User talk:Kirill Lokshin/Archive 8

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translation of German terms

I don't know whether these two terms really translate or should be used in German.

1. schweizer Stoss:holding the pike with both hands next to its center of gravity and fencing with it, used by Swiss mercenaries until they faced Landsknechts who had a different way to hold their pikes and used their pikes in aggresive maneuver and not for defence of the battle column(Hartz) and the skirmishers on the flanks.
2. deutscher Stoss the pike has its center of gravity in the lower third and is held with both hands at the end(not the sharp and point one), one arm is stretched in front and the other can move the pike up and down. It is very tiresome and for this reason as few ranks as possible lowered their pikes from the vertical transporting position. It was first used by the Landsknecht formations. It is considered very difficult to master and for this reason not enough trained units didn't adopt it, so both stances coexisted, although the deutscher Stoss had the "longer pike", giving it a cutting edge in any push of pikes.

It would be great if you could find out how these terms translate. Any English book about pike warfare should have a section on this(and my library hasn't any). Wandalstouring (talk) 16:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

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Assessment drives

I've set up talk pages for both the B-class drive and Tag & Assess 08 to discuss final layout and stuff. Your comments would be greatly appreciated. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I knew you couldn't keep away from the kitties

Even if at this point they are roadkitties. I looked over the discussion and one thing that occurs to me is, god help us, that maybe someone could propose a "parent" project at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page and see if there's enough interest to start one. If there is, then no one can really object to its creation, and it might be able to develop the kind of multi-level banner you were proposing. My guess would be that there would probably be enough people in only a few days to reasonably start it out. John Carter (talk) 14:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I actually agree. In fact, if it were the case that a single parent project were created for all of them, which such a proposal might be, my guess is that, at least in a year or so, that's probably what would happen. John Carter (talk) 15:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Battle of Iwo Jima

Thanks for the comments I added info to all of the recipients that didn't already have some and did a lot of other edits. Could you take another look and see if there is anything else that needs to be done?--Kumioko (talk) 02:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Election

Congrats on winning the election, although the real winners are the active editors within the project, I was wondering, how does the whole election system work? You know, how do you creat a voting booth etc, if you could get back to me on my talk page, that would be great, thanks man. DangerTM (talk) 11:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My talk archive deleted

Hi Kirill. Sorry about that but my talk archive was deleted by you as per: * 00:38, 8 March 2008 Kirill Lokshin (Talk | contribs) deleted "Talk:Tasoskessaris/archive 2" ‎ (G8: Orphaned talk page of non-existent or deleted page. I am a bit concerned as to why a perfectly functioning archive would be deleted and would like to restore it. Any info and/or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Dr.K. (talk) 10:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

It was fixed. From your edit summary I knew you just deleted a shell, not the archive but I did not realise that I had created it in mainspace. I also fixed a similar archive problem after Happy melon from Village pump gave me a technical primer yesterday. Thank you very much Kirill for following up and take care. Dr.K. (talk) 06:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

seven years' war

hi kirill, thanks for your comment and suggestion (for wikisource) ref my idea for the smollett history as source material. i have included some of the smollett text as an adjunct to the 'battle for fort frontenac' page. the smollett account of the campaign, europe and n. america, could be usefully contributative material. please take a look at 'frontenac' and let me know what you think. thanks and regards, bruce bruce (talk) 14:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

DC Meetup on May 17th

Your help is needed in planning Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4! Any comments or suggestions you have are greatly appreciated. The Placebo Effect (talk) 19:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Three things

First, thanks for the input on the Logistics dept. I'm working on it at the moment in Word. I probably will do as you suggest but I'm trying to get the balance of info and motivation right :)

Second, are you up for doing the Tag & Assess script again? This is just an "in principle" as they'll need fine-tuning to reflect the workshop discussions. Do you remember how long it took to run the last one? You said "ages" somewhere.

