in bad faith, just false). I find no basis in which your complaints have validity. Extending this further, I am asking you now to indicate what specific Wikipedia policies I have violated, and how I violated them. From my chair, I did not violate any Wikipedia policies. But, I am not perfect; certainly others may see something I have not. If you can find it, I will apologize for it and correct my behavior with respect to future actions. If you can not, I stand by what I have repeatedly said before; I will gladly do as I have done before except in so far as posting on WP:MEDCAB is concerned, where it is obvious that I am not welcome...which is odd since it is a place of welcome. Therefore, on my part, I have taken corrective action as appropriate to prevent this dispute between myself and you and Nicholas from happening again; if I remain off WP:MEDCAB, I won't affect your process. Since, failing any findings of violation of policy on my part, there are no grounds for your complaint against me in any other respect, there is no need for corrective action on my part in so far as my conduct on Anitta's talk page and that of the other involved parties.
• In closing, I would like to say that I find this entire episode entirely avoidable and extremely distasteful. I am by nature a pacifist person, and do not like to be the subject of extended arguments. My behavior here on Wikipedia is an extension of that; I do not violate WP:CIVIL because I know it will only serve to make matters worse. In this dispute, I find myself the subject of negative scrutiny of the head of WP:MEDCAB and a member of ArbCom. You will forgive me, I hope, if I find it necessary to vigorously defend myself when faced with two people of such positions on Wikipedia. Were this to become an RfC or worse, I would be just an admin vs. two admins both with significant positions in addition to their admin status. I feel the two of you have placed me on a slippery slope from which recovery is difficult. This could ultimately lead to sanctions against me. With the words of two such prestigous people as yourselves, my words carry less weight. Yet, I feel that the actions of both you and Nicholas were terribly in the wrong. Certainly Nicholas, with his abject apology, is in agreement. It is disheartening and threatening from the slippery slope perspective that you do not find your own actions regrettably flawed. Yet, I can't find it within myself to prostrate myself before you to ask for forgiveness from you. I have reviewed my actions and apologized for anything I felt even marginally flawed. I will not ask for forgiveness for any other act because what I did was entirely proper; asking for forgiveness would essentially be me saying that Wikipedia policy is invalid. I won't do that. Still, if I don't prostrate myself before you, I fear the outcome will be you taking further action against me. This is all horribly, horribly wrong. Nicholas has exited from the dispute as he has abjectly apologized and his words here are a matter of record. I want to exit this dispute because I have taken what I find to be the appropriate corrective action. You have not exited the dispute, and instead insist on continuing your assault against my behavior. The power to end this is in your hands. Use it wisely. Good day, --Durin 18:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

WP:GRFA

Did you ask the permission of all those editors before you put their RfA's on the page? Some of them might get offended, so I think we'd better be safe than sorry. Good work btw!Borisblue 17:24, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• No, I didn't. I considered that possibility. I suppose it might be beneficial to ask, but I also expect that any editor who was the subject of a controversial RfA is very likely to be adamantly opposed to its inclusion as an example at WP:GRFA, as I'm sure they'd like to put the whole thing into the past. If we presume to give them a say in whether it is placed there as an example, we could be left with no examples or perhaps ill-suited examples. Their RfAs are clear cases in point, and are a matter of public record here as the RfAs are not deleted once closed. I think perhaps it's a matter of weighing the good of the many vs. the good of the few; we might offend a four editors, but we might help a large number of editors avoid such contentious RfAs. Certainly it's a grey area. Your thoughts? --Durin 17:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

  I'll trust your judgement on this. Borisblue 17:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

  OK, I think Anon and BrandonYusufToropov will be willing to give consent, as they sort of emerged from their RfA's with heads held high. There's an iffy question of whether we can ask permission for some of them and not the others though. Will you be willing to just leave those two examples in? It's still your call, of course, but, in a golden rule kind of way I feel bad about putting it in without permission, especially if the page becomes high profile. How would you feel in their position? Borisblue 17:46, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

  Mildly attacked, depending on how I felt about the RfA. I don't claim to be comfortable with this. Like I said, it's grey area. From a strict GFDL standpoint, they have no rights to where that material is used. But, I'm strongly against using lawyer-speak to promote a particular addition into an article. I'm still inclined to view it from a sum benefit approach. I would be upset if we could not use Anonymous editor's nom; it was, going by the amount of text generated, the most contentious nom I've ever seen (and perhaps on record). Yet, he exited as you said with his head held high. V. Molotov I have a feeling will be quite upset at his RfA being on WP:GRFA. However, I think it's a good case in point of an editor who thought of adminship as verification that he is a good editor...and he got too many oppose votes for that to be the case in his mind, and withdrew. He also continues to claim he's leaving the project, in part because of the "liars" on RfA. Thus, I think his RfA is a good example of how not to handle your own nomination. I'm hard pressed to think of a similar example; I don't think there is one that is as clear cut. This is hard; there are no good answers. --Durin 17:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Adminship

Thank you again for the trust you have placed in me in nominating me as an admin. I really appreciate the nomination and now that the vote is over I will try to make a solid admin (but first I am going to explore the policies surrounding the admin tasks). I'll let you know if I have admin-specific interrogations. --Edcolins 19:29, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Your words above is precisely in-line with why I nominated you. You're a careful editor, and obviously will be a careful admin. Congratulations again! --Durin 19:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Your stained criminal record

Ah, I can explain! In IRC, on freenode, there's a channel called #wikipedia-en-vandalism where Cool Cat has an anti-vandalism bot (like CDVF but less time consuming) report stuff. I saw a new user called Durin.. The bot gives out the URL to block, but on pretty much every client if a period/fullstop (.) ends a URL they make it NOT part of a url (cause people will say 'go to www.yahoo.com.' and our wiki is amazing enough to use .'s at the end of URL's...) so I went to block the second Durin and I saw I blocked you. Essjay and Curps blocked the real impostor (!) and the next name it made was something like FUCK CURPS ESSJAY AND REDWOLF24, but I never blocked Durin. but it said I blocked Durin (i.e. you) so I feel that the troll creating names was probably in the IRC room, so we have a moonshining troll or two inside our community, but now I'm rambling.

Ah, and as for the teenage-outsmart-thing; here's my rationale:

If we're learning about every trivial battle of the Civil War, chances are someone who just learned it will know it better than someone who learned it when they were 14. You know, like cramming for a test. The same guy will probably outsmart the teen at more important manners, but the teen will have some crammed information ;-)

Redwolf24 (talk) 06:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Archiving

Well, I did it because most of the discussions were afterthoughts rather than an all out discussion. =Why can't self nominate myself?=; =Relisting SV RFA=. I think =Guide to RfA= was the one you were specifically referring to. I have no problems if someone brings the topic back to focus. Is it this one that you were referring to? =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:14, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• I was referring in general. I've archived the page once myself, but the metric I used was archiving through to the point where a subsection had not been commented on for at least three days. There's scalability problems here; the page by any metric is going to be well beyond 32kb by the time next year. --Durin 11:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I generally follow that metric. But as I said, comments in two sections were mostly afterthoughts. And the page size was 120kb, far larger than 32 kb. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:20, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Tony1

Looks like we have another "example" brewing: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Tony1. Can you talk him against quitting WP when it closes? I tried, but he took what I said very badly. Oh, and hurry up on the guide! Borisblue 14:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• I've left a long series of comments on his talk page. I hope it has a positive influence. --Durin 23:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Your message

Hi Duran

I was really pleased to receive your two messages, and kind of flattered that you'd write so much to me. Yeah, I appreciate fully what you say about the function and status of admins. In fact, I never really cared for admin duties - the thought of blocking people, deleting contentious pages, and patrolling for vandalism was and still is decidedly unappealling to me. So it's all a terrible shame that I feel that there's so much poison out there (and in my own mind) that I will never step foot on WP again after I leave.

I understand and agree with your point about the importance of an open process, but I think it should be moderated and constrained by fairly tight guidelines for all participants. I still think the vote changing thing is a very negative aspect; and yes, restricting the voting to the bureacrats who run the system would probably result in a better tone on the page. I don't think I can bear to look at the links you included - I'm just too depressed at the moment.

I wish you all the best in your attemtps to improve the process; I'm really pleased that it's happening, and that someone like you has major input into it. You may use my very own warzone as an example, and retain a copy of my user page for use in the improvement process. However, this brings me to another issue: the difficulty of finding someone to delete my page and image after I leave. I'd be further distressed if it is just left there; my privacy has suddenly become more important. Can you advise?

Thanks so much for your support. I need it.

Sincerely

Tony (tony1 at iinet dot net dot au)

Tony 01:09, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• If you want to have your user page deleted, all you need to is place a tag similar to {{db|Leaving project; this is my user page and I want it deleted. Thank you}}. It will be placed for speedy deletion then and I'm sure some admin will come along and delete it. Re; restricting voting to Bureaucrats. I think that will suffer from problems as well as they will be seen as being key masters to adminship. Wikipedia works as a community, not as a bureaucracy. I think the title "bureaucrat" is, shall we say, unfortunate :) The wiki model has always been about building consensus within the community for anyone interested in contributing to a particular area, not within a particular subset of the community. I do think we can add some guidelines to WP:GRFA to the effect that you mention above; expected behavior by all contributors on RfA. Thanks for your granting of use of your RfA on that page. I think it will help people in the long run, even if it is divisive right now. If I might suggest; I know others have made this suggestion, but I'd like to echo it: Take a wikibreak. Go wikiwalkabout :) Spring is in the air in Sydney this time of year. Take a trip out to Manly beach, and watch the tide come in while sifting wet sand through your toes. Go down to The Rocks and take in a tasty meat pie at some cafe. Go to the Opera House and throw a few dollars into one of the bagpiper's hats and tell him you're glad for his contribution to music (even if bagpipes make you climb the walls :)). It doesn't really matter what it is; go relax. You're 50 years old. You know as well as I do by this time in your life that there's nothing like a break away from something to reduce the intensity of it. You can hear a virtuoso performance of a deeply emotional movement and weep as the sounds waft across your ears. Then, just a few days removed, have a hard time remembering the depth of emotions you experienced. Brains, souls, hearts need breaks just as much as our muscles do. Come back when you've had a chance to breathe deep and put the past in the past. --Durin 01:26, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Brah's Rfa Nomination

Hey Durin, I was curious why you used rollback instead of putting in an edit summary regarding removing the Rfa put up by Wiki Brah. I thought you of all people would have done that considering how it could be misunderstood without realizing the acceptance hadn't happened yet. Karmafist 04:06, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• As soon as I did it, I left messages on Wiki brah's talk page and the nominee's talk page explaining my actions. --Durin 15:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I know, I saw it. I'm not talking about that, I was talking about the lack of an edit summary from you, the King of Edit Summaries. It's not a big deal, but I was just curious if you were changing your philosophy or something. Karmafist 15:32, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Candidate for northern-most Wikipedia?

Yep. I've been here for 11 years. Before that I was in Holman for 20 years which is on the other side of Victoria Island. I came to the arctic in 1974. By the way the link in User:Durin/Admin nominee charts to your example does not work anymore. CambridgeBayWeather 18:06, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• I fixed the link. Thanks for the heads up. I've lived in cold places before, but I can't imagine living where you do. Wow! --Durin 18:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• It's not the extreme cold as southern Canada can get down to -40 as well but the length, October - May/June. Plus the fact that you can get a week at a time with the temperatures below -40. The coldest I ever experienced was -49 in Holman. CambridgeBayWeather 18:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries ♫

Hey there, Durin, ol' buddy, ol' pal o'mine, how am I doing on those edit summaries? BD2412 T 01:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• If that's your best power of persuasion you can muster, you better quit being a lawyer ;). As for edit summaries, you suck :). It's only the best I've ever seen. Over the last 500, 99.6%. Out of the last 5000, you've missed just 11. --Durin 13:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I know it's so boring, doing the same thing over and over again for people but I feel I missed out on my RfAs. Anyway, I'll be, like, your bestest best friend for all of eternity if you'd take a peek at my edit summary usage. Well, perhaps not but you could have your name in my "Wikipedians for whom my high regard is held" list? Is that a good deal? Well, no but it's the best I can do :). (you see, I could do it myself if you sent me your excel file... lol) --Celestianpower ^háblame 13:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, an Englishman grovelling on the ground to an American. As things should be! ;) Overall over 4090 edits, 89%. First 500, 46%. Last 500, a fantastic 99.6%. So you English lot can be educated! Impressive! ;) --Durin 13:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

  Hmm, well, thanks anyway. :) --Celestianpower ^háblame 00:00, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

My edit summaries

Hi Durin, I have been following your efforts on the RfA page in persuading other users to reduce their editcountitis and look at other aspects of contributions as well. I was just wondering abt my usage of edit summaries. I reckon that it wd be high, but how much I do not know. From your talkpage, I tried to gather how to determine the usage of edit summaries but I must confess that I haven't understood it. If it is not too much trouble, could you pl. let me know my usage of edit summaries. It is not very urgent, pl. do it at your pace and pl. let me know of it on my talkpage (My internet connection has been weird for the last 2 weeks and I'm hving probs in jumping back & forth from my watchlist). Regards, --Gurubrahma 06:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'll answer here and on your talk page; I like to keep conversations together where possible. You have 2389 edits as of this writing. You've used edit summaries 98% of the time. First 500, 96% and last 500 98%. I sounds as if you might be interested in becoming an admin at some point. If so, I recommend you read WP:GRFA. It is a work in progress. It contains substantial information that it would be useful for you to know if you want to accept a nomination for RfA. All the best, --Durin 13:13, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Durin, thanks a ton for the stats. I have gone through WP:GRFA - it is definitely distilled wisdom; packs a punch more than what I could gather from RfA discussions over the past one month. dunno if you wrote it; if so, accept my congrats for a good work accomplished. It gives me some pointers for the changes I plan to make to WP:MM. You are right abt my interest in becoming an admin - hv around 200 pages on wachlist of which Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela are huge targets of vandalism. I was thinking of waiting for a month for self-nom or accepting a nomination if it comes abt in the meanwhile. Thanks once again. Regards, --Gurubrahma 13:35, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• WP:GRFA is an ongoing effort by at least eight users. There might be more at this point. It first developed a few days ago, and has been under development since. It's not 'final' yet (nor should it ever really be), and so it's not been linked into WP:RFA and associated pages. However, as you note, it does carry significant material advice to potential administrator nominees. I've used it a couple of times so far in directing people. So far, it's been received well. I guess that's the beta test :) With regards to self nom; I recommend that someone else nominate you. I've been keeping track of RfA statistics since late June. There have been 144 non-self nominations for users with more than 2,000 edits^*. There have been 38 self-noms. The success rate of non-self noms is 83%. For self noms, it's 68%, a 15% difference. If you want me to nominate you, I'd be willing to consider you against my standards. My standards to nominate are possibly the strictest around. First, you need to clear 3,000 edits. Note that those standards are for me to nominate; they do not affect how I vote on a nomination. Based on your average # of edits over the last 30 days, you should reach 3,000 edits by the end of this month. Your current average # of edits per day overall is 12.65. Over the last 30 days, it's been 33.76.

* - I did a study of 126 nominations from late June to mid-September. I found a glaring difference in the success of nominees with <2000 edits vs. >2000 edits. That's why I limited my success comparison of self/non-self noms to users with >2000 edits, as <2000 edits is a different case.

All the best, --Durin 13:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip abt self-nom - 15% diference is statistically significant. As you've promised that you'll not bite my head, I'll contact you if I believe that I meet your standards; or even if I don't meet your standards but have reasons for the same. You echo my feelings when u talk of how adminship shd be no big deal but since de-sysopping isn't feasible, caution is always better. I always wondered what sort of reaction a non-admin voter who votes oppose on RfA wd get when he stands for admin. I suspect if any non-admin wd vote strong oppose and then pass through RfA. This is just a passing curiosity, though. --Gurubrahma 14:24, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Prior to my own RfA, I voted oppose on 9 nominations, neutral on 4, and support on 3. Nevertheless, I passed 61-0. I don't think RfA contributors hold your votes against (or for) you. --Durin 14:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks once again. It clears my mind - Whenever I believe I shd vote (which is rare), I'll do so without fear or favour. --Gurubrahma 14:35, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries and adminship

The desire for admins to appropriately use edit summaries is in no respect a violation of WP:POINT. Please see User:Durin/Admin_criteria_comments#Edit_summaries. One of the typical prime duties of administrators is fighting vandalism. Providing edit summaries is one way in which people can make the job of RC patrollers looking for vandalism easier. It is very appropriate to request admins, who are likely to be fighting vandalism, to aide in fighting vandalism. --Durin 21:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Howdy! As an editor who probably used edit summaries in excess of 95% of the time and who actively fights vandals, I very much appreciate the need for them. My comment was that opposing adminship based on the percentage given seems to be making a WP:POINT as I don't see how that is an indicator of whether or not he would abuse the added functionality. Hope this clears things up! Best regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• I personally find criticism of other contributor's criteria for voting on suitability of nominees for adminship to be out of process and not of use to the RfA process. I understand you feel it is violating WP:POINT. That implies that myself and several others who feel this is an important quality in being an admin are doing something nefarious to disrupt Wikipedia. This implication is, to say the least, mildly upsetting. I would encourage you not to criticize the votes of other people who are making votes in good faith. RfAs should be focused on the candidates, not on the voters. --Durin 01:08, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi there! I really don't think you're doing anything nefarious, but I have the personal opinion that some of the voters are applying the criteria with a strictness that seems out of proportion to the 'crime'. 64% over the past 500 seems ok to me, but freestylefrappe disagrees, and he is certainly entitled to his opinion. Ironically, I'm considering changing my vote to neutral for reasons unrelated to this discussion. I'm troubled by the nominee's response to [[User:|hydnjo]]'s question about improving his use of summaries. He first promises 'gradual improvement', then, when hydnjo says "Why not just do it all the time?" he makes a kinda weird sounding "if you want me to say that, I will" type statement. Regarding mentioning other votes in mine, I've considered your point, and you may be right. I'll think twice before doing that again in the future, I definitely do not want to do anything that might distract from the RfA process. Thanks for your time, and I appreciate your insight. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 03:19, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

My RFA and Quiestion

I understand your reasons for opposing and Im learned that removing red links are sometimes a no-no and spelling counts more than I thought which going to help me in the future. I have a quiestion to ask What is my average edits a day I want to find that out. Thanks --JAranda | watz sup 21:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

• The problem I have with the spelling and grammar isn't so much the spelling and grammar itself. It's the very lackadaisical attitude it portrays in making edits and that in making content additions to articles you're leaving a lot of work for other copyeditors to fix. It portrays that you simply do not care about the accuracy of your edits. You should be correcting your own errors where possible. Even in this message to me, there are several errors. "Im" instead of "I've", "which going" instead of "which is going", "quiestion" instead of "question", and improper structure of the last sentence. This is abysmal editing. I really didn't want to oppose your RfA on these grounds, but I do feel very strongly about this. Please, please improve. I mean no insult in asking or noting this, I just want to see you improve. As for average number of edits; it stands at 34.5 per day since your first edit on August 21st, and 53.6 over the last 30 days. --Durin 21:27, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
• Thanks for your response Its probaly later going to be a noconsious and just reqest for the Rollback Button as thats one of the the main reason why I want to be a admin and ask Essjay or Redwolf24 to nominate me in mid-December as they were interested to nominate me later in November. And yeah I didn't know my english was that bad :P. Thanks again --JAranda | watz sup 21:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Edit summaries, as you know, are not mandatory. That is why they are not enforced by the software, which also generates auto-summaries based on section titles to provide a minimum amount of information if the user does not. The primary purpose of edit summaries is not, nor has it ever been, to aid in fighting vandalism. Their primary purpose is to enrich the history of a page and the Recent changes view, to give users a better idea what content of a page has changed and whether it is relevant to them.

The number of changes on Wikipedia has become so high that checking them all is almost impossible without new, collaborative software tools which we do not have yet. But if you want to decide which changes not to check, "those without summaries" would be a bad criterion. That's because the percentage of good users who do not use them, at least occasionally, for good edits is very high, and the percentage of bad users who are more than drive-by vandals and are willing to lie in a summary is also, presumably, relatively high. As for the drive-by vandals, checking for anonymous users and those with no user pages is a far better strategy, as it eliminates almost all edits by trusted, regular users.

Te best and perhaps only reason not to check an edit without a summary is that the user who made the edit is trusted. This can be because they made thousands of edits and have shown that they are interested in respecting the rules of Wikipedia, and improving its content. Incidentally, almost every admin falls into that category. Thus, if you really are interested in making life easier for vandal fighters, you should evaluate whether the person is trustworthy. Vandal-fighters can then simply add the names of all admins from the list of admins to their user whitelist in tools such as CryptoDerk's vandal fighter.

Certainly, I can see the value in the argument that someone who never or almost never uses edit summaries might not be considered trustworthy, as they have not shown due diligence and do not respect the standards of Wikipedia. But we're talking about 50% vs. 60% vs 70%, at which point we are talking about varying preferences within the community.

Your argument that using summaries consistently "raises the bar" for vandals makes no sense in any case. First of all, you will not be successful in getting every regular user to use summaries consistently, partially because you will not reach everyone, and partially because some people (including myself) will simply disagree with you on their usefulness. Secondly, if vandals did start adopting fake summaries as a technique to avoid detection, then the effective situation for the vandal fighter is no better than it is today: they still have to check edits with summaries. And if they actually take the easy route and do not, such vandalism is likely to slip through, and the situation worsens.

My concern is therefore that you're merely using RFA as a litmus test to enforce your own personal preferences. You are voting against users who have done their best to comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, who have done excellent work on articles, who are genuinely interested in fighting vandals, who are giving large amounts of their free time to the project -- and instead of happily handing them a mop to clean up with, you pedantically complain about the percentage of edits with summaries.

This is not what RFA is for. It is for evaluating whether a person can be trusted to respect the five pillars of Wikipedia. It is also, as has been said many times, "no big deal". Angela had less than 100 edits when she applied for adminship (which was granted), and is now on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. The original idea of adminship was, therefore, always that it is handed out liberally to people who can be trusted, and this has worked well in building a strong, diverse community. Wikis live from the principle of devolving power. "Adminship" is a flag many of us would happily grant to everyone, if only we could know in advance that they're not going to go on a deletion or blocking spree. To give us this knowledge, we have the RFA process.

It was never intended to be an initiation rite or a litmus test. The fact that any user is allowed to comment on adminship nominations, and that we strive for consensus, carries with it great responsibility for the individual users commenting. I'm sorry if this is harsh, but I feel you are abusing this privilege. I am beginning to think that it would be best to modify the rules so that only objections that directly relate to the Five Pillars are taken into account.

Using your logic, others will try to enforce their personal standards. "I vote against this person because he opposes family filters on Wikipedia." "I vote against this person because she does not remove personal attacks from comments." "I vote against this person because he uses a fancy signature instead of a plain one." Effectively, the consensus principle is undermined when individuals with strong personal preferences can hold a nomination hostage to get what they want.

None of these personal standards is a fundamental rule of Wikipedia, and the same is true for using edit summaries all the time. I therefore repeat my plea to you to refrain from using RFA as a litmus test for your personal preferences, especially as these appear to be based on fallacious logic.--Eloquence* 21:52, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

• While the primary purpose of edit summaries is not fighting vandalism, they are most definitely used in that manner. They can, and do, serve multiple purposes and those purposes do not exclude each other. As I noted on User:Durin/Admin_criteria_comments#Edit_summaries, the nefarious use of edit summaries can make it more clear to an RC patroller that vandalism is happening. I vehemently disagree with your position that I am using RfA as a platform to push my ideals. I am far from alone in feeling that edit summary usage is an important quality in an admin. You and I disagree on what the purposes of RfA are and what significance adminship is. That I disagree with you does not automatically make my position, which includes more than just the five pillars, wrong. I have long felt that the notion that adminship is "no big deal" is, in a large community, flawed. Within a small community it is not. The notions of "no big deal" were arrived at long before Wikipedia's astronomical growth in popularity. I feel that these social structures are improper given the changed nature of Wikipedia. I have seen essays by other editors to the same effect, so again I am not alone in my opinion. The notion that Wikipedia is completely inflexible from its initial ideas is to me flawed. It presumes that there was and is no flaw in any precept on what Wikipedia was to become. This is horribly short sighted, not proactive to producing a fundamentally strong community, and works to undermine what Wikipedia ultimately becomes. I have seen many areas in Wikipedia that are flatly not scalable. This does not stop at basic precepts of Wikipedia or at the five pillars. I do not appreciate the accusation that I am abusing the RfA process. In fact, I find it very insulting and lacking in assumption of good faith. I have, am, and will always respect the RfA process. That I happen to have a different perspective on RfA gives you no right to claim I am an abusive contributor. As for modifying the rules, you are certainly welcome to suggest such. Nobody is stopping you from doing so. I think you will find that there will be very significant objection to such suggestions. Every user is free to develop whatever standards they so desire in supporting or opposing an RfA. Insulting other people for their standards is also very much against wiki philosophy. I could easily make a case that you are using RfA as a platform to voice your negative opinion of my contributions. Do you think that was appropriate behavior? Let's scale that; let's presume that all RfA contributors use RfA as a platform to insult the criteria that other contributors use. Do you think this would produce an RfA process that we could all be proud of? I also find your position lacking in candor; I do not see you asking Nichalp, an admin and bureaucrat, to stop using RfA as a platform to insist people enable their e-mail link. He does this quite frequently, voting oppose until it it set. I've never voted oppose based only on edit counts. I can easily make an argument that you are being hypocritical in insulting my behavior while not taking issue with his. Since February of 2004 you have had made three edits to his talk page. None of them have had anything to do with his (what you would call) taking hostage of RfA to promote his personal agenda. As for my holding an RfA hostage; nobody is required to vote as I do. I do find ridiculously gaudy signatures bothersome. I've never voted against someone for it and will not. I do have it as a personal metric for not nominating someone, but that does not prevent anyone from being nominated. Indeed, none of my measures either for nominating or for voting will in any way stop anyone else from voting in favor of a nominee. Thus, I find your statement that I am holding RfA hostage to be without merit. I will continue to use RfA as I have done unless there is basis in policy that my actions are improper. My edits there have been in good faith and I have been making very significant efforts to improve RfA. My long time contributions there, my efforts to get people to stop focusing on edit counts by providing charts (32 so far) for nominees with less than 2,000 edits and other statistics that undermine basic edit counting and my creation of and significant contributions to WP:GRFA are testament to that. In fact, there have been a number of admin nominations that I feel I have rescued from being denied because of my work there. I respect that you disagree with me on these points. I would ask that you respect my position. --Durin 00:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

1) Please use paragraphs. They make long text more readable.

2) Your only arguments regarding edit summaries are that a) edit summaries are used when fighting vandalism, b) they make it more clear to an RC patroller that vandalism is happening. Neither of these arguments is convincing. That edit summaries are used as a criterion during patrolling is not equivalent to an argument for their usage, and I have shown quite clearly why such usage can, at best, help with prioritizing and, at worst, lead to vandalism being undected.

As for your argument that false edit summaries highlight malicious vandalism, any instance of vandalism should be followed up by checking the user's contributions. Just because a user did not fake an edit summary doesn't mean you can say "Well, he's obviously not an evil edit summary faking user, so I don't need to check that user's contributions." So the argument that somehow objecting to admins due to a lack of edit summaries will highlight severe cases of vandalism is utterly artificial and divorced from reality. Edit summaries are completely unrelated to admin tools, and I think you know that. That's why you have come up with this artificial "summaries help vandal fighters, and sysops are vandal fighters" argument, which is logically very poor.

3) Certainly, initial rules of the project deserve to be questioned, and I have frequently done so. This goes even for the "five pillars" -- they, too, need to be refined and improved. However, so far you have failed to make a case that indeed, the situation today necessitates to treat adminship as a "big deal". Indeed, the page Wikipedia:Administrators still reflects these original intentions, and explicitly quotes that statement. That is what I mean when I say you are abusing the process. If you wish to make adminship a "big deal", then you should make a case to have the policies of the site say that it is. As it is, I am of the opinion that you are acting against the spirit of our policies.

You say Wikipedia is far greater than it was before. What's changed? We're dealing with a lot more automated spam, vandalbot attacks and malicious edits. At the same time, standards on RFA are growing ever more conservative and reflect an increasing number of people's personal whims. Do you see the relation? Could it not be that the right response to our rapid growth is to let more users who have spent countless hours editing Wikipedia and fighting vandalism become admins? Certainly, both quality and quantity matter. But are you seriously trying to make a case that we need less new admins today than we did 4 years ago?

4) I do acknowledge that I have not reacted to every contributor in the same way, simply because I do not look at every adminship nomination. If you feel that I singled you out, then I do apologize; it was not my intention to imply that your behavior is utterly atypical, it is in fact part of a general pattern which I find problematic. If even you see some of these "personal tests" as problematic, then perhaps you should reflect a bit more on your own. I would also appreciate it if you brought such cases to my attention. I will most certainly react if I agree with you.

I do not dispute that you are acting in good faith! Obviously you have only the best interests of Wikipedia in mind. Why else would you spend time calculating how many edit summaries someone has written? This is not meant sarcastically. I understand that you believe this improves Wikipedia. But I feel RFA is the wrong forum to promote use of edit summaries beyond a reasonable minimum. RFA is about trust, and as I said, promoting someone to become an admin if they have done good work is the best way to ease the work of vandal fighters, who can then except that person from their patrolling. Best of all, they get a new admin to help them.

Can you really make an honest case that having prevented someone who does not use edit summaries as much as you'd like from becoming an admin outweighs the advantages of having a new trusted, passionate user equipped with admin privileges?--Eloquence* 01:46, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

You say that you believe I am acting in good faith, yet state my position is "divorced from reality" and "logically very poor", and imply that I am propping up a flagging argument to support a position that is unsupportable. I'm sorry, I find that hard to reconcile. RfA is about trust. To me, it is also about much more than trust. I am sorry that you insist on not respecting my position on this. Yes, I can make a case and have repeatedly done so that it is important for admins to use edit summaries. Despite your claims, you're assuming bad faith on my part. I readily grant that I have yet to write a long essay on why I feel adminship has changed and is no longer "not a big deal". I have intended to do so for a while. Regardless, I would imagine you would disagree with whatever opinion is reflected in such an essay, so I doubt such a contribution on my part will have any effect on you. I have respected your position and have not denigrated your methods of voting on someone yet you insist on doing so with regards to mine. I will continue to comment and vote as my conscience feels I must. You are welcome to continue doing so as well. I suspect that further discussion between you and I on this will be fruitless. In our exchanges to date, neither of us has found reason to yield the slightest in our positions. I doubt this will change given the nature of the basis of the disagreement. If you want to change the way in which RfA is currently operated, I recommend you make such a suggestion on RfA's talk page. --Durin 02:24, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not convinced your actions are logical or right, that does not mean I think they are malicious. However, I agree that there is no point to this discussion unless you are actually interested in examining my arguments, weighing them against yours, and deciding what is correct.--Eloquence* 02:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• In your comments that I am holding the RfA process hostage and trying to push my own agenda, you have very definitely stated that I have malicious intent. I already have examined your arguments, weighed them against mine and decided what is correct. You do not like my conclusions. That does not make them invalid. --Durin 13:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Possible admin nomination

Hello Cryptic, I came across your name recently and saw that you've been here a while but are not an admin. I then began reviewing your contributions to Wikipedia against my rather strict nomination standards and I'm pleased to tell you that you passed. In fact, I can't believe you haven't been nominated already. You've done a very large amount of work at WP:AFD (I count nearly 1200 edits in this area alone), and have been active in a lot of other admin appropriate areas, includinf WP:MD, WP:RFD, WP:CFD, WP:TFD and more. Plus, you've been active in discussions on criteria for speedy deletion and also on featured article candidates. I especially liked a comment you made about the never ending schools keep/delete debate ([8]). I've reviewed about 100 of your comments made on user talk pages and have found you very level headed and cool under stress. Plus, you're quite willing to make comments to other admins who make errors and are very polite in the process ([9]). You already work in contentious areas, and as you said ([10]), you don't get stressed easily; a great quality for an admin. I expect you would make a fantastic admin and would make great use of the tools. I'd like to nominate you, but before creating the nomination page for you I wanted to find out if you're be interested in being an admin and if you would like me to nominate you? --Durin 21:29, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

It's very kind of you to offer, and I won't refuse; however, you may want to reconsider after reviewing this rather ill-considered edit. And, um, I've barely touched WP:MD or WP:CFD, haven't made any edits at all related to WP:FAC that I'm aware of, and most of my work at WP:AFD has been so botlike that I'm now in fact running a bot to do them, so your praise above is a bit embarrassing. —Cryptic (talk) 05:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that edit was bad. It raised a good point, and was done without being insulting. On edits...I found 7 edits to WP:MD. So, you have made contributions there. Not as much as AFD certainly, but it's there. Same for CFD (8). With respect to Featured Articles; I misspoke. I meant featured pictures (121 edits). Part of being a good admin isn't necessarily being an expert in all admin appropriate areas. It's about being aware of those areas. You've demonstrated that. Your emphasis is in AFD. There's nothing wrong with that. Having a bot to aid you in that work is a plus, not a minus. I am aware of Crypticbot. I think the fact you created it and run it is a plus. I intended to include mention of it in the nomination statement. I don't see shortcomings here. What I see is an editor who has needed the admin tools for a very long time, is very qualified to have them, and does not have them. With that in mind, and your acceptance above, I'll go ahead and create the nomination. You're not required to accept of course :)

In moving this nomination forward, please follow these instructions I crafted for nominees I have nominated. Following these instructions helps to ensure a smooth running RfA. The first candidate I ran through under those instructions and my guidelines went 27-1-0. You're the second since I craft them. I fully expect the results will be similar. You're also aware of WP:GRFA (you made some typo corrections there) which is good, as it will help you in the RfA process.