Third, I was thinking that worklists was probably the best way forward on B-Class (ie sorting out the incomplete B-Class checklists). Could you, in principle, generate these as well? And would they take long to set up? I'm just trying to get a handle on the logistics of this at the moment.

All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill, for the input on this and the Logistics dept.

I've been thinking that we could shunt the T&A08 back to 15th April and sneak the B-Class one in first as a curtain raiser. Would you be able to get B-Class sorted by say 10th-11th March?

--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

List alphabetically. Display article name + article talk. Say, 25 entries per sub-range, 100 per range. Minimal transcluded instructions (hidden). That gives us a worksheet grid of 44 x 4 cells. Have I forgotten anything crucial? And is this your reading of the workshop recommendations? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I made fairly extensive suggestions for T&A drive improvements at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/Workshop way back when, and Roger tells me I should revisit them with you, as you'll be running the script again soon. My comments are interspersed throughout the workshop, but they're also consolidated in one place at User:Maralia/MHA07. The section User:Maralia/MHA07#Lists and false positives is of particular relevance to pre-drive preparation for next time. Do you think those are feasible changes? Maralia (talk) 19:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kirill:

I think the BCAD page is pretty much ready. Could you please take a quick look at it to see if anything is missing and to check that your and my understanding of the worklists is the same? If not, could yo tell me what the drift is so that i can address it? Thank you very much in advance, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Kirill, thou art a star! Much appreciated. I'll create the worklist in a sandbox and then drop it into the drive page to open the drive tomorrow. In the meantime, here's another litle something as a token of my appreciation, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 03:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer! If you've got time, could you check the links and shortcuts please? I've moved the drive, its talk page, and the ancillary pages, to a much shorter address and updated the main links, but I would appreciate if you could ensure that I haven't broken anything :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For numerous acts of unobtrusive kindness during The Transition, including the creation of the worklists for the Milhist BCAD drive--ROGER DAVIES talk 03:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Would you, at very short notice, be able to knock up some extra worklists, say 2000 or 3000 more articles, plucked from Category:Start-Class military history articles or Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists? We have more people signed up than we have ranges you see :) Talk about hitting the ground running .... I was going to give it twenty-four hours to see how it went but if we were seriously over-subscribed I was just going to add extra ranges. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It's looking like we will definitely need a secondary worklist. Is your offer of help still open? If so, it would be for 4000 articles running from /20 onwards in 200 article increments, drawn from Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists. The other thing is the path is shorter than the last batch:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/BCAD/n (/20 to /39 inclusive)

I'll knock up a worklist table at User:Roger Davies/BCAD. Hope you don't mind me presuming, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Kirill, for responding to the call :) As ever, much appreciated, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Year in country categories

Hi Kirill. In my view, cats like 1509 in France should be used for all articles that are about events in which France was involved in 1509 - this has been the common practice to date. As a reader I would want to see everything related to France in 1509, events that took place in France would be very restrictive and not give a historical or accurate perspective. Otherwise, for instance, you could not include the Battle of Trafalgar for 1805 in England as it took place at sea and not in England, yet it was a major English event. Another renamed cat would only further add to confusion and work to be done. Hope this makes the logic clear. Ardfern (talk) 13:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Franco-Mongol alliance

Hi Kirill. I am asking you to reconsider your judgements at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance/Proposed decision. It has just been made clear that a large part of the accusations made against me were based on a false claim being made by Elonka and Arangar about a name "Viam agnoscere veritatis" being used for a multiplicity of Papal bulls Talk:Viam agnoscere veritatis#Untangling (arbitrary section break). Both were making a false claim, intentionally of not, and have been using this claim to motivate a multiplicity of editors to make depositions against me (here, here and the numerous "Viam agnoscere depositions of the Workshop page such as [1]). It's clear that the discussion heated up (on both sides) but it turns out I was right to dispute their misrepresentation of historical facts. I challenge judgements which are based on such false evidence and manipulation. Another recent case of Elonka obviously misrepresenting sources has been exposed here Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Introduction. All my contributions are properly referenced from published sources, and if sometimes we can have differences in interpretation, nobody has been able to identify a single case of fabrication of sources or whatever (as demonstrated in User:Ealdgyth/Crusades quotes testbed, embedded responses [2]). I am asking you to think twice before believing the accusations of such editors. Regards PHG (talk) 11:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Please view Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance/Proposed decision for a update of these issues. PHG (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