The nomination now exists at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cryptic. Please remember to officially accept the nomination and answer the stock questions before posting it at WP:RFA. Again, be careful to follow instructions. Proceed slowly; there's no deadline. Congratulations on nomination! --Durin 13:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit summary counting

I am just curious how you count the use of edit summaries. I see a lot of people asking for how they are doing. Could this be something that is made available to everyone or added onto Kate's tool perhaps? Oh, by the way, how am I doing in that department. :) Thanks. --Holderca1 03:15, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• I won't be able to do yours until Monday possibly, but I'll be glad to calculate it. The tools I use for it are on another computer. I've requested that Kate add it to the tool, but no response (been a few weeks). I do it using an MS-Excel spreadsheet. All the best, --Durin 03:25, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Good deal, I am not any rush on it, I have a busy weekend ahead of me anyway. Take care. --Holderca1 03:28, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• Summary usage is 40% overall. First 500 edits, 20%. Last 500 76.6%, last 100 86%. --Durin 19:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured as much, something I have paid attention to recently. Thanks. --Holderca1 21:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Graphs

Durin, could you source a graph on the number of support vs oppose votes for candidates over the past two months? Thanks =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:56, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• Certainly. I have records on every nom from June 23 forward with votes, edit counts, who made the nomination, time of first edit for the nominee, etc. I can do this on Monday. I'm uncertain of exactly what you're looking for though? --Durin 18:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm looking for an average to help me out in promotions and removal of RFA's. (bar graph) It would also help if you could display a graph of voting patterns during the 7 day week: ie no of edits vs. day. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm still not entirely certain what you're looking for in the first graph. Have a look at this graph Image:RfAVotingTrends.png and let me know if it is what you were after. For the voting patterns by day; I do not keep track of when votes are made, just tallies, so I don't have that data. I do keep track of when the nominations were made, and did a graph on that Image:NominationsByWeekday.png. Let me know if these help. User:Durin/RfA results has a listing of much of the date from June 23 forward, and shows what kind of data I am collecting on each RfA. When you're done with these images, you may feel free to delete them; I am not using them anywhere else. --Durin 20:08, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Data request

Durin, I hate bothering you for such minutiae, and the whole issue might be moot by now anyway, but can you please check Kelly Martin's edit summary usage percentage for edits not involving ArbCom work? The simplest measure would probably be to look at her last 500 or 1000 edits prior to her appointment to ArbCom. Thank you. Owen× ☎ 04:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• I can do that, yes. It'll have to wait until tomorrow (Tuesday) though. --Durin 04:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Eh, I'm not sure what remarkable thing you expect to find, most of an arbcommer's work does not involve making edits, as show by this graph Image:Kelly_martin_edits.svg. Her non-mainnamespace edits are split into 'other namespace' and 'arbcom' based on the existance of 'rbitration' in the title of the edited page, this will tend to split off the direct arbcom related edits. It requires almost no work from me to make charts like these, so feel free to ask. Sometime in the next week or two I'll be putting online an edit counter that makes diagrams like this. It should be noted that these aren't all her edits, only the additional edits since the time of he adminship. --Gmaxwell 06:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
• OH wow. I just noticed you were looking for edit summaries. I have no clue how I missed that! Out of her 1243 main namespace edits since she was admined there were 13 edits which were not admin rollback that didn't have a summary, some of these 13 were section edits where the section name made it pretty obvious too. Thats 98.96%. Out of her 1210 non-main namespace edits 06/15 to 09/15, 191 were uncommented although most appeared to be talk page comments. Even so, thats 84.22%. --Gmaxwell 06:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Thank you! Owen× ☎ 13:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Another one of those edit summaries requests

Hi Durin. I have seen your work in RfA and really appreciate it. I was hoping that you'd be willing to confirm for me that my use of edit summaries is currently kind of sucky, but it would be nice to have a numerical way to evaluate just how sucky, so that I can get better. No rush; I read above that you can't do it right away. I really appreciate it.

Also, I was hoping to get a sort of general evaluation from you on my progress here at Wikipedia. I would like to be an admin someday, but will be the first to admit that I know I'm not ready, and won't be for quite some time. (I have an edit count of something like 2500, but in my case it is certainly not representative. I have created articles, and then again a lot of those edits were making minor changes, editing my own user page, and correcting my own typos because I have a quick trigger finger on my mouse.) My hope, though, was to try to prepare myself for adminship by next summer, when I won't be at school any more and can properly use the tools that would hopefully be given to me. Any tips you can give me in this direction would be most useful. Thanks. Jacqui ^★ 19:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

If you're taking requests... ;) I wouldn't mind having some sort of graphical representation of my own which displays where I stand as far as edit summaries and how I've progressed since registering with Wikipedia. Is it a fairly automated process? Best regards, Hall Monitor 19:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

First, Jacqui :) (I can do your request Hall Monitor, but it's not automated...I'll need a little bit). Jacqui; your use of edit summaries is 67% overall after 2,556 edits. It's 80.2% in the last 500 edits. You're definitely improving. As for what to do to prepare yourself for adminship;

• Be involved in admin appropriate areas, such as WP:AFD and similar (TFD,RFD, etc), recent changes patrol, watching Special:Newpages and bringing articles to AFD as appropriate, and more.
• Remain civil and calm in the face of pressure. There are too many people here for you to like everybody, and not everybody is going to like you. Respond appropriately; don't lose your cool.
• Remain involved and connected with the project. If you disappear for long stretches of time, people will want to know why.

You might want to see User:Durin/My_guidelines_for_admin_nomination#My_admin_nomination_standards. Those are difficult standards. But, if you pass them, there's a (so far) very good chance you'll pass RfA with flying colors. I might nominate you myself. If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to answer. --Durin 19:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Jacqui, I like your edit summaries. They are both clear and concise! And, from a brief check, at least on the Article namespace, you are close to 100% (the only counter example I found was this, but Durin's tools are more reliabe than my eyeball methods...). I believe it is mostly your edits on AfDs which lower your overall edit-summary score. Keep up the good work! Owen× ☎ 20:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to both Durin and OwenX for poking around and crunching some numbers. :) Jacqui ^★ 20:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Hall Monitor; chart's done. You can view it at Image:HallMonitorEditSummaryUsage.png. When you're done with the chart, you can feel free to delete it. I won't be attributing it anywhere else. I'm amazed at how prolific you've been. >10,000 edits since May? Wow! --Durin 20:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Holy smokes! And I thought my 99.8% was impressive! My hat is off to you, HM. Owen× ☎ 20:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

You have been named as a respondent in a Request for Comments

You have been charged in a request for comment with attempting to prevent an editor from attempting to seek the assistance of a mediator to resolve a dispute, and with becoming hostile and belligerent when politely asked to refrain from doing so in the future. You may wish to respond. Kelly Martin (talk) 13:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• In the light of the RFC, you may be interested to know that Kelly intends to focus on ArbCom duties for the time being, and says to be unlikely to respond to anything else for the indefinite future [11]. Radiant_>|< 15:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for cleaning up {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MC MasterChef}} and {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Shaddack}}. I couldn't quite finish the formalities then. PS> Thanks for the graphs, but I wasn't looking for that particular info. I'll let you know abt it later. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• No worries. Just let me know what you need. --Durin 18:51, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

IRC/IM/Skype

Hello, I'd like to discuss your recent actions re: wikipedia dispute resolution with you in real time.

I'm often present on irc.freenode.net , #wikipedia (as kim_bruning or kim_register). Or you might want to use wikipedia email to send me an MSN/AIM/ICQ/etc or Skype username/address so I can contact you more privately.

Thanks for your time, and hope to speak with you soon.

-- Kim Bruning 19:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• Kim, I don't use IRC/AIM/ICQ, etc. With particular regard to Wikipedia, I feel they are external to the process and place an undue amount of material out of sight of people who do not use IRC, etc. Further, I'm not aware of any log of actions on IRC so there's no reference base to refer to for dispute resolutions. Indeed, this is one of the things that I think has been the basis of the RfC against me; there were things going on outside of Wikipedia that I did not know about and could not respond to. I acted with the information that was available to me, yet I feel that I have been accused in part on a basis of the communications outside of Wikipedia. If there's something you feel you need to discuss with me privately, you can e-mail me. However, in general, I'd prefer to keep any discussion on this transparent though I defer to your judgement since you know of what it is you want to talk. --Durin 19:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Perhaps I'm missing something due to not being a party to some conversations myself, but I fail to see where discussions outside of the wiki could have happened which explained why you discouraged a user from being involved in mediation. Could you be more specific? --Gmaxwell 19:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Fortunately, there's no rule that says you can't ever talk with people off-wiki, else that'd amount to a ban on for instance ever visiting a friend again, just because you're both wikipedians. (There is a rule that says that nothing becomes *official* unless it's posted on either the wikien-l mailing list or on the wiki, but that's a different story)

So having said that, I'd like to talk to you in a real time medium, which the wiki unfortunately is not. I've already read your discussions on the wiki, and I have no further lines of inquiry that can easily be done in non-real-time.

-- Kim Bruning 20:14, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• It isn't actions that I took outside of Wikipedia that explains what I did. It is what some people who were party to this dispute did. Actions were taken by them outside of the scope of Wikipedia and I feel I am being taken to task because I took action without respect to those actions. Well of course I did...I'm not party to them, so how could I have known? I'm not saying people have to not talk to each other outside of Wikipedia. What I don't like is being accused of things in part based on things that I could not have been aware of. Consider a scenario; there's a new Wikipedia policy which everyone on IRC knows, but which isn't posted on Wikipedia (I know, such wouldn't exist, but this is a proper analogy nonetheless). Somebody violates it, and is chastised for it. That's what has, in part, happened to me. Kelly was apparently working to resolve things with one of the parties in the original dispute, but was doing so outside of Wikipedia. I couldn't know what was happening since I don't participate in those offline venues. This is what Kelly said in this respect that bothered me "I became upset because I was personally approached and I personally promised this guy that he could obtain useful assistance from either MedCom or MedCab. Your intercession enraged him further and resulted in me getting even more noise in my lap." How could I have known she had been personally approached by the user? I couldn't. I acted because this user was not, based on anything on Wikipedia at the time, getting a response from any dispute resolution oppportunities. So, I made an effort to get him some help and I am blasted for it. Damnit, I was trying hard to help this guy and I got assaulted by Kelly and Nicholas for it. Kelly has said that if I don't agree to edit Wikipedia as a true peer among equals, that I should leave Wikipedia. I already do! Since I can't possibly convince her that I already take that approach in everything I do, then I feel I must quit Wikipedia else her assault upon me will continue. I tried very, very hard to approach people in a civil and proper manner in everything I've done here. I've worked arduously to improve the project. I warn a user of a potential for breaking 3RR and I'm chastised for it, yet Kelly has warned people about 3RR herself. So, she's not chastised for it but I am? Where's the justice in that? She wants me to assume good faith on the part of her and Nicholas when they describe my behavior as "apalling" and "officious" (to quote them) before I even have a chance to explain. How am I supposed to do that? Would you feel someone was acting in good faith if they assaulted you with such words without first asking why you did what you did? Is this what assuming good faith has come to? I must accept the verbal lashings from people in higher authority than myself without an opportunity to explain my actions, assume it's all done in good faith, offer no defense/explanation for my actions and say "thanks for your input"? I've stated elsewhere; Wikipedia isn't as important to me as a hug from my daughter. In the grand scheme of things, each of our lives should be more important than this. I don't want to be drug through a relentless court case from Kelly just to have it conclude that despite my efforts in every respect to act in good faith, I was way out of line, and nothing she or Nicholas did was out of line. I can't give her what she wants. Kelly refuses to accept any...any...culpability in her actions on this. Everything she has done has shown this. In no respect does she seem to feel that any of her actions, her conclusions, her statements, etc. are in any way wrong. The spirit of negotiation is to reach consensus. I can't do that on the RfC. It's a ramrod attempt at getting submission from me. The only solution is for me to leave Wikipedia. That's the only door Kelly is leaving open. And this, because I spent two hours....two hours...carefully constructing a reasoned, good faith vote that ended up as oppose on her RfB (which didn't fail because of me, though she accuses me of such). The RfC will result in nothing. I tried to move it forward by asking Kelly what could be done to resolve it. She answered, and then pushed my question to the talk page saying it was disrupting the process while leaving her very own questions intact. The process is being managed by Kelly. I can't move forward on the RfC. My attempts to help it forward are being squelched by Kelly. What she is asking me to do I am incapable in some respects of doing. So, the dispute will remain. As I feared, I am now on a slippery slope. There is no way to equitably solve this. The only solution is for me to quit Wikipedia. I am not threatening that; it's simply the only way out of this at this time. To all of you readers who want to pile on and lash out at me, go for it. I've had it. Feel free to rip me to shreds. I just don't care anymore. If the reward for trying your best here is to be so completely lambasted for your efforts, then by all means inflict your reward. I am most deserving, after trying so hard. --Durin 21:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

( Hmm, this appears to be an answer to Gmaxwell. Perhaps we had an edit-conflict. Could you review my request for a meeting using a real-time medium above one more time please? Kim Bruning 21:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC) )

For your efforts

Hi,

Recent events remind me how valuable the work you do on RfA candidate scrutiny is. This community service should not go unrecognized.

I, Xoloz award this Barnstar of Diligence to Durin for his outstanding and thorough work in providing community evaluation information for candidates at RfA. Xoloz 19:19, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Please don't let disgruntled parties dissuade you from your often thankless and tiring examination work. Best wishes, Xoloz 19:19, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that you applaud his work so quickly without checking its accuracy. As the results on User:Kelly Martin's use of edits summaries show quite clearly, Durin's analysis is usually precise but not always accurate. --Gmaxwell 19:35, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Mr. Maxwell, criticisms of my choices are best addressed to me at my user page, though I understand why you posted this here. Xoloz 20:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• I very sincerely appreciate that Xoloz. I was thinking to myself earlier "I need a wiki-hug". I've tried my absolute best to approach everything I do on Wikipedia with the most professional attitude I can. I feel under assault from Kelly, and at this point do not know how to resolve it. I could generate a very large, detailed response to Kelly's assertions regarding my conduct but at this point I despair that it would do anything but fan the flames, and honestly I don't know if I have the energy for it. With that in mind, I earlier tried to push myself above the trees and think, "What do we want to come from this?" and that was my motivation in my recent addition of a question to Kelly on the RfC. I well recognize that there are simply too many people on Wikipedia for everyone to like you, or you to like everyone. I even noted this to someone else recently. Unfortunately, I think I've found my first oil/water person in Kelly. I respect her work on Wikipedia, but I feel badly abused by her actions with respect to me. I asked her to bring the RfC to help bring closure to this, but now I am uncertain it will have any beneficial effect. Even if the RfC closes with a view against Kelly, it doesn't resolve the dispute. Kelly will still view me as a "problem admin", and will continue to consider me such with her "trusted peers" as she put it. So, whether this RfC concludes in my favor or not, I still lose. I fear the only possible conclusion to this that might at least stop the debate is an oath by both of us not to comment on the actions of the other. But, that doesn't stop her from casting about her belief that I am a problem admin. Sigh. At this point, I'm at a loss on how to proceed in a way beneficial to all parties including Wikipedia. On a humorous note; your edit summary usage over the last 500 edits is 55.4%. Please improve :) --Durin 19:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Will do. :) I, of course, never have any intention of running for anything, partly because I too am saddened by some editors in positions of power who, in my view, have very poor judgment. You are a bright spot in combatting the insensible around here. :) Xoloz 20:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• Gmaxwell; my examination of her edit summaries was accurate. I stand by it. She later qualified it that outside of ArbCom she always uses them. I never disagreed with that. --Durin 19:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Durin, of all the possible ways to slice up her contribution history you selected the one that gave the second lowest reading of edit summaries. The only way you could have made it any lower would been to have old reported on her Arbcom edits. Her use of edit summaries in all namespaces is well above both the average editor and the average admin. Furthermore, you specifically mentioned her edit summaries because you were made the claim that she is telling users one thing but doing another herself... in both of those cases she was talking to users who made edits in the main namespace, and yet you published a number where 100% (or nearly so) of the main namespace edits had real summaries as "64%". You produced reported a metric which was largely unrelated to your point, I consider it to be your responsiblity to produce text which is not overtly misleading. Your reporting is made using precision far in excess of its accuracy, as a result it has a great potential to mislead. As a person who provides authoritative sounding measurements to help with decision making you have an ethical obligation to ensure that the audience has a reasonable chance of understanding what was measured, what factors might make the measurement inaccurate, and how the metric is and isn't related to their concerns at hand. If you'd like to not be viewed by some as a problem admin you could start by not turning away criticisms of your work with accusations of WP:AGF violations. --Gmaxwell 20:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• Mr. Maxwell, as I tried to indicate, my award to Durin is for the entirety of his work at RfA. The award was proximately motivated by the RfC, it's true, but was something I had considered for a while, and has nothing to do with Ms. Martin's RfB, except insofar as that is one among many of Durin's fine analyses.

And Mr. Maxwell, if you disagree with Durin's analysis, I urge you to make your own dispassionate analysis of the record. Dispute Durin's conclusions as you like, but please recognize that he works hard to craft the analysis, and provides much raw data. Such scholarship is commendable, even when one disagrees with a conclusion. I dislike the conclusions of many scholars, but I take the time to appreciate the precision of their work. If nothing else, one hopes that Durin's work will motivate those with other opinions to be as precise and dispassionate in their analyses as he is. Xoloz 20:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Leaving

Don't leave?

Prodego ^talk 21:34, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Take a wikibreak, and when you are ready, come back that's the best thing to do.

Prodego ^talk 23:07, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Leaving

You seem to be a fairly good editor, so losing you might not be so good. I'd really really like to talk with you over IRC or IM now, especially since you're planning on leaving and it wouldn't hurt to do so anyway, by whatever standard you hold.

But even if you don't, well, you may or may not have made a mistake or two recently (We all do! I've made much bigger howlers than you've ever been accused of! :-P ) , but it looks like the overall quality of your work is good. :-)

sincerely, Kim Bruning 21:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This isn't productive

I hope you aren't doing this just to bring out a flood of support... You should realize that such support will come, as we even give it to people who don't really deserve it if they pout loudly enough. In your case you do deserve support, ... it is only because you've been so unwilling to accept criticism that your detractors have become as loud as they have. I hope you realize there are other options and solution to these problems and continue editing. In the meantime, I'll take requests to produce reports for people like you produced... and I'll probably automate a few of the simpler ones, anyone who wants them please just ping me. --Gmaxwell 21:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No!

Please, please reconsider. Many of us (I dare say, most) know this RfC is, at best, highly suspect; at worst, almost riduculous. You are a quality editor and administrator, and we need you. Xoloz 21:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• I now have three admins indicating that my efforts here on Wikipedia have been disruptive. My intention in being here was absolutely opposite of that. I tried my best to act in good faith. It is apparently wrong for me to defend myself when I am told I am "appalling" and "officious" before I even have a chance to explain myself (and this was done by two admins).

• Look, I know that there are a number of people out there who are supportive of me and my contributions here. I respect your support, and sincerely appreciate it. But please, I don't need to be told that people are sorry I am leaving. My reasons for leaving are because there is no way in which I can equittably answer the charges against me without quitting, and because I had no desire to be disruptive to Wikipedia but very much the opposite. I still have high hopes for this project. I really do. I do think it is badly flawed, but I was trying very hard to work on solutions to the problems that plague Wikipedia. For this I have been charged with crimes against Wikipedia. So, I don't feel my work is needed here; if it disrupts the process then its not serving the purpose it was intended to serve. Since I have tried in every respect to be the best person I can be, there's really no way in which I can satisfactorily make the changes being required of me. Kelly is on ArbCom. Nicholas is head of WP:TINMC. They've deemed me guilty of these charges. I'm just a lowly admin. How am I supposed to stand against that? I can't. My actions were wrong from the view of others. It doesn't matter what I think in this case. The simple fact is I was wrong.

• You know, it's rather ironic. I've just recently stated twice that a hug from my daughter is more important to me than Wikipedia. My wife just showed up with my two daughters, and the one that can walk ran into my office and gave me a big hug just as I was finishing the above paragraph. Perhaps that's a sign that what I am doing is right. I leave happy; my family loves me. --Durin 21:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

PS: Gmaxwell; whether it's productive or not isn't the point. The point is I've been a disruption here. You, Eloquence, NicholasTurnbull, Kelly, and Tony have all agreed with that (and there's probably more). I am not going to be a disruption here. It's not what I wanted, and it's not what I will do. Since as I said, I've done my best and my best is a disruption here, I'm leaving. Think of it this way; if the best I could do was drive a race car around a track at half the speed of the leaders, I would be disruptive. The right move is to leave. I lack the skills necessary to be a good Wikipedian. It's time to leave.

Goodbye, a thousand times, goodbye. --Durin 21:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

To be very frank Durin, the admins so accusing you are known to be often like-minded, and are held by at least some to be of questionable judgment, including me. They represent themselves only. If you return, and allow the RfC to continue, the community at large is sure to have a more conciliatory view. Xoloz 21:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Even I pointed out above that the larger community will support him... But I think that if Durin can only be happy here if he is permitted to do things his way and never be criticized, then he will indeed be happier with less involvement. It sure sounds like from his response that he will accept no middle ground, that makes me sad but I am very glad that he does know what makes him happy. --Gmaxwell 22:01, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Durin, if you were "a disruption here", which I do not grant, but if you were, it was a disruption for the betterment of the project. Take a break if you must, but please come back when you can. Jonathunder 21:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Rule #1, my friend: Don't sweat the internet. Nothing of consequence will come from this RfC, so let it roll off of you like water, and continue to make your valuable (and valued) contributions. BD2412 T 22:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• Don't let it get to you, Durin! You have been a good Wikipedian, and judging by the response to the RFC so far most people find the criticism on you greatly overrated. Besides, everybody makes mistakes, that doesn't make them disruptive. And dote that Kelly does not and cannot speak for the ArbCom as a whole. Have a beer and come back! Radiant_>|< 00:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• Durin— we've practically just met, I know, but I could see no proof of wrongdoing in Kelly's diffs. I am pretty sure that almost everyone will agree that this was one big misunderstanding. I think you bring a great deal to Wikipedia — as an admin, as an editor, as a person who helps shape the way we think about policy and what it is we're trying to do here. For all of those reasons, pretty please come back?! Jacqui ^★ 00:46, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• I've written in email as well, but I will say it here as well; I'm dismayed that you're leaving over this clash, as though I do not agree with all of the actions you've taken I don't believe your leaving like this is in anyone's best interest. Take a break while the issue is heated if you will, but I do believe it is still possible to resolve, and hope you will reconsider. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• Holy crap. I was away from WP for a few hours, and.. well. The RFC, for what it's worth, is pretty damn ridiculous. It only makes the filers and endorsers look foolish, IMO. Certainly there are those who see things differently, but I hope after whatever period of break you see fit to come back. My personal experience with your edits is that they've been nothing but sensible. You're clearly one of the good guys here. Friday (talk) 01:27, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Long rant, since I now have no other forum to do so

There is no compelling reason for me to return. The current environment in which I have been placed is to do as Kelly Martin says I must do, or leave Wikipedia [12]. There are no options. I would have been willing to consider some compromise regarding some of her demands, but not all. Since there is no wiggle room, I must leave Wikipedia. I find it absolutely absurd that I have been so heavily taken to task for my actions and barely a peep has been raised in protest of Kelly's actions. Indeed, there is more than ample evidence to file an RfC against Kelly. Kelly has also violated my rights on the RfC by forcing my question that I had asked of her off of the RfC main page and on to the talk page. I can just imagine the protest she'd be making if I took to doing the same to her questions (which are heavily polarizing). If I try to move the questions back to the RfC rather than the discussion page, Kelly will accuse me of getting into a revert war. There's no winning this; I've lost any attempt at reasonable conclusion to the RfC. When I asked Kelly to file the RfC I was expecting her to act in a cool, rational manner. Instead I have been the subject of a verbal onslaught by her. In the filing of the RfC she was not neutral, and she has done a marvelous job of controlling the RfC from the get go. She supposedly apologizes for her actions on the RfC but then does not seek to change them an offense that some other editors find me guilty of yet she is not taken to task. Why? Because she's a darling of Wikipedia. She was hand selected by none other than Jimbo Wales to serve on ArbCom. What am I supposed to do in the face of that? I certainly can't file the RfC. If I do, it will be viewed as a bad faith attack against her. So my hands are tied. I don't think anyone else can either; she disdains the RfC process and insulted a person who brought one with her as party. Yet, that's ok...that's perfectly fine. Gosh no we can't find fault with Kelly!

Now, my RfC has become a roast-Durin event with certifiers bringing all manner of unrelated attacks against me and insisting that I must bend or break. Well crap what the hell do you think Kelly is doing? She has offered no compromise and insists that I must leave if I don't agree to her demands.

You know what would bring honesty back to this process? An RfC filed against her. There is blatant, ample evidence to do so. She has violated Wikipedia policy time and time again. She has made a habit of verbally assaulting people. She treats Wikipedia policies as being something she can use to bludgeon others but heaven forbid she should be held to task for making violations of her own. But, she won't be party to such an RfC, so it can't proceed. It will go stale, ignored, dropped, and Kelly will go on acting as she has done before. So, the very process that seeks to resolve this dispute is utterly broken. She won't yield, she won't acknowledge RfCs brought against her, and I must leave Wikipedia or utterly capitulate to her demands. And people are surprised I'm leaving? Good grief. How much ridiculous crap does a person have to put up with before having a valid reason to leave?

Throughout my tenure here I made every attempt to remain civil, polite, and within the bounds of Wikipedia. Today, I became utterly fed up with the processes by which a person who is obviously acting out of so much blatant hatred is supported, condoned, and treated as royalty. I'm sick of it, and against my better judgement in speaking such I find ample reason to consider Kelly a rogue admin and ArbCom member who is not accountable to policy or any reasonable process by which compromise can be reached. I've had it with her. I refuse to deal with her in any respect because of her categorical inability to review herself in anything but a sterling light. She can do no wrong.

For God's sake, I spent two hours developing a reasonable basis on which to oppose Kelly's RfB. I raised a number of very legitimate points. Some people ended up agreeing with the points that I raised. Some of the points I raised would, by themselves, have been enough to vote against an RfA much less an RfB which is held to a higher standard. Yet, I am utterly wrong for raising these points. No, that's just not allowed. I can't post my well founded vote about Kelly because she's beyond review; everyone must like her or else! Prior to my vote there were 8 votes in opposition. Kelly would have had to have received 72 votes in support to clear those votes much less the later oppose votes that had nothing to do with my vote. Yet, she directly...absolutely directly...blames me for her RfB failure. With her obvious, blatant full on verbal onslaught on the RfC how can anyone view that RfC as anything but a retribution against me for voting oppose? Furthermore, if my actions with regards to the original incident were some damn awful, why didn't Kelly file an RfC THEN? She waited nearly two weeks because she was mad that I voted oppose on her RfB. If there were any real basis for her complaint against me on the RfC other than her accusations about her RfB, then it should have been raised two weeks ago...not now.

I am sick of this process. It is blatantly self serving to Kelly, corrupt in initiation and totally without candor. I find no reason to submit myself to such a blatantly false process. Since the appeal process from this goes directly through her and her "trust peers" (as she put it) I have no hope of winning this debate. As I noted previously, even if I "win" I will lose as Kelly will continue to cast aspersions against me as a problem admin.

I don't have to put up with this. Wikipedia has no...zero...legal grounds on which to force me to be party to such ridiculously corrupted affairs.

For the record; I never told Anittas NOT to talk to Mediation Cabal (heaven forbid I should ever set foot in there all-precious territory again). I told Anittas to first attempt to resolve the dispute on the talk page. That had not been done to my knowledge. Others are now inferring it had been done; if so I was not aware of it and in that respect I was in error. Anittas did bring it to the talk page after I requested he do so, and there was some debate that followed. I did not attempt to interfere with MedCab. In fact, I tried to help. Instead, I had the door slammed in my face for violating the hallowed ground of MedCab. I was following policy in advising Anittas of what to do next. For that, I am roundly criticized. Therefore the lesson is that MedCab is more important than policy, and policy can go to hell. Don't do what policy tells you...do what MedCab tells you, and don't you DARE respond to anyone who makes a request at MedCab unless you're part of there little club. They will hunt you down and destroy you for it.

Why am I ranting on like this on my talk page? Because I can't do it on my RfC. The RfC is effectively closed to me. Kelly is controlling my RfC by removing my comments and questions. She has not been held to task for this; in fact nary of peep of complaint has been raised about it except by me. Further proof of the ridiculous non-peer regard she is held in. Yet, I am supposed to come to Wikipedia as true peer on her terms...which means she must be held in high regard, I must abjectly apologize to her for my many faults (apparently virtually all of my contributions), and swear to not do it again.

I came here to Wikipedia with the best of intentions. I have tried my best to do everything I could to improve it. I had dreams of one day being able to influence various processes into productive directions. That influence now is lost. I am now forever marked as a problem admin by a person who is above any restraint, who can not be taken to task for her many faults, who disdains the use of the RfC process against her yet uses it as a bludgeoning tool against me. What impact I had hoped to make is therefore irrecoverably destroyed. She has destroyed my name, my character, and every hope that I had of being a productive member her. Yet, she can't be taken to task for it lest anyone be labeled as slanderous and out to destroy her. For crying out loud, she blatantly violated Wikipedia policy by permanently banning an IP! But noooo...that's ok! That's fine! Kelly was right and just to do that and heaven forbid anyone should vote oppose to her RfB because of it! Noooo...it's because we don't LIKE her that we're voting oppose to her, not because we have any legitimate basis on which to vote oppose. No, that can't possibly be true. Kelly can do no wrong!

There is no way out. As stated, an RfC can not be brought against her. There is no way in which to reach any consensus that her actions have been improper. I can not move. I am trapped. I have no recourse but to either accept her demands or leave Wikipedia.

You know what's sick? The majority of ArbCom is appointed, not voted upon. Think about the effects of that. The community doesn't really have a say in the ultimate resolution of processes. If we dislike the manner in which an ArbCom member is going about their business, we can't say "well the community voted her in". There's no way in which we can seek any remediation if the ArbCom is at fault. There's no avenue of recourse. Why is there no process to vote in temporary holders of positions? It's not like we are wanting for candidates. Instead, we have an appointment process that is above the community of Wikipedia, external to it, and we have no impact on it. This process is out of control. Yet, to raise such issues marks us as being outsiders who should be pushed out of Wikipedia.

Kelly, I imagine you're dancing in glee at the outcome of this spat between you and I. You've managed to destroy a hard working Wikipedian who was doing nothing more than trying to help a user. You're blatant inability to assume good faith, your accusatory tones from the outset, set the stage for this. I was willing to attempt to achieve some sort of compromise on this but your control of the RfC and your inability to consider any compromise other than me capitulating or leaving Wikipedia makes that impossible. God help you Kelly. How you can view this RfC as anything other than a bad faith assault upon me in retribution for your failed RfB (which had NOTHING to do with me) is beyond me.

It is utterly depressing that good faith efforts on Wikipedia end up being so roundly criticized, destroyed, and used to besmirch the reputation of an individual who was doing nothing more than trying to help. God how I wish I hadn't voted on Kelly's RfB now. It would have failed anyway, and she would have had to face up to the reality that people just don't think she's ready to be a bureaucrat. Now, she's come up with the crackpot excuse that it's my fault her RfB failed and she refuses to consider her errors. What supreme arrogance.

Now you just watch. Kelly will come along and using policy as a bludgeon remove these comments off of my talk page or have one of her "trusted peers" (to whom she has told I am a problem admin) do it. She will leave me with no forum to voice my concerns; the RfC will have been effectively controlled and my talk page will have been effectively controlled. I'm already relegated to this poor forum for such. What's next, a ban Kelly? To what absurd lengths beyond which you have already gone will you go to destroy me, eh? Come on Kelly...block me; show us all how right and just you are.