re: Project management tool

Looks very useful indeed. Thanks very much for the tip :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

chekuser data

Why are you going out of your way to ignore this? What must I do for you to see it? -- Cat ^chi? 23:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Circa

You wrote in a review: "Circa is generally only used for dates, not for numbers; "identify c.40 of these units" should be "identify about 40 of these units", for example." Where is your source for this? Thanks Wandalstouring (talk) 08:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like an AE/CE issue to me. Wandalstouring (talk) 19:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Banned user circumventing ban with anonymous IP

Hello Kirill,

I am not sure where to post this, and since you seemed to "preside" over the case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Liancourt Rocks, I thought maybe you were the one to ask.

The user banned (Wikimachine) has continued to edit with very obvious and sarcastic comments, attempting in my opinion to continue disrupting the same pages as he did before.

He has edited from various anonymous IP's making essentially the same arguments as he did before on the same pages, some which are edited by very few other editors. Some example IP's he has used are 69.245.41.113, 69.180.210.99, 69.180.193.52, etc.

Aside from these comments being essential copy and pastes of his old arguments, and him signing with "A former Wikipedian," and referring to how he will "continue the fight when is allowed back in a few months" they are from the same geographic area as the original user (see [[3]]). If you would like further information please let me know. If this should be put somewhere else and not here also please let me know and I will follow up. Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.205.165.177 (talk) 23:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:AN/AE would be the appropriate place if there's any evasion of Arbitration remedies to be dealt with. Kirill 23:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I have just posted there following your link. Thank you for the link and sorry to disturb you.

Betacommand 2 arbitration case - adding parties

An an active arbitrator in this case, I thought I'd point out Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2#Adding parties to the case. There is also Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration#Questions for ArbCom re: BetaCommand RfAR. Carcharoth (talk) 03:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Party list

Your comments at this discussion would be much appreciated. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 03:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've replied there. If you could have a look at the follow-ups, that'd be great. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 04:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment

Kirill, I have written an article which is up for its second Peer Review in hopes of nominating it to FA. The PR can be found here. Any comments you may have would be appreciated. Regards, Daysleeper47 (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

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Re MILHIST rating for Cold War

Just in case you happen to disagree with me: [4] :-) Kirill 02:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. I haven't reviewed the article myself. I just found the 3 other WikiProjects rating it a B-Class. Thanks for letting me know. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 02:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Crusades task force

Hi Kirill, do you know how I can add a parameter to Template:WPMA so I can include the crusades task force there too? It would be easy enough if a task force parameter already existed, but there has never been need for one before. I tried looking at the military history template but the code is too baffling! Adam Bishop (talk) 07:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, wait, I suppose that wouldn't really be necessary, if it's already in MILHIST, since you've interconnected it all. Nevermind! Adam Bishop (talk) 07:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, sorry to spam your talk page, but I guess I do need to do that, for articles that are in WPMA but not WPMILHIST. Do you know how? Adam Bishop (talk) 08:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Adam Bishop (talk) 13:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...I don't know, maybe Image:Armoiries de Jérusalem.svg? Adam Bishop (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in but I'd have thought the cross of St George on a Norman-style shield background. That would work for any crusade then, including the Albigensian ones. If no such image exists, I know someone who can create it :) Or better still, type 7 shield on this chart with a red cross on a white background.--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The closest thing I could find was Image:Kruis van Sint -Joris.jpg, which isn't quite the right shape. A custom-made one might be better here, if we can get it. Kirill 02:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I've platyed about a bit and the original shield shape would look strange in boxes (too long and thin). I've dummied up one which will work fine at small sizes and doesn't look like the English St George's symbol. Comments? If everyone is happy with it, I can do an SVG version. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Kirill 00:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, I don't think this really represents anything, since it's just a made up image - with the other two, we have a depiction of a siege, and a real coat of arms, both of which are connected to the crusades. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough but it's not a made up image. A red cross on a white background is the standard/classic crusader device: you can see it on this contemporary Image:Adhémar de Monteil à Antioche.jpeg. I originally thought of using the Norman shield (see Image:Barbarossa.jpg) but it's the "wrong" shape being tall and thin so I used the squarer one Image:Godefroi of Bouillon leads the army.jpg. The specific style of cross came from the Image:Armoiries Achaïe.png blason and it features in countless other crusader coats of arms. The cross used on the Jerusalem is another possibility but it does look a bit like a swastika at small sizes. The red cross on a white background has the great advantage of being legible small. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, true, well, good enough :) Adam Bishop (talk) 11:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Signpost Dispatch for the 24th