Utterly disgusted, --Durin 03:11, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

And now I've been accused of libel

And now the people who are against me on the RfC are accusing me of libel. There goes another Wikipedia policy up in smoke. I believe Kelly Martin's real name is Kelly Martin. Thus, there would be grounds for a legal suit against me if Kelly were to file it. My real name of course isn't Durin, so I have no grounds for a libel case. If I didn't have ample reason before, with this new legal threat against me I can't continue here. If I raise any additional protest against her it would be potentially part of a case against me. I can't tolerate this threat against me and ultimately my family. If I had any choice before, I certainly have no choice but to leave now. --Durin 03:20, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

No one is going to sue you. Stay calm. (besides, if she did, we'd ban her first, but she won't, so we won't). Kim Bruning 03:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Kim, Kelly has acted in most capricious and vengeful manner. I do not trust her. I know full well she has said she has no intention to sue, but based on her actions I have to believe there is a possibility that it could happen. I have to weight that risk against the welfare of my family. I spoke about this with my wife and she agrees its not worth the risk. I value my family above all things, and Wikipedia is several orders of magnitude down on the importance list. As I said to my wife, "The risk is small, but the danger is all too great". Kelly has acted a number of times against Wikipedia policy and has used it as a bludgeon against myself and others. She disdains attempts to bring her to an RfC. This person is acting in a way that I can not trust. She will not act within the bounds of Wikipedia policy. I have no reason to believe she is being forthright and honest that she will not sue nor do I have any reason to believe she will never do such as a result of this dispute. I can't tolerate this. I have been accused of libel. The threat is real. --Durin 04:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Hey Durin. Man, talk about failing to Assume good faith. ;) Finally in your interactions I see a place where it really makes sense to yell at someone for failing to AGF. Without AGF Wikipedia would become a huge blithering paranoid mess like your post above. ... And even if you can't manage to assume good faith, that fact that she stated that this was nonsense outright [13] should provide some degree of comfort, or at least a nice club for your wife to use to knock some sense into you. --Gmaxwell 04:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for the personal attack Gmaxwell. It really makes me feel better. --Durin 04:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• Why do you think I am attacking your character? You're assuming a wikipedia is out to do you harm, sue you, whatever. It's a matter of fact that you're not assuming good faith! If you're so convinced and unswayable why are you still bothering to respond and further the drama? --Gmaxwell 05:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Hey, just to call it libel is to issue a legal threat - all she is saying is, she won't pursue this, but she believes she has grounds to sue. Couple that with the demands she made and, yeah, I can see where Durin in coming from. Guettarda 04:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Thats not at all the case. The word is used in ordinary english as well, and they are the correct and accurate words to describe Kelly believes has happened. When you write false defamatory remarks, it's called libel. There is no legal threat in there.. Such a legal action wouldn't fly in the US because it's not clear that most of the comments made were entirely outside of the realm of opinion which is required... Generally such cases don't do well in the US for the person bringing the action due to the broad reading of the first amendment. In short, Durin has nothing to worry about.. Please stop feeding the paranoia. --Gmaxwell 05:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

You're a very serious person I see. That's good in some ways I suppose. I'd love to talk with your wife sometime too if she's helping you out :-) This really really really needs to be taken off-wiki and sorted out. I think mindspillage said something to me about emailing you as well. If you don't trust me, maybe mindspillage can be of assistence too. Kim Bruning 04:28, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• When it comes to a threat against me and my family made by a person whom I do not trust, you are absolutely correct. I am very, very serious. I have to be. It's the responsible thing to do. If there were a similar legal threat to Kelly I am sure she would be very careful; she has a daughter to consider. I have children to consider as well. It isn't just me that comes into play here. It's innocent children who could be badly affected. I can't tolerate such a threat. It's bothersome to me that I am now being ridiculed by some for being serious about this. And this, this is Wikipedia? It's not a matter of trusting you or not. The crux of it is that I do not trust Kelly. She has been capricious and disrespectful of Wikipedia policy. Nobody...not one person...is willing to step forward and lay an RfC against her. Well, no, that's not entirely correct. One person did, and she brushed it off refusing to participate, and calling it a "rant". So, I don't trust her, and I don't trust Wikipedia to take appropriate action. There's plenty of material on which to file an RfC against her. The implied legal threat is just the latest in a long string of such actions. But nobody takes her to task for it? It is an absurd process that can think such actions (and lack of actions) are an appropriate management of the situation. I will not allow myself to be a victim of it. If I make any contributions to my RfC that are in opposition to her, it could be viewed as evidence in a libel case that she could bring against me. So, even if she made a promise not to sue me her legal threat is still dramatically affecting the RfC. But, that's ok. No worries. Kelly's all good. Kelly can do no wrong. Afterall, this upstanding trustworthy person said she wouldn't file a lawsuit. Excuse me if I find it completely unacceptable and far too dangerous to do. --Durin 04:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to call you up and explain personally. or vice versa is good too. I'll give you my telephone number per wikipedia email. Kim Bruning 04:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• I appreciate the attempt to come to a reasonable conclusion to this. The problem is, the bare facts are that Kelly feels my statements have been libel against her. I can't continue in this dispute. The only way I currently feel I could continue is for her and I to meet (we both live in Indiana, and it's not a big state) and for her to sign a legal binding agreement not to file suit against me in any jurisdiction based on any interactions I have had with her up to the date of the agreement. Anything less than that would be putting myself and my family at grave risk. Kelly's a former law student. I presume from that she is able to discern what libel is. That's terrifying to me. Based on this, I don't see there being any way forward. --Durin 04:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I've been trying to assume personal responsibility all day, but you seem to have missed all the not-so-subtle hints ^^;; . Hmm, would you LET me already? ;-) If she sues anyone, I'll pay the bills for the defence. Now then could you give me a call or can I call you right now? That'd be good! Kim Bruning 05:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Kim, you don't have to beat me over the head with a clue stick :) I sincerely appreciate your attempts to mediate the matter. The simple fact is this matter has become external to Wikipedia now. The problem isn't just the money, though I appreciate the offer. Libel can be criminal and it can involve prison sentences. I just don't see any way forward in this dispute without Kelly signing something legally binding. I can't contribute to any process in Wikipedia regarding this dispute as such contributions could be used as evidence. It is bothersome to me that this is the case, but it is not of my doing. It is Kelly's legal threat (with promise not to sue or no) that has caused this situation to arise. --Durin 05:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, allright. Would you care to have that phone call anyway. Please? *Puppydog look*, if you like you can hang up in 5 minutes if you don't like the direction the call is taking. Thanks for the congrats by the way :-) Kim Bruning 05:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Um, no, libel can not be criminal, and can not involve prison sentences. Trust me - I am a lawyer (an IP lawyer at that), and libel, slander, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, tortious interference, etc., are part of my bread and butter. Torts, all of them, nary a crime in the bunch. Don't fret about prison, it's not on the table. BD2412 T 05:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks BD2412! :) Very well, that means that my offer is indeed both adequate and sufficient. Durin, please contact me anytime! Kim Bruning 05:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Email

I've emailed you. Please have a look at them. Thanks. Guettarda 03:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Please don't go

Durin... Please don't leave. Don't let a few editors get you down. You have a lot of supporters here at Wikipedia, and this would be a much worse place without you here. You are an invaluable asset to WP. I urge you to reconsider. Perhaps take a few days off and come back. We all need a little time off and perhaps this is your time. If you decide not to come back, please know that a lot of people here appreciate you and your work, and you will be sorely missed. I'm not sure I can say much to console you, but at least I have tried. Thanks for everything. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:06, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Repost in case you missed it

Um, no, libel can not be criminal, and can not involve prison sentences. Trust me - I am a lawyer (an IP lawyer at that), and libel, slander, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, tortious interference, etc., are part of my bread and butter. Torts, all of them, nary a crime in the bunch. Don't fret about prison, it's not on the table. BD2412 T 05:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks BD2412! :) Very well, that means that my offer is indeed both adequate and sufficient. Durin, please contact me anytime! Kim Bruning 05:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Also: Did you get my phone number per e-mail? Kim Bruning 17:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Mistake

With my zero knowledge laws governing libel and slander, I still see that any lawsuit potential is zero...I truly believe that Kelly Martin was simply throwing words out there and she even clearly stated that she did not mean to threaten you with any leagl action. I assume good faith and think that both of you are very valuable contributors here...it is my strong recommendation that you return to Wikipedia and resume your contributions at your convienence. Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help.--MONGO 02:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Good to see you back

Even in a limitied capacity. Just hold your head high and you'll be fine. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:32, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

While it's nice to see you back, it might be an idea to take a step back and look at this somewhat rationally. You made a statement about someone they considered offensive, and they termed it "slanderous" in a manner that was clearly not intended to be of any legal meaning (as has repeatedly been explained to you since if it was not clear enough the first time). Yet, even after changing your userpage, you're still accusing the other person of trying to sue you and carrying on about trying to protect yourself from a lawsuit. I really hate to be harsh, but you're seriously deluded if you think anyone has any intention whatsoever of suing you, and by carrying on in this manner, you're simply making yourself look utterly silly. Ambi 16:10, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you back, too, but I think your statement that "any time that I can devote to Wikipedia will for now be entirely devoted to a recent dispute I have been involved in" is going backwards. I suggest that you devote all of your wikipedia time to adding and improving worthwhile articles. Look at it this way - there are currently 815,692 articles on Wikipedia, and you've only had the chance to work on 2803 of them! BD2412 T 16:52, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

You're also including things outside of the main namespace, these are not articles... Durin has edited 1,717 distinct main namespace pages and only 816 if you exclude pages where he has only made edits tagged minor. --Gmaxwell 22:47, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• I third that. You are a good user, and I'd love to see your help in article improvement or organisation. Focusing on a dispute is no fun, neither for you nor for the rest of us. Radiant_>|< 17:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Durin

As per a general consensus on Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Durin I have archived and locked the pag, should you want this deleted you can list it at Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion as per policy. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 22:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• Since you said you wouldn't be reading it any more, crosspost here. I think this is going too far. It is entirely beyond anybody's authority (save that of Jimbo or an ArbCom decision) to demand that any user in good standing comply with something or else leave the Wikipedia. I would advise both parties against bringing this matter to arbitration. You and Kelly are both good users that have trouble interacting with one another. Fine. So don't interact - it's a big wiki. I appreciate the fact that both sides tried to talk it over, but since this doesn't work now I think both sides would prefer doing something unrelated to the dispute and to each other. That way, I believe everybody'd be happier. Radiant_>|< 23:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• Kelly refused to compromise in the negotiations that we had. It is obvious from her words to me both here and in those negotiations in e-mail, that nothing less than my Wiki-head will satisfy her. Therefore, it is best that it goes to RfAr. It is in her best interest to do so; I have already stated to her that I will not defend myself in the RfAr. In this manner, she can regain her supposedly lost reputation and move forward as the fine, upstanding, faulteless Wikipedian she knows herself to be. Since no compromise is possible, it is best if one of us is destroyed and the other one is held up to be faultless. So, my olive branch and my coffin is offered to her. I do indeed hope that she accepts it, as at least somebody will gain some satisfaction from this. Also, a habit of Wikipedia is to absolutely pile upon any person who is down and destroy them if they can. I submit myself to that process. It may make them feel better. At least, I hope it does. I do so hope that the insults against me continue in every imaginable forum. Since there is no way in which I can effectively change that culture, it is better if it works to its utmost best; just like with holding Kelly up as a fine, upstanding, faultless wikipedian. At least there will be some tangential benefit to the process. If all we did as a consequence of this action was to tear everything down, no good would come from it. I've spoken my mind and my piece to Kelly in private and very hate-filled diatribe against her after the negotiations failed. I have no need of speaking it here. Apparently, Kelly does and would find it cathartic to do so. So, I do hope that she proceeds. It will be a pleasant outcome for me if she does. I've suggested an equitable solution to the RfAr is a one month block against me. Though, in all honesty I expect she'll go for an outright ban of me. I am bemused that Kelly blocked somebody for making a legal threat but that nobody will take action to have her blocked for her continued, unretracted legal threat against me. I used the word "slanderous" in reference to her action against me. I have removed the word and replaced it with "wrong". This was on the RFA talk page (you can see it in the edit histories...too tired to produce the cite now). Kelly still refuses to recant her statements, only assurances that she won't sue. WP:NLT makes it clear this is wrong. Yet, Kelly won't be blocked. No, I don't want you or anyone to pursue this action against her. I would rather it stand out as marked contrast to how some people are treated with contempt here and others are held in different regard and Wikipedia policies do not apply to them. Maybe in my wiki-death there will be some good of this. I wish there were a Wiki hall of fame of disputes. This wouldn't be a record, but it might get in :) I don't claim to have no fault in these proceedings; but I despite attempts at compromise including on the RfC, I have been rebuffed at every opportunity. Speak well of me. Few do now, or indeed are likely ever to. --Durin 23:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to help

• Durin, please try not to get so upset. I've had very little interaction with you, and none with Kelly. Anything I ever saw of you before this unfortunate RfC indicated someone who was calm, courteous, and non-confrontational. I am quite sure that you were blameless in the original problem with the Anittas mediation, and that the response you got was entirely inappropriate. But posting these kind of messages while you're feeling so upset only makes you look worse. You must be aware that since Kelly's RfB failed, the entire Wikipedia community does not think she's perfect. You could come out of this very well, except that you keep shooting yourself in the foot. Believe me, you have support. (I was getting ready to write my own response around the time that the page was protected.) Don't throw that support away. I don't think Kelly ever had any intention of taking legal action, and I don't think anyone intends to ban you. And I do understand how upsetting this must be for you. You have my sympathy, but it's distressing to see you making things worse. Stay calm, and this will sort itself out. Regards, Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 23:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• Ann, thanks for your kind thoughts and words. I fully realize that my comments will apparently make the situation considerably worse for me. But, the situation is already lost and any reasonable conclusion to it is impossible. My reputation on Wikipedia has already been utterly destroyed by Kelly Martin, et al. She launched an all out assault against me beginning with the responses on my RfB vote and culminating in the RfC brought against me. I didn't have the capability to oppose it due to the rampant legal threats by her, and the issue became one that she utterly won. I have nothing to lose now. You can see my recent response to Radiant on his talk page that accurately sums up my current stance on this debate. In quick summary, since both of us are being destroyed by this it is far better if only one of us is destroyed and the other is held in high regard. I therefore prostrate myself before Wikipedia and do now hope that I am utterly assaulted, insulted, and castigated in the hopes that it clears Kelly's name and she can return to being the amazingly gifted editor and wikipedian that she is. A death isn't so bad as it seems. I go home now to get a hug from my wife and daughters (well, at least the one that can hug...the other one just turned 9 months!). That's so much more precious to me than anything Wikipedia. Over the last few days, I lost perspective of that fact. For Kelly, it's far more personal and she's not willing to compromise or concede on anything. That's fine. It's more important to her than it is to me and I can respect that and do. So, she has her day. The rumors of my wiki-death are not greatly exaggerated :) (Well, at least regards any reputation I had...I'm still here but my reputation has been utterly destroyed...it would be an interesting experiment now to see how an RfB for me would go, though I am sure I would be immediately assaulted on it for WP:POINT...it would still be funny!). Be careful about becoming an admin; it's a treacherous, unthanked job that is likely to cost you your wikihead as anything else. --Durin 00:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• Durin, your reputation on Wikipedia has not already been utterly destroyed by Kelly Martin. It has been slightly damaged by her RfC, and slightly more damaged by your reaction to it (as exemplified in the "God Save the Queen" message at the top of this page, which I wish you'd remove). But I stress slightly. There's plenty of your reputation left, and there's no reason why you shouldn't regain it all if you just come back and stay out of Kelly's way. Her reputation has also suffered as a result of her bringing the RfC, as a lot of people saw it as unbecoming in an ArbCom member. She has admitted [14] that she had some problems in her life outside Wikipedia. I think it's unfair to talk about the "rampant legal threats by her". I see absolutely no reason not to take her at her word that she does not and did not intend legal action, and I think – I'm sorry to say this – that you're putting yourself in the wrong by not accepting that. I don't think that Kelly is now doing anything to make it harder for you to come back. But I think the more you write these "God save the Queen" posts, the harder you're making it for yourself. Perhaps take a few days off, enjoy your time with your family, and then come back, and try to avoid Kelly. It doesn't have to be a choice between the destruction of one person and the destruction of two. You've given a lot to Wikipedia. Your RfA showed how much you were respected. As far as I know, you were never involved in any unpleasantness until you got the "appalled" and "officious" messages. I'm really sorry that this has happened, and, while I certainly won't speak for people I don't know, I can't really imagine that either Kelly or Nicholas is feeling very comfortable right now about what has happened. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 03:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea what this dispute is about, but I hope something can be worked out. My experience dealing with you has been entirely positive.

—wwoods 08:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Disagree

Well, if as you assert Kelly is not satisfied except if you leave, then let her be not satisfied. If no compromise is possible, then rather than destroying one another you two could leave each other be. It's a big wiki. Did you read the RFC and see that most of the reactions were in support of you? There is no pile-on to you. Ten people directly objected to Kelly's summary. Thirteen people claimed she took it too personally. Ten people said that both parties should tone down their comments a bit. Eighteen people said they hoped both would overcome the dispute and return to editing the 'pedia. There is no pile-on. There is no cabal. There is an unfortunate dispute and it's a fact of life that some people don't get along. And there are people that want you here. And there are people that want her here. And by far the most people want you both here, and that's certainly possible without running into one another. Radiant_>|< 23:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• Radiant, I attempted to offer a compromise in negotiations that would result in us leaving each other be. This included not voting on any RfBs of any other election that any of us were party to, and not speaking in any negative terms regarding any of the parties to the dispute in any forum. Kelly treated this with disdain, and re-laid heavy unreasonable demands upon me. So, it's obvious that she will refuse to let me be and will still seek to insult me whenever it suits her to do so, whether it be here, IRC, or any other forum. How am I supposed to proceed when a person who is an admin, a member of ArbCom hand picked by Jimbo no less and by her own testament a "prominent wikipedian" refuses to not make negative comments about me while I make none about her? You might not think there is a pig pile, but I assure you there is. Kelly refuses to not stay out of my way when I offered to stay out of her way. She treated such a suggestion as bunk, with disdain, and contempt. So, I can then expect she will continue to hound me. Better that I am destroyed and her held up than such a situation continue. As responded to above to Ann, I go home now to hug my family. That is far more important than Wikipedia. Again as noted, I lost that perspective. To Kelly, she doesn't have the perspective that anything Wikipedia is unimportant; it's very personal to her. That's fine; we all have our priorities. But, putting my reputation up against hers is not a worthwhile comparison; I care orders of magnitude less about mine than she does about hers. I remind you her use of the word "slander" in the RfC 7 times that has still not been retracted and a bunch more times on the talk page (and the use of "libel"). She still refuses to retract these things. Her wikipedia reputation is central to her, it is very important. That really is fine. I don't want to see her destroyed. Since the death of my wikireputation might help that, and since it's happening anyways, why not put it to good purpose in the hopes that Kelly will feel vindicated and triumphant? Obviously it's of far more important to her than to me.
• This whole event has destroyed my faith that Wikipedia is a self healing system. The dispute resolutions processes are badly managed. The RfC was very obviously brought in bad faith, yet it was allowed to be presented and maintained. Why no oversight? When I made the incredibly bad error of stepping into WP:TINMC, I was immediately assaulted for it by two members of that seld described cabal. Why no oversight? There also is no oversight over ArbCom. I begged, pleaded, tried desperately to get ArbCom to reverse a horribly wrong decision with regards to an RfA that ArbCom forced upon the community. It took massive efforts on my part and that of others to get ArbCom's cumbersome wheels to even begin considering that there might have been an error. That travesty went on for days while ArbCom stood by and did nothing. Furthermore, the majority of ArbCom is appointed by Jimbo not elected. We can also not call special elections to replace an ArbCom member who is acting badly out of line. Nothing can happen to that person; they have wiki-immunity. There's no oversight in these processes to control them from getting way out of hand. My RfC alone is absolute testament to that.
• I sincerely appreciate everyone's supportive and neutral comments on my RfC. I really do. But, the fact is, it doesn't matter. Kelly sought to destroy me and she did just that; the RfC was just a sword used by her against me and used very effectively at that. She insulted me, made demands of me, removed my comments from the RfC in a blatant attempt at managing the process against me...and NOTHING happened to stop it. If I had personally stepped in to undo it she would have cried like a stuck pig. I chose not to to help buttress my case that she was out of line; but nobody came to the rescue and said "Yes, this is wrong". Instead, Kelly got off scott free and nothing came of it. Nothing. Still, to this moment days later...NOTHING has happened to Kelly. The system is badly broken. I can't fix it, and no single person can. It is far better that I wiki-die as a victim of it and Kelly is held up to be faultless and good so that some good comes of it. I can make no other good come from it. So, I accept my wiki-punishment and let the chips fall where they may. I just don't care enough. Kelly does. --Durin 00:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • And nothing has happened to you either, except the wounds which you keep inflicting on yourself. Perhaps the community has not zotted Kelly as you seem to think would be done in an idea world because, maybe, just maybe, you are not entirely in the right yourself. Please cut the drama. We'd like you to continue editing which in the past you appeared enjoy... But this isn't possible unless you find the courage to stop the histrionics and the simplistic assertion that you are purely right and she is purely wrong. As it stands now you've entirely stopped contributing to the project and all your editing is just furthering discontent here. --Gmaxwell 01:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Your RFC

I have reverted and reprotected the page on your RFC since it has been delisted and archived and therefore should not be editted anymore. You should still continue your discussions on the talk page though. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 06:04, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Huh?

Now, before I start, I have not read the RfC against you. It would literally be a travesty to lose you on Wikipedia. Let's look at some things you're good at. RfA immediately springs to mind. Your nomination of User:Cryptic was incredibly well-crafted and obviously had a lot of time put into it. I was very impressed. Secondly, your edit summary/edit overview charts and statistics. They are always very useful and make people's lives as voters on RfA much easier: I'm certainly grateful.

Next we have your friendliness and sense of humour. Whenever asked a question, you are always polite and couteous in the response, even if it's another one of those darn stats requests!

Finally, your actual encyclopedaic contributions. They are always thorough, thought-through and have depth. As a result, you're comments have weight. You've got the experience and you deserve to use it. Please don't leave. We need many more people like you - so we don't want to lose this shining example of a Wikipedian. Please reconsider - as was said above, it's a big wiki. Plenty of room not to interact with eachother. :) Cheer up, eh? --Celestianpower ^háblame 09:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• I can in good conscience no longer nominate people for admin for two reasons:
  • Since becoming an admin I've learned that being an admin places you in the line of fire of a number of people. It is a form of russian roulette. Eventually, because of the fact you are an admin, a hailstorm of grief will befall you. The admin will be badly misinterpreted, judged out of context, and treated in very harsh terms. No, I'm not just referring to myself, though my recent events fall into this category certainly. I've seen this happen several, several times. I had thought before that it was a kind if isolated phenomena, but now I am not so certain. I don't feel that I can gladly nominate someone knowing that if they accept and are given admin tools that such circumstances will be visited upon them. It's kind of like being say a major in the army. You need to field promote a highly qualified sargeant to be in charge of a platoon. You know with reasonable certainty that this individual is going to suffer a lot more grief as a result of the promotion than if they just stayed a hard working sargeant. Well, Wikipedia isn't war. People have real lives that are being affected outside of Wikipedia. We're tossing admins into the breach of vandalism as if it's a reasonable solution. It isn't. We're destroying people in the name of preserving Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs to evolve to handle vandalism in better ways, not by destroying people to stem the ever increasing tide.
  • As a result of recent events, there will be a number of people whom I feel will vote oppose to any candidate I put forther just because I did the nominating. I won't allow someone to suffer the consequences of such behaviors.
• Second, my edit summaries and other RfA stats/charts have been questioned in the past. Nevertheless, I felt comfortable producing them because several people found them useful and there have been a number of direct requests for them. Recently, I've come under heavy, vindictive fire for producing them, even though I try very hard to produce them in as unbiased a way as possible. The core issue here is happiness; people are happy when the stats show what they want them to show. People are upset when they don't. The stats don't lie; there's really not much questioning of whether or not a person used an edit summary or not. If there are 100 edits and on those 37 had edit summaries then it's 37%. But, the result of that number is people getting very upset at me. I don't really like the hail storm of hatred that's been repeatedly visited upon me nor do I wish to go on defending myself on the issue. If I do continue (which I am quite loathe to do so at this point), it will be something like how Kate manages his tool; I will not answer comment. No defense. If people don't like the stats, tough. The sad thing to me is that I was seeing an improving trend in people under 2,000 edits making it to admin status. In sum, despite that happening, I've been attacked repeatedly. I don't see why I should suffer such for work that has been put forward with the best of intentions.
• My friendliness and sense of humor doesn't matter. I've observed (not referring to any specific behavior by any specific user) repeatedly that people see a particular action on Wikipedia and take no account of a person's history as an editor. You could be a user of 20 years with 2,000,000 edits and if they don't know your name (and let's be honest; with >570,000 users nobody knows more than 1% of users) and do not like what you've done, a significant subset (majority?) of people will assume the worst and attack you. There is no short leash for such behavior. There is no consequence for it. People are to accept it with equanamity or suffer a long, drawn out controvery over it from which improvement in Wikipedia is rarely a result. So, while I will continue to approach Wikipedia as I have before in terms of conveying my personality as it almost always is, I'm now far more realist in knowing that it doesn't matter; no amount of sterling behavior will make the slightest bit of difference. I will be attacked again in the future. If the grounds for such attack are faulty and with malice, I will ignore it. I think that's the best policy now.
• My edits to Wikipedia, from the long view, do not matter. As I said in accepting my own RfA, I'm an eventualist. Somebody will get to whatever it was I could have done and did not do. I feel that because of recent events, my edits are going to come under extremely close inspection. I don't mind the inspection, in fact I welcome it. It will be interesting to see what reaction my future edits and actions as an admin cause. I think in the long run here, it doesn't really matter whether you have the best intentions or not. We'll see. --Durin 15:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes

Welcome back, you seem rested.  ;-) --hydnjo talk 15:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Response to your response

Sadly, I disagree with you on some of your points.

First, you say "My friendliness and sense of humour do not matter". That is not true. They matter a lot to the users who interact with you for the right reasons - to discuss articles or generally build community spirit. Improving the encyclopedia is exceedingly difficult without these qualities in users.

Then you say "My edits to Wikipedia, from the long view, do not matter". On one level, you're right. Eventually, your edits will be no more - overwritten with better information ...etc... But, if nobody makes good edits now, two things will happen. Most obviously, the encyclopedia won't grow. Secondly and most importantly in my opinion, the numbers of people using Wikipedia as an information source will stop increasing and possibly/probably/certainly decrease. They will go away due to misinformation, typos ...etc... This can't be good for anyone as we are trying to build the best encyclopedia in the world.

When you say "As a result of recent events, there will be a number of people whom I feel will vote oppose to any candidate I put forther just because I did the nominating." - this will not last forever. I, along with many, many others, will support because you did the nominating. You are easily, hands down the best nominator out there and you really have gained my respect (and I guess plenty of other peoples) because of this.

Also "being an admin places you in the line of fire of a number of people" - not to everyone. Granted, I've not been an admin for long but I've never had anything like this. I believe that cases like this (and yours) are in the minority.

I see that you're feelings over this are very deep. I really do hope that you or others find a way of resolving this. I hope you'll discover why you joined in the first place. And I hope that's soon. I am certainly not the only one who would miss you, should you leave. :) --Celestianpower ^háblame 15:32, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back

Welcome back, for a moment though I think we lost you.... =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

For goodness sake, hope you're not put off the project. Your work to prevent this sort of distressing argument affecting RfA discussions is invaluable, and without studying the case in detail it seems evident that reconciliation with assurance to you of no repercussions is appropriate and needed. Good luck to all of us, ...dave souza 00:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Greetings from the United Federation of Planets

Hi, I noticed a graph on User:Redwolf24's user page and he told me to talk to you for a similar one on my userpage. :) Thanks. --Cool Cat ^Talk 00:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry for the delay; I've done the graph for you. Your use of edit summaries is 28% overall. First 500 edits was 25%, last 500 was 39%. Your average edits per day is 49, and stable (not changed much since July or so). Your peak # of edits on a given day was 327 on April 1, 2005. You've had eight other days in excess of 200. You have contributed something on 85% of the days available since you started editing on February 4, 2005. I conclude; you're a nutcase and need psychological help for your addiction. More serious medical symptoms may set in with kidney failure due to not going to the bathroom when your body demands, acid reflux due to not eating, severe loss of weight due to same, severe repetitive stress symptoms most notably in the hands and wrists, and early onset of arthritis most likely in the wrists. I won't give you any more charts until the twitching stops. :) All the best, --Durin 15:12, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Back

That was... interesting ... I hope you're still online :-) Kim Bruning 16:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

... interesting ... as in "may you live in interesting times"? --hydnjo talk 16:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Re:Leaving Wikipedia

I did notice this edit and despite our differences in the past, I truly side with you in this conflict. You have done nothing but behave in a very civil manner, and for some one to file an RfC on you is ludicrous. I have decided not to edit here much per se either, I see no point in it anymore. Encyclopedist M ! 19:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit Summaries

Before you go, if you do, which I hope not, what is my current edit summary % usage...I have slight editcountitis :).Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Use of edit summaries overall is 50%. First 500 was 27%, last 500 was 69.2%, and last 200 was 65%. Sorry for the delay. --Durin 15:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear...

I hope this does not mean you have left again. Tis a shame. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Speedy Admin Noms

Wow, maybe we should propose it, eh? Thanks again for the information. Karmafist 00:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• Due to the rancor currently surrounding RfA, it's unlikely any such proposal would gain consensus at this time. I think the probable best course of action at this point is to let it get so bad that it's blatantly obvious we need a change to the system. Besides, the tripling of admin noms just might be an aberration. Who knows? --Durin 00:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I disagree, I think the rancor may help the proposal considering that people are unhappy with the way things are going in rfa and they'd be willing to try something new -- the trick would be either harnessing the group think mentality(i.e:editcountitis) or avoiding it from going against the proposal. Unfortunately, I have too much on my plate to pursue it avidly right now. Karmafist 00:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit analysis chart per your request

Sorry for the delay; I've done the graph for you. Your use of edit summaries is 28% overall. First 500 edits was 25%, last 500 was 39%. Your average edits per day is 49, and stable (not changed much since July or so). Your peak # of edits on a given day was 327 on April 1, 2005. You've had eight other days in excess of 200. You have contributed something on 85% of the days available since you started editing on February 4, 2005. I conclude; you're a nutcase and need psychological help for your addiction. More serious medical symptoms may set in with kidney failure due to not going to the bathroom when your body demands, acid reflux due to not eating, severe loss of weight due to same, severe repetitive stress symptoms most notably in the hands and wrists, and early onset of arthritis most likely in the wrists. I won't give you any more charts until the twitching stops. :) All the best, --Durin 15:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Arigato gozaimasu, yea I am somewhat addicted. Graph says it all :D --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 18:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

WP:RFC survey

I've set the ball rolling for a WP:RFC survey to start, discussion is on the GRFA talk page. Please comment. Borisblue 04:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Bringing home old edits

Greetings, Durin! Is there a way to merge my anonymous contributions into my existing edit contribution history? I've confirmed over two dozen anon edits that were mine by identifying articles I started, beginning with this cluster of edits, followed by these,another cluster, these,this, and this. Cheers! BD2412 T 04:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• No, there's no method for doing that at this time. Like you need more credits to your name :) --Durin 13:25, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I was a'feard a' that - but someday the technology will exist... BD2412 T 14:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Age

Sorry if I caused offence with the comment on Jarth's RfA. No offence meant. The Land 16:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for the apology. I removed age as a criteria for my nominating someone (not voting for or against someone) about a month ago. I realized it was in error, especially when juxtaposed with a comment I made that people who vote on edit counts are off base. I said something along the lines of that a person at 1999 edits not having the qualities needed to be an admin while at 2000 they suddenly do is absurd. It's equally absurd that a person of 24 years 364 days would be someone I'm not comfortable nominating while someone 24 years and 365 days is. The clock strikes midnight and suddenly they're golden? I was wrong. The rest of my standards for nominating (not voting) take care of any issues that might come about because of immaturity. Some people age 10 are more mature than some people aged 50. My actual voting standards are really pretty low. I'd quite happily vote for someone with 200 edits if I otherwise thought them worthy. Have a look at my comments on Wikiwoohoo's RfA, who had 147 edits at time of his first nomination. --Durin 16:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

GRFA

No one is going to give in on this issue, so MfD may be the appropriate course of action. As long as you have the subpage, we can always direct people there, sort of like Zzyxz's RfA records page. I don't really know what to do, but I am getting tired of trying to defend this. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Ambi's refusing to listen or compromise. He still insists it's my page, my standards. Suggesting I should be strung from a flagpole isn't exactly helpful. He insists on revert warring the article to the way he wants it, which is gutted and meaningless. You might as well give a would-be nominee a map to a minefield and say "Oh don't worry; we've cleared all the mines out!". I am fed up with his intransigience and unwillingness to discuss things in any reasonable form. The guide was going very well prior to him and Tony showing up. Now, they insist on having it their way even though their way disagrees with the bureaucrats. It's utterly ridiculous. Ambi was clearly flirting with 3RR, attacking people, and is pushing POV. Tony's been a bit better, but his rash removal of large sections of the guide without discussion was wholly unwarranted and poor behavior. I'd like to get a lot more contributors on RfA involved in this; maybe with 99% of people opposing what they are saying they'll finally relent. If we look at the number of people who have edited this article and not removed the numbers, standards, etc. vs. Ambi+Tony, it's pretty clear already what community consensus is but Tony and Ambi are ignoring that along with ignoring what the bureaucrats have said. Also, as I noted on the GRFA talk page, userfying the page is useless. A number of people, including Tony and Ambi, will not tolerate the guide as a userpage being linked into RfA where it needs to be linked in order to get it in front of the people who need it most. So, it's either as a Wikipedia page or nothing. For now, I'm just going to ignore the guide. I don't need the stress, and it doesn't matter what I say because Ambi ignores it and will revert anything I do anyways. The guide's been hijacked by him to serve his purposes. Anyone standing in his way will get reverted. *shrug* It's not the end of the world. --Durin 19:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I know this whole thing has been an awful mess. We have good editors (Admins for the most part) acting in a matter unbecoming of a good Wikipedia editor. If not MfD, then what about a real Request for Comment? Then we might be able to gauge consensus better (even though I am not sure it already hasn't been fairly noted). I would hate to have this escalate, especially considering your recent, already-touchy RfC experience. We'll figure something out. See you around I guess. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Where do I best lodge my support for the guide? I think it's a brilliant idea (and sadly, necessary). From what I've seen of the talk page, I agree with you totally. --Celestianpower ^hablamé 19:24, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• I don't have an answer. If you want to contribute to the article or it's talk page, feel free. I think it's a lost cause as Ambi has hijacked the article and is refusing to allow changes he doesn't like. --Durin 23:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Duncharris

Hi Durin. I am contacting you regarding a recently filed RFC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Duncharris. I opened this channel of discussion as a means to resolve serious issues of incivility which were unresolvable through direct discussion with the subject of the RFC. As an outside third party, would you please review this discussion and share your perspective at your convenience? Thank you, Silensor 19:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for the invite. With the holiday coming up, I might not be able to respond in a timely manner. I will attempt to do so, but no promises. --Durin 23:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Exicornt.jpg

Hi, Durin. I understand You tagged this image for deletion because their is no source. It might be possible to remove the image and redirect users to the other image since this one is a duplicate. I am letting You know that You can find this image on another wikipedia page: Rail switch EddieSegoura 13:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I moved this over from your user page. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:27, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit summary stats / Edit count graph request

Hey - I'd like updated edit summary statistics and an edit statistic graph like you've done for others - Thanks! --Randy 01:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• I've created the chart at Image:RandyJohnston-edits.png. Your use of edit summaries overall is 72%. Last 500 edits is 96.6%. --Durin 14:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Request for nomination