NO Hurry at all; the Dispatch has been running late a lot, and the deadline is next Monday night, but ... if you're able, I'm hoping you will write up a portion on the Banner Shells at Wikipedia:FCDW/March 24, 2008. I've just started, lots to do still, will have Tony1 ce it when I'm done and Gimmetrow review, but if you're not able to help with the Banners portion, I'll just leave them out and focus only on AH and GimmeBot. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

PS, past dispatches for comparison can be seen at {{FCDW}}. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Allright, I think I've gotten as far as my limited prose can take me, in case you want to have a look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll have to look tomorrow, Kirill. I still (after all these years) don't cope well with lies, like those currently at AN/I; taking the evening off. Thanks for doing that. I'm sure it's excellent; over and out for now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill; just what I was hoping for and it's perfect (well, except for the fact that your prose improvements highlight how clunky my version was :-) All the best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

BCAD

Could you please add the ranges 40-49 to Worklist B? I've added them, and they're currently showing as redlinks awaiting your attention. Thanks in advance, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 00:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Kirill. (Sorry I forgot to thank you sooner.) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I'd really be interested in your advice. Since becoming the lead, I've had perhaps a dozen email requests for admin involvement in various tangentially-related-to-Milhist problems. Some, but not all, under the Old Pals Act. Is this normal? And then there's this, which is not my sort of thing at all. Thoughts on it? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much the tack I've been following. I've very little interest in dispute resolution or dealing with contentious issues when there are other things I could be doing (Operation Castor, Arthur Rimbaud or Jacky Fisher, for example). Thanks :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Greetings, Kirill! Any chance of the next block of worksheets please? Say, five x 200? I'll red link them at BCAD later. Many thanks, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Cheers :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

We're running out of ranges again. Would you kindly add another ten x 200 please? I'll add redlinks. Thank you, once again, in advance :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 00:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cannon.

If you'd care to take a second look, there have been many changes. · AndonicO ^Hail! 13:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, forgot to add in mention of Ravenna and Cerignola... I'll do that later today, if I get the chance. · AndonicO ^Hail! 14:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Valle di Cadore

Hi friend I have a request.

"In the conflict between Venice and the Empire, at the beginning of the 16th century, during the War of the League of Cambrai, the Venetians and Cadorines defeated the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1508 at the so-called Battle of Valle di Cadore." I don't know if your interest ventures that far back but do you know somebody who might be interested in starting an article on it? Its currently a redirect but I feel certain a decent and informative article could be written on it.