Hi Durin, I had corresponded with you sometime last month about my usage of edit summaries. I'd like you to consider me against your nomination standards for RfA and let me know if I pass muster. If you believe that I am good enough to be nominated by you, please look at User:Gurubrahma/Archive01, where, as a rough draft, I had answered the questions that are asked on a RfA. It'd be great if you can nominate me, as a nomination by you implies due diligence from you, which means a lot. I'd understand if you cannot nominate me, so please feel free to say so. My edit counts have been balanced in several namespaces and my edit summary usage has been ~ 99%. This time, I'll have your page on watchlist, so you can reply here. In case you plan to nominate me, Pl. do so by 30th evening/ 31st morning as I foresee hectic activity on personal front after December 8th. Thanks a lot, --Gurubrahma 10:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

just noticed your "to my IRC Fans" edit. I do not know what exactly transpired. However, I've interacted with you and I've observed you - and to keep it simple, I trust your judgement. I'm all the more convinced that you should nominate me. "Satyameva jayate" - "Truth alone triumphs." --Gurubrahma 10:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• I appreciate your faith in me at this juncture more than you can imagine. In a very small nutshell, I had a falling out with two other admins, one of whom is on ArbCom and another who is head of WP:TINMC. The genesis can be read at User_talk:Durin/archive#TINMC and User_talk:Durin/archive#User:Anittas.2C_Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal. After those exchanges, I presumed the matter complete. One of the admins then made an application for bureaucrat, on which I voted oppose. The admin took great offense and presumed that I was making a revenge vote. Discussion spilled over to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_39#Two_Proposals, and an RfC against me resulted. The dispute became very, very ugly. Compromises and terms for concluding the debate were offered, and ultimately rejected. The last of it was an attempted brokering of a peace treaty of sorts.
• Since that incident, now >2 weeks in the past, I continue to be insulted on IRC. While I do not participate in IRC, I do log communications there. Those who are against me do not like this behavior, yet I am not the only logging user there nor is the communication there in a private forum; it is available for all Wikipedia users. Little has changed since the RfC closed and the settlement agreements failed. I have taken pains to not interact with or refer to either of the original disputants against me. However, there remains a group of friends of theirs that continue to hound me on IRC. I am quite certain that they would prefer I either not participate in anything outside of the article space (i.e., the community in essence) or leave Wikipedia entirely. I know for a fact they would rather I not participate in RfA at all. They continue to believe I have insanely high standards for voting on RfAs, despite my demonstration of proof otherwise. At this point, they are willfully misconstruing information that I have presented.
• As I previously noted (see part starting with "I can in good conscience no longer nominate people..."), I am quite reluctant to nominate people at this time. The reasons stated remain. If you want me to nominate you, I am willing. However, I want you to understand that there may be several people who vote in opposition to you simply because I nominated you. Further, I want you to understand that there is likelihood that as an admin you will come under fire simply for taking care of your responsibilities as an admin. If you accept these possible outcomes, then yes, I will nominate you if I feel you pass my nomination standards. I've not done the review yet, as it takes about two hours to do and would be wasted effort if you no longer want to accept a nomination from me. All the best, --Durin 13:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I presume you mean "irc"? Guettarda 15:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I've corrected appropriately above. --Durin 15:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Hi Durin, I've gone through the above in some detail. I had previously followed some of this on WP:RFA, but I did not know the exact context and the full details. On your RfC, comments have been by and large, in favor of the stand espoused by you (though some people do not seem to understand the context in which you supposedly interfered with the cabal). I've not interacted with Kelly Martin yet, but I am sure that she'd also be thinking of the issues raised in your rfc, just as you would be. Iron becomes steel only when it passes through fire. We all know that we have a life outside Wikipedia; still, we spend time here because we believe it is worth spending our time here. I was told something in childhood - If someone accuses you, you don't have the right to react if the accusations are true; You don't need to react if the accusations are untrue. However, we face dilemmas precisely because life is neither black nor white, but grey. I surely want a nomination from you if I meet your standards (and I'm sure that you'll let me know where exactly I'm not meeting your standards, if I'm not meeting them). It is okay if someone votes oppose just because you nominated me - I guess I am mature enough to realise that their vote is not a reflection on me (or you, for that matter). I accept all the possible outcomes - if I get elected as an admin, good; even if not, I hope to have found yet another friend in you. You show a lot of trust by closely watching and nominating people for admin positions; it is time for one of such people to repose his trust in you by asking you to nominate him. So, please review my edits and let me know if you can nominate me. Regards, --Gurubrahma 18:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for being willing to move forward despite that dispute. I'll begin my review now. As I noted, reviews take roughly two hours to complete. I might not have all the time that I need right at this moment, but should have more later on today. I think I can get the review done before midnight UTC. You can help; is there anything in your actions that you feel others would view as negative? If so, please provide cites to them. Keep watching here; I may have more questions for you. --Durin 18:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Hi, it is past bedtime here, so I may leave shortly. My answer to Q.3 on User:Gurubrahma/Archive01 and my interactions with that user may be viewed by some as negatively. Also, my user page may be a good starting place (though it needs updation on some of my latest contribs). Please take your time - I should be back positively by 1000 IST (Indian Std Time), i.e. 0430 UTC. Another reason I find Wikipedia fascinating is that we work across cultures and time zones, seamlessly and effortlessly. --Gurubrahma 19:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• re-indenting Have you been active in either of Wikipedia:Cleanup or Wikipedia:RC Patrol? I'm through with the "quick" part of my review; things look good so far. My only concern was a slow (one a day) series of reverts undoing edits by an anon editor on the Sania Mirza article. I think your actions were proper, but some might view that as edit warring. I think the only thing I would have done differently would have been to leave a message on the anon's talk page inviting them to discuss the changes on the article's talk page, as your edit summary recommends. --Durin 20:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• Ok, I've just run out of time tonight. I'm nearly complete with the review, but it's going to take a bit more time to put everything together. I'll get back to this (my) tomorrow morning, around 14:00 UTC. I think I can put together the nom by 15:00 UTC. --Durin 23:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Hi, I haven't been involved in Cleanup apart from cleaning up a couple of articles and tagging a couple of articles for cleanup. I've been on RC patrol now and then; In fact, that is how I discovered that a user called me bastard on some other user's talk page (ref. Answer to Q.3 on my archive). However, my being active on RC patrol has often been determined by the speed of a slow net connection :( - 'coz more often than not, by the time I revert, I find that it has already been done by an admin or a user with a faster connectivity. In such cases, I'm sometimes lucky to be able to leave a {{subst:test}} message on a usertalkpage whose vandalism has been reverted by someone else. :) I also make it a point to check the other contribs of that user or IP to see for other instances of vandalism and revert them - I've experienced more success there as it is not a function of speed of connectivity. I do believe that a rollback button wd increase my productivity.
• Sania Mirza - While I considered placing a message on the IP's talkpage, I almost always noticed the changes a long time after they were made; it appeared that other users were also using the same IP - hence, I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to post a msg. there rather than talkpage. FWIW, I reverted copyvio by the same IP on Asaduddin Owaisi (with details on its talk page) and the IP has been using non-standard spellings there as well and was reverted by other editors. Oh, just noticed before clicking the save, this user has gone ahead and changed the spelling to a non-standard one on Salwar Kameez and has been reverted. btw, 1500 hrs UTC for nomination seems fine as it wd be 2030 hrs here and I can be around for around 3 hours to answer the questions from voters today and can answer the rest tomorrow. --Gurubrahma 07:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Ok, I'm working on wrapping up the nomination. I've had to do some backtracking as I accidentally didn't save a file I was working on for the nomination and exited it, losing ~30 minutes of work. I just noticed this edit of yours. It's interesting, and may generate some debate. I think your position is correct; ~150 vs. ~7,000,000 hits on the Google test swings very strongly in your favor, but the comment about consensus vs. credibility may generate some debate. Just be prepared to answer it. --Durin 14:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• this explains why you have just 28 edits on the Telugu wiki :) I was wondering about that. --Durin 14:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Man, you really do a fine job in sifting through the edits (this is abt my edits on Telugu wiki). Yes, I thought about my edit on Rholton's talk page. I'm ready and prepared to answer it. btw, let me know if my answers to the rfa questions are ok. Thanks for everything, Durin. --Gurubrahma 15:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Aah, just noticed the e-mail that you sent 19 hours ago. thought I'll let you know. I believe there is a question on Wikipediholic test abt using watchlist more than e-mail - I'll hv to answer "yes" the next time if I take the test again. Last time, I think I answered "no." --Gurubrahma 16:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• :) Thanks for seeing the e-mail. I'm crafting the RfA nom now. I need a clarification for he/she use; are you female or male (or neither/inbetween :) )? --Durin 16:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• )) Joys of working on the net, as in one cartoon, a dog tells another - no one on the net knows you're a dog! I am a male and I think so are you. btw, u seem to hv forgot signing in for the last question - me thinks you got carried away with the (or neither/inbetween :) )? bit. --Gurubrahma 16:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• thanks a ton, Durin. No need to apologise for the delay, it wd have only improved the standards of your nomination. Am yet to see it, as I was trying to communicate with an anon IP who inadvertently seems to be in a position to carry an edit war on Nelson Mandela. Just left a message on the anon IP's talkpage. I think I'll take around 15-20 mins to accept the nomination. I've already gone through the process on what to do if I get nominated, so I hope to accept it within 20 mins. How long (in UTC time) are you around? I guess I'll be around for another two hours. --Gurubrahma 17:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'll be around until 19:00 UTC. Then, I'll be gone for much of the rest of my day, though I will check back in around 00:00-02:00 UTC. --Durin 17:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• re-indenting Just gone through your nomination and it is really great - even a self-nom wd not have covered such ground. Thanks a ton, Durin. Words fail me in expressing my thanks to you. btw, a suggestion though - my own count of reverts and test messages came to 150 (I may be wrong though); you may not want to stress on it or want to replace it with edit summaries bit. I'll be accepting the nomination shortly. Thanks again. --Gurubrahma 17:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• My scans came up with 500+. It might be incorrect; you tell me. The way I arrived at the figure was searching for "rmv" (178 entries), "revert" (6), "rvv" (82), and "rv" (220, not including the 82 for rvv). This totals 486...almost 500. I'll correct. I made a math error earlier. If you think the 486 is still in error, why? --Durin 17:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
• I added the information on edit summaries. Everything looks in order. Go ahead and post it on WP:RFA when you're ready. --Durin 18:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• I've posted it on RfA - some time diference of 16 minutes, shouldn't matter much. I almost changed the date ending to 5th December (I forgot for an instant that November has only 30 days). Your count of reverts must be correct, 'coz I forgot to include "rmv"s in my calculations. *sits with his fingers crossed* Thanks for every thing, Durin. --Gurubrahma 18:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• And already it has seven support votes. Wow! Looks like it'll sail through with no problems. I think you can sleep easy tonight in Bangalore :) --Durin 18:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Clemson University and University of South Carolina

I've been getting into some discussion with an anonymous user on both of these articles, and would appreciate some involvement from other editors. If you'd care to help, do check out the Talk pages for both. Thanks. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 07:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Evilphoenix, thanks for the invite. I doubt I can get to it today, as my wiki-time is currently taken by developing an RfA nom for Gurubrahma (see previous section above). --Durin 15:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Your feedback

Heh - thanks. I'll try better next time. By the way, no problem whatsoever. I never lost faith in your brilliance as a Wikipeddian!!! --Celestianpower ^hablamé 18:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit count graph

Hi! I'm turning to you with a request, if you don't mind and have some spare time, if you could do edit count graph on my contribs and my' bot's contribs on Slovene Wikipedia. TIA! Regards, --Klemen Kocjancic 10:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• Klemen, you've got a huge number of edits over a short time span. Your bot has as many (or more) than 10,000 edits on a single day. I don't think my graphs would serve you very well. I recommend you contact User:RobyWayne who has a similar (though larger) capability to do these graphs. He might be able to help you. Have a look at User:RobyWayne/Sandbox. All the best, --Durin 20:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering if you could do me a graph for edits (Like User:Cool Cat's). If you haven't the time, no worries, and there is no rush. Thanks. --FireFox 09:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• Done. See Image:FireFox-edits.png. Your use of edit summaries is 85% overall, 97.4% over last 500 edits. Your average # of edits per day is 40.48. If you stopped using Wikipedia, I estimate it would take 8.3 days for the uncontrollable urges and tremors to go away, assuming appropriate treatment. Without treatment, you're likely to end up being a homeless bag man sitting just outside the property line of your local Wal-Mart with a sign that reads "will code xhtml for food". --Durin 20:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• Heh, thanks. FireFox 17:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Durin... might I suggest making the instructions on how you do the graphs more visible. Then people could do it on their own and not have to keep asking you. Just a thought. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• I've had a few people attempt to follow what I had already created. The instructions pretty closely match what I do to create them. It wasn't enough for most people to master. What I need to do is to modify the spreadsheet to make it trivially easy for people to do, and upload the spreadsheet somewhere so people can use it directly. --Durin 15:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• Durin, if I were to quit Wikipedia (ouch, that thought makes my head hurt, but...) how long do you suppose it would take for the pangs, spasms, night sweats, and flashbacks to pass? BD2412 T 20:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• You? You'd die in writhing agony. :) 74 supports in less than 24 hours. I wonder if you'll crack 200? That's not idle speculation. You'll crack 100 easy. --Durin 20:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Reference desk

Hi Durin! It seems that your question on the reference desk has generated a number of responses. I hope you'll find them useful. --HappyCamper 01:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Greetings...

Just wanted to note that I'm glad to see you've come back to editing, as I note you've popped up on my watchlist a few times; I still don't always agree with you, but I'm happy to have been wrong about thinking you wouldn't return. (Also, you *do* nominate good admin candidates.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 02:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Fully agree, have been occasionally noting troubling comments as on your talk page, but haven't got my act together till now. Hoping that your efforts to make RfA a saner operation will soon bear fruit, will try to find time to contribute.....dave souza 18:07, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous contributor's rant

Arpingstone, that must have been said from some sort of zen-like yoga position whilst sitting on top of a mountain :) Nicely done!
Thank you for your amusing comment at User talk:Arpingstone (copied above). I had considered an angry reply or perhaps to simply delete. I decided that I might be able to embarrass the contributor by replying seriously. However I don't expect he/she will ever see my reply! - Adrian Pingstone 15:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Huh?

I didn't edit anything... Why am I getting threatened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.235.102.2 (talk • contribs)

• Please see [15]. Users of this IP have frequently vandalized articles, as the talk page associated with the IP shows. If in fact you are not the person engaging in vandalism, my apologies. I recommend you sign up for an account. All the best, --Durin 14:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"Editcountism"

Cool cat, My vote on Luigi30's RfA has nothing to do with how many edits he has. I personally wouldn't care if he had half the edits that he has. I really wouldn't. What concerns me is a very significant lack of involvement in the project. There are a broad spectrum of people who are involved in Wikipedia. Some are serious wikiholics, like User:BD2412. Some barely contribute, making just an edit here or there every few months or so. Outside of the users who edit once or twice and disappear, everyone is somewhere along that spectrum. A number of people, myself included, feel that being very close to the low activity end of the spectrum is bad for an admin. There are a number of reasons for this.

Emblematic of one of those reasons; Luigi, in response to critics of his low activity level, has had a surge today in activity. But, in at least two instances he has not followed procedure. He placed a copyright violation notice on Tarrytown Music Hall ([16]), but did not place a notice regarding the copyvio at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2005 December 5, per procedure. This also happened at Anna Rosmus ([17]). An active contributor to Wikipedia would most likely not have made this error. Luigi30 in these instances is not demonstrating knowledge of procedure nor due diligence in properly executing procedure. This to me shows the marks of an inexperienced editor. This has nothing to do with how many edits he has; it has to do with his dedication, experience, and knowledge of current policy and procedure.

Personally, I think Luigi30 is very, very dedicated to IRC but he lacks dedication to Wikipedia. We're not building an IRC channel. That's not our purpose. Our purpose here is building an encyclopedia. His statements that he does not have the time to contribute much on Wikipedia right now are simply false. He did in fact make more than 1900 comments on IRC over the last three weeks, while making just 14 edits over the same 3 weeks to Wikipedia. He most definitely does have the time but, either passively or actively, has made a choice not to contribute to Wikipedia very much at all, and instead focus his time on the IRC channel. I don't have any problem with someone being on the IRC channel. But, to use school taking up his time as an excuse while being highly active on IRC is simply fallacious.

If Luigi30 spent a fraction of the time he spends on IRC learning Wikipedia policy/procedure and demonstrated proper execution of same, I probably wouldn't have any problem supporting him. But, right now, he's simply proving the point that his activity level is problematic. This isn't "RfA cult"ism or "editcountism".

Thanks for your attention, --Durin 16:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• And to head off criticism from other vectors; I'm not trying to sway your vote in any respect. I'm explaining my vote, and why I feel it has valid basis. I don't care how you vote. I vote in good conscience, and do not make votes lightly. That's all I was trying to convey to you. --Durin 16:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

And an admin deleted images I uploaded (for suspected copyright infrigment which was not the case) and the templates they appeared on without boterhing to list it on the copy vio page. People make mistakes regardless of if they are admins or not. Also how do you expect him to do admin work without admin powers?

Don't underestimate the IRC, several of the tools avalible on IRC such as my vandal detection bot and NullC's bot make admins job easier. RC patroling without admin powers is like atempting to glide towards the wind. You can only go so much...