Hope you are well

♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:58, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes I couldn't find any web sources which is a shame, I thought somebody might have a book on Habsburg history or something in which it could be expanded substantially to become a full article. Thanks anyway. Happy edits ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Infobox National Military

Hi Kirill, hope you're enjoying taking things a little more slowly(!) Would you mind revisiting this infobox and seeing if you can arrange it so that it does not display the numbers of people reaching military age/available personnel of military age etc automatically, even if the figures are not filled in? It looks ugly when it displays this as a blank. I've started a bit more of a wide-ranging discussion of this on the main MILHIST talk page. Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 08:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The IISS Military Balance maintains an incomplete list of air forces' flying hours, which would be some indicator of how much training and operations each force gets. Would you mind experimenting with the template to try and find a place where such a parameter might best fit? 'Air arm flying hours =' or something like that? If you can do that, I'll try a small-scale test with some throughly non-controversial air arms (I'm thinking of the RAAF and RNZAF) and see how that goes... Cheers and thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kirill. I realise it might be better placed within the Infobox Military Unit (for the RAAF, anyway) Could you add it in there too? Thanks again Buckshot06 (talk) 10:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill. Hope the move goes well and you don't lose anything :) Buckshot06 (talk) 05:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:Campaignbox Wars of Charlemagne

A tag has been placed on Template:Campaignbox Wars of Charlemagne requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Something for you

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		For past and future (I hope) contributions to the project, way beyond the call of duty, I gratefully award you another set of the Military history WikiProject WikiChevrons. --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

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Request for recusal

I am formerly requesting you recuse yourself from the 9/11 arbcom. Thank you.Trav (talk) 11:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

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Request for clarification in IRC case

I have requested clarification in the IRC arbitration case here and am notifying you as an arbitrator who was active on the case. Carcharoth (talk) 16:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

My apologies

Regarding: your relationship with Kirill I removed this from the workpage as JzG requested. I don't know your relationship or lack of relationship to Aude, and there is no point in spending days researching it. One picture is not enough evidence for you to recuse himself. I was dead wrong and I apologize. Trav (talk) 18:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

{{WikiProjectBanners}} and {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}

If you meant what I thought you meant in this edit, I am very keen to hear more. My interpretation is that you were suggesting that, through a "meta-transclusion" it would be possible, only changing WPB and not its instances, to cause it to duplicate the appearance of WPBS, which would involve somehow getting the |nested=yes parameter into each individual banner. I can't think of any method, using the standard template code we have available, to do this - am I missing something fundamental?

I've watched this page, so feel free to respond here to keep the discussion together. Many thanks in advance for any ideas you're able to provide. Happy‑melon 14:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, not quite; I merely meant that the meta-transclusion would duplicate the existing appearance of {{WikiProjectBanners}}, but implemented through {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} underneath. The nested=yes parameters would need to be added manually.

(There is a way of getting around manual additions by doing things in JavaScript; but I think the implementation would be too convoluted for our purposes, and would likely involve changing the way the banners work anyways.) Kirill 16:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill. I suspect if you had been approached beforehand, we could have solved this easily; as I expressed to Gimmetrow, I appreciate editors who work collaboratively and avoid creating unnecessary drama and confusion. XfD wasn't the best way to address concerns. I did this at Talk:Tourette syndrome and it seems fine; is that all there is? If so, I'm happy. What did you do, and if that's all it took, why wasn't it done before, without need for XfD (never mind, that's rhetorical :-) Do you want to run it by Raul ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right; as long as talk pages aren't cluttered, Raul won't likely care. So, what's the next step to making it happen, and how does that relate to the TfD? I'm unclear how to implement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

eeek. I generally avoid XfD because, well, I usually Just Don't Get It :-) I won't do anything yet, because I don't know what to do. Wait for it to close, and then fix? Or post a notice there that it's solved? I don't know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Then I'll leave it alone for now, I guess. Or wait and see what develops. What matters is that it's solved (and I'll never write a Dispatch again :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Catherine de' Medici/archive1

I've put this article up for peer review; and since I doubt it will get reviews unless I solicit them, I was wondering if you could spare the time to have a look through it. I know you are busy, so if you can't manage it, fair enough (I'm going to ask one or two others).