Besides even hyperactive people such as myself are not adminised so that shouldn't be a criteria. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

A last minute note I was not criticising YOU spesificaly but the general idea in some peoples minds who are obsessed with editcountism. Dont take it personal ok? :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not suggesting that hyperactivity is a criteria for being an admin. Rather, the lack of knowledge of Wikipedia policy (as Luigi30 demonstrated today) is a reason against being an admin. People, including admins, make mistakes all the time. It's the nature of being human. For example, 1 out of every 400 keystrokes you make (on average) will be an error that you do not detect. Admin candidates need to be evaluated based on the information at hand. A low level of activity is, to some people, a demonstration of lack of ability and/or knowledge and/or dedication. To some, missing one or more of these qualities is a disqualifying factor for an RfA. I made my vote Luigi30's nom on low activity because of this, and I've been borne out by his errors today (I've found a third similar error as well). Luigi30 doesn't need admin powers to place copyvio notices in appropriate places. I do not in any respect discount the value that IRC does contribute to Wikipedia. It can be tremendously helpful.
• I did not take your comments personally. Frankly, I find the ongoing hatred of me on IRC hysterical. I periodically review the logs and find it amusing reading. Some weeks back, I allowed myself to get very upset about a situation here, but now I let such criticisms roll off of me, and do not take them personally. Your comments were very mild in comparison. I just wanted to explain my vote to you. --Durin 16:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• I am not aware of such hatred. I would find such hatred disruptive. You are a fine wikipedia editor. However do realise sveral people on IRC enjoy upsetting others. That reminds me, I shopuld have xeeded 15,000 edits. Is it posible for you to update the graph? :)

  Dont let people on IRC upset you remotely. Try tagging along on the RC patrol chan if you really want to entertain self :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Oh believe me, the hatred is there and it's real. Very funny stuff. One of them has twice now stated they'd like to see me strung up from a tree/flagpole. Hysterical! I don't contribute to IRC because for me I find it difficult to adequately contribute and do other tasks at the same time. This requires me to stay focused on IRC alone, which is very time wasteful for me. As for another chart, I told you I wouldn't do another one until the twitching stopped ;) How about when you reach 20k? --Durin 17:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

    If you insist :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 17:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

    Oh on IRC just ignore people annoying you and/or join #wikipedia-en-vandalism ^^ --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 17:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey - IRC?

Hey Durin, I get the impression that you are no lover of IRC for whatever reason but I'd like to have chat with you if possible. My nick is Talrias - could you ping me if you're on? Talrias (t | e | c) 19:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah - me too if possible. --Celestianpower ^hablamé 19:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I got first dibs! Talrias (t | e | c) 19:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Patience :) Talking with someone else right now. --Durin 19:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Clearly failing RfAs: a new poll

Durin, since you were involved in this discussion before, I thought you may be interested in taking part in this new discussion and poll: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Poll_for_consensus. Owen× ☎ 23:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm an admin now!!

Dear Durin, I've become an admin with a final tally of 50-0-0 and I've already used the rollback a couple of times. I am planning to lie low for a week with my admin rights as I want to be clear abt what exactly I'm doing with them. I am here to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your efforts in preparing the nom. Though it doesn't need mention, I'd be failing in my duty if I do not say that it was more a positive vote for you and your nomination rather than my contribs alone. It also puts on me the responsibility that I do not do anything silly, stupid or foolish. I'm happy abt the absence of neutral votes and negative votes and feel that the number of positive votes was also on the higher side. Sometimes, I feel that RfAs such as mine and BD2412's should be shown as links rather than transcluded ;). I don't think you need any re-confirmation abt the value people perceive in you, but if you needed one, look no further than my RfA and the comments therein.

I hereby award Durin the Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar for his efforts in improving the editor and admin pool of Wikipedia --Gurubrahma 07:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

As ur userpage is watchlisted by me, I've followed the exploits of the trolls on IRC from ur comments - don't feed the trolls, a cliche'd advice doesn't seem to work with these guys. I'm planning to raise on Village Pump, the issue of banning ppl from IRC when their record on Wikipedia is above board. If Wikipedia cannot discuss it as a part of policy, I'd also suggest that it stop advertising the IRC channel (as they do whenever the servers are down and the error message is displayed, asking the users to look at IRC for the time being). It is surprising to see how helpful you've been to people you hardly knew before, by helping them through analysis of their edits, doing the graphs, raising the level of debate and above all, improving the quality of ppl. I was going through your RfA yesterday and was amazed to see how you converted a "would be vandal" to a "handsome contributor." Due to all these reasons, I think I have something that suits you to a tee, the Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar.--Gurubrahma 07:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• Gurubrahma; First congratulations and well deserved!. You are a fine editor and it is very fitting with your editing background that you should be an admin. Wikipedia has improved with your becoming an admin. Second, thank you very much for your kind words and barnstar. They truly mean a great deal to me. I was very heartened to see that you garnered no oppose votes. I wanted the RfA to be about you and you only. Some of my faith in Wikipedia was restored by your RfA. Third, your comments regarding the IRC channel are very interesting and coincidental to a conversation I had with someone else regarding that very topic. Some of the issues you raise are a subset of what was discussed. In summary, I think it is very wrong that there is supposedly a wall between IRC #Wikipedia and Wikipedia itself. "IRC is not Wikipedia". Yet, there are innumerable ways in which the two resources are very intimately connected. Wikipedia is held to a high standard of behavior. #Wikipedia is not; anything goes. There is a great deal of hypocrisy floating around. Fifth, I recognize that my comments on my talk page will do little more than feed the trolls. I've repeatedly seen my words outside of that section twisted, perverted, tortured and intentionally misconstrued to base attacks against me. The more hate filled the rest of the world sees them the worse off they will be. They can spew all the hatred they want on IRC. Meanwhile, all of my contributions to Wikipedia are here, on Wikipedia, for all to see, judge, and act upon. I am not embarrassed about my behavior here and really do want them to attempt to bring an RfC or even an RfAr against me. The fact that they so far, despite my encouragement, have been unable to do so proves to me that their attacks have no basis in reality or policy. If ever you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask me. I'll be glad to help in whatever way I can. --Durin 13:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Durin, it may be a week before I raise the issue of IRC on Village Pump. Can you let me know the other details of the conversation you had, so that they can be raised? Or would you prefer to raise them yourself? btw, Wikipedia seems to be moving on to interesting times. It appears that registration would be required for creating new articles [18]. I'd think that this also calls for a mindset change in fighting vandals as most of u on RC patrol typically gun for anon contribs. Also, academic community seems to be losing interest in Wikipedia, see here. I raised this issue on Village Pump also. You can reply here (if there is a need to reply) as this page is on my watchlist. --Gurubrahma 05:10, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Interesting read on the academic use of Wikipedia. I'm not very surprised, and I'm sure it's not isolated. It's just the first I've read something of that nature. For my own part, I would never cite Wikipedia in any academic work. I would use it as a reference tool to get me started on research on something that I did not know, just to head me in perhaps the right direction, but I would never cite it.
• Re: IRC. I think I need to write something more along the lines of a user subpage regarding this issue. I'll drop you a note when I've got it fleshed out.
• Re: Fighting vandals and the new policy. I think it was a very bad move. All it does is add one more step to a vandal's efforts. The number of new accounts since the policy has gone into effect has skyrocketed. Meanwhile, the rate of article creation has not slowed. Jimbo Wales has dramatically missed the mark with this policy change. --Durin 13:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

IRC

I know #wikipedia invaded Poland in 1939, but many of us have been much nicer since then - David Gerard 22:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• You have your opinions. I have mine. For me, until certain parties behavior improves, I will continue to hold my opinion. Perhaps if you were as persecuted by this bunch as I have been, you'd feel differently. --Durin 00:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

BD2412's RFA

Although my RfA is not over yet, I figured that since so many people voted before it had been posted, I may as well start thanking people before it wraps up. It'll take me that long to thank everyone who voted anyway! Thank you, Durin, for your support - although I didn't break the 200 that you projected, it was nonetheless quite a ride. I shall do my best as an admin to make the reality of Wikipedia rise to the level of the dream. BD2412 T 23:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Family

Durin!! Thanks for checking in. The family continues to do well--both grandparents are recovering and seem to be doing better at home than they had been in the hospital--imagine that! I've been away focusing on school for a few days, so I apologize for the delay in responding.

How are things going in your end of the world?? Anything I can help with??

Talk to you soon and thanks again! >: Roby Wayne ^Talk 00:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm very glad to hear your family is doing better! Hospitals can have a negative effect, especially on older people; it's not their environment, and to some it feels like the only reason to be there is because you are sick, therefore you are sick. The mind is a very powerful thing. Things in my end of the world have been...uh...interesting. Unless you want to get into the dirty underworld of Wikipedia, you don't want to know :) --Durin 13:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Expectation of privacy?

My inclination is to say that, if text is posted someplace where any person with an internet connection can see it, even if they have to sign up for an account or the like, then there is no expectation of privacy such that it would be inadmissible in a criminal action. Bear in mind that only the government is prohibited from acquiring evidence through a violation of the subject's right to privacy. In civil suits between private parties, there would be no bar to the admission of such evidence. In terms of making such conversations public, that would not be illegal, but might give rise to a cause of action for invasion of privacy if (again) the subject had a reasonable expectation of privacy. I'll have to work on this question some more, tho. BD2412 T 17:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

rFa

Ooops, thanks and sorry. Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 21:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

My potenial request for adminship

Hi Durin, I was just wondering if I could have your honest opinion of me and my contributions. I think that I am ready to contribute more to wikipedia, and I think of myself as capable of handling the added responsibility. The thing I would like to know is if you would nominate me for adminship. I have read your guidelines for admin nomination pretty thoroughly and I think I can meet your criteria. If you don't think I am up to the task, or that I am in some way not ready yet, then by all means please let me know. I assure you that I will not walk away from wikipedia should I not become an admin. However, I think I can help do more if I was. Thanks for your time. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 21:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Malo; Thank you for asking me to review you and consider a nomination for you. Since you've read my guidelines, you know that I've been watching you for a possible nomination. I will definitely review your contributions. However, it will have to wait until Monday. I am very sick right now, and if I manage to conjure myself out of the house I've got a ton of things to do. --Durin 02:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Durin, Just letting you know that I received your test email to me. Thanks -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 15:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Durin, I just wanted to thank you for your nomination of me and all the work you put into my rfa. I am quite sure that your extremely well researched nomination made me look very favorable as an admin canidate. I hope that I can live up to the trust that you have shown you have in me. Thanks again. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 04:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm sure you will do just fine. Most everything I found pointed to the conclusion that you are a very reasonable person who maintains your cool under pressure. Congratulations on the successful nomination! --Durin 13:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Get well soon

Heard you were feeling ill. Get well soon!

Oh, and note there's some informal competition going on between certain folks as to who does the most good admin nominations. If it's ok for others to check out your list... hmmm! Kim Bruning 04:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Durin, get well soon. Guess it is nothing serious. I made some changes in your "guidelines for admin nomination" sub-page to save you some work. An interesting titbit is that I'm your first nominee to not get a single oppose or neutral vote ;)!! I've seen that User:FRS is on your watchlist - had a slightly rough encounter with him sometime back due to mutual misunderstanding. He is a fine editor and a good NPOV warrior; I recently gave him the exceptional newcomer award. btw, I'm disappointed with the decision on Luigi30's rfa.

I also have some silly doubts and thought I shd ask them now rather than later when they may appear to be too stupid. (a) For inserting the character "|" is there a keyboard shortcut? I insert it by copy-paste or through insert symbols box as of now. (b) Previously, when I used to insert {{subst:test}} series of messages on an anon IP's talk page, a message saying "this message....please create an account....." used to be automatically generated at the bottom of the page, but it no longer happens. What could be the problem? Please reply here itself. --Gurubrahma 05:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Gurubrahma, sorry I don't know the answer to either of your questions. [19] might be a resource to answer question 1, depending on your OS. As for the test messages changing, perhaps someone changed them? --Durin 15:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Boiled beans indeed!!

Actually, the word "Bengalooru" which has been anglicised as "Bangalore" was believed to have derived from "Bendakalooru" - hamlet of boiled beans. Scholars have now established that it was never Bendakalooru but always Bengalooru. This suggests that Yahoo has not done its homework and is as reliable as Wikipedia !!!! ;-) --Gurubrahma 05:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Well, at least we have more journalists^weditors than Yahoo :) --Durin 13:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Pablo Flores

Durin, What I did was correct a mistake that somebody made when moving the RFA. The "end date" was changed to "Wednesday 16". I should've moved it to "Friday 16" or "Wednesday 14". Since I didn't remember the "correct" day and my original signature was on the 7th, I chose the 14 and explained what I did in my edit summary with the hopes that somebody caught it if I was wrong. I know you're Assuming good faith, and I don't blame you for assuming it was my problem. :)

Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 16:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• The problem was the end date was wrong. I corrected it. You uncorrected it. It's no big deal; it passed 27-0-0 anyways. I'm just encouraging you to be more careful in the future and remember that the end date is 7 days from when it is posted to WP:RFA, not 7 days from when the nomination is created. It's an easy mistake to make. --Durin 16:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Durin, if you check the Edit History you'll see that you corrected the "16" but not the "Wednesday". In that case, I didn't know what was right and what was wrong. I didn't "uncorrect" anything. Just tried to make it consistent. I happened to choose the wrong "part" to "make consistent". Had I chose to change Wed to Fri instead of 16 to 14 we wouldn't be having this chat. Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 16:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• I already admitted not changing the Wednesday as noted at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Improper_dating.2Ftiming_of_RfAs. Look, I'm not attacking you, ok? I've been trying to keep this light hearted, ok? We both made errors. For my part, I didn't touch the "Wednesday" because the day of the week is not normally in the end time/date. I mentally skipped right over it. Changing the 16th back to the 14th was incorrect too. I was pointing it out to you so that you know in the future the end date is from when it is posted on WP:RFA, not when the nomination is created. --Durin 16:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I wasn't feeling attacked, sorry if I "sounded" defensive. :) Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 16:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

WTF?

Is there a reason you re-inserted a POV rant into Medal of Honor? --Carnildo 01:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Yes. It's called human error. :) I pressed the "rollback" button by mistake. Please see [20]. Thanks. --Durin 01:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for clearing that up. I was worried that you'd left your account logged in on a public computer or something. --Carnildo 02:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

rv of highly POV edit to Medal of Honor article.

Greetings. Apologies for my undoing of your rv'ing of the heavily POV edit at Medal of Honor [3]. You were in the right. I must have accidentally hit the "rollback" link. My apologies. --Durin 22:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Durin. That's ok, I understand it. :) JoaoRicardo^talk 02:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello, again

Hello, again. I am glad to see you back and feeling better. Some time ago you raised the possibility of nominating for admin duties. It is something I have though about from time to time for quite a while, but never pursued because I didn't see that much that I couldn't already do. Today I learned of a new special page: unwatched pages. It's available only to admins. I already have a big watchlist, but I'm willing to add my fair share of unwatched pages to it, especially for pages I have some knowledge of. If you are willing to help me, I think I'm ready to work on my nomination. Best regards, Jonathunder 23:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm on holiday now until the 3rd of January. I won't be able to work on this until I get back from holiday. My Wikipedia activities are going to be limited during this time. --Durin 02:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Graphic with edits

Hi Durin,
I was wondering if I could get a graphic with all my edits, I've heard you've got a special macro on excel for it. Thanks in advance.
User:Laurent_Van_Winckel

• With just 66 edits to your credit at this point with 26 of them in the last two days, a chart would be rather unilluminating. I can tell you that you use edit summaries just 26% of the time. I recommend you use them as often as possible. Once you clear 500 edits, drop me a note and I'll be happy to do a chart for you. Have a Merry Christmas in Belgium! --Durin 17:52, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes to User:Durin/RfA results

Thanks for your changes to that page. Unfortunately, though I've yet to do an update on the page, it's generated automatically. Eventually, your changes will be overwritten by future updates. My apologies. --Durin 15:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Oh! I thought I replied, but obviously I didn't. I realize it's automatic, but I don't mind updating it everytime. haha. So yeah. Thanks and happy holidays! -- WB 00:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

I have to be at my parent's house at 8:30 tomorrow... you'd think I'd get some sleep. As for adminship, about a month ago I'd noticed myself on User:Durin/My guidelines for admin nomination and was flattered. But I decided I just wanted to get the RfA out of the way so I accepted the first time anyone wanted to nominate me... it's nice to have admin tools and not have to bug other admins to get stuff done. Anyway, Merry Christmas! --W.marsh 05:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Request for unprotecting

Hello Durin,

I noticed you were the one who protected the article on How to Make a Sprite Comic in Eight Easy Bits; rightfully so, I saw some of the vandalism that was going on there and it was not a pretty sight. In the meantime, however, I've written a rather lengthy article on the sprite comic that bears that name and would like to ask for the article to be unprotected so it can be put up. --R. Wolff 23:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• I've unprotected it. Bear in mind there will be watchful eyes. If the article you put up in place of it is not a well crafted article, it's likely it will be speedy deleted again. I recommend you flesh out the article prior to posting it. --Durin 01:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Thanks. I like to think it worked out okay. --R. Wolff 10:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)