By the way, checking through the links, I realised we haven't got an article for the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis! I've put it on my list. qp10qp (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Generally I would agree with you and Wetman, but I suppose I am particularly interested in the song-and-dance that went with these sixteenth-century treaties—in other words, the great festivals, marriage ceremonies, gift exchanges, etc. that took place (another one that fascinates me is the Treaty of London (1604)). Cateau-Cambrésis was extraordinary for the "magnificences" it produced to celebrate the two diplomatic weddings, especially the proxy wedding of Philip of Spain and Elisabeth de Valois. The sensational and unnecessary death of Henry II was a direct consequence of all that. I could certainly write a lot about C–C, though I have some other articles to do first. qp10qp (talk) 03:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Coordinator emeritus

By consensus of the coordinators, you have been appointed a coordinator emeritus of Milhist. I trust you'll accept the appointment :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Coordinator emeritus of the Military history Wikiproject,
March 2008 — August 2008

Congratulations on your appointment as a coordinator emeritus of the Military history Wikiproject. In recognition of your achievement, I present you with these stars. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added you as "Coordinator (co-opted)". Does this do it? Otherwise, feel free to improve :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I went with that because I thought it best conveyed the idea that you were a coordinator with the same role as the others. The "emeritus" seemed to muddy the water. Is that clearer? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool. :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Now you've had a couple of days to think about it, are you comfortable with the title/description and, if not, how think you it is best tweaked? How did the house move go by the way? Knowing you, I guess it went without a hitch and was incredibly well organized :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Help requested

As a sitting arbiter, I'd like some guidance based off of this thread that I've started at ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Procedure_for_making_a_block_for_abuse_of_the_e-mail_function.3F. I'd appreciate any guidance you may have. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The editor has been blocked temporarily, and this is not a pressing matter, but I am still interested in the proper procedure regarding blocking on e-mail alone (I've saved them). -MBK₀₀₄ 05:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Since it isn't threats or anything of the like, just personal attacks and disruptive responses, I'll follow your suggestions. I don't foresee this having a need to be forwarded to the Committee. -MBK₀₀₄ 15:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I've made a few changes to pages for Portal:American Revolutionary War

These days they want instructions, layouts, and categories for a FP, so we might as well stick 'em in now. If you're okay with what I've done, I'll create a "Selected article" box, based on your previous style on this page, and populate what we have so far, based on ARW task force ratings and what I can find in the commons. BusterD (talk) 14:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

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clumping problem

Hi Kirill,

I've got a problem with clumping text on Battle of Verrieres Ridge. What was originally two separate sections (Calgary Highlander's Attempt and Operation Atlantic) now appears to be bunched into a single section. When I check the page on the edit-function, it reads them as two separate sections again. Would you be able to solve this for me? Thanks, Cam (Chat) 23:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your help. Cam (Chat) 04:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Missing article

Kirill, I noticed that the article List of animal rights activists was moved and then redirected [5] on 24 December, 2006. However, the article it now redirects to, Animal liberation movement, already existed prior to this date and I can't find where the material from List of animal rights activists was added to it [6]. I also can't locate the original text or history of List of animal rights activists. The original List article appears to be missing, or at least I don't know where to look. Would you be able to help me locate the edits and history in question? Thank you, Cla68 (talk) 02:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Cla68 (talk) 03:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixing category links

Thanks for that Kirill--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 07:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look

There is a discussion about externalimage and I seem to miss what the editor wants. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The editor also wants a 6px border to prevent the text from being jammed against the box. Wandalstouring (talk) 06:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

FA-class nomination for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment now open!

An FA-class nomination for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment is now open and can be found here if you wish to comment! Thanks! --Daysleeper47 (talk) 19:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

List of Medal of Honor recipients

I wanted to let you know that I have submitted List of Medal of Honor recipients to be a Featured List. If you want to take a look and leave a comment please do.--Kumioko (talk) 17:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Milhist template

Hi there Kirill, I don't know whether this is a problem or not, but every time a new A-Class review is asked for with A-Class=current it puts the article in Category:Military history articles needing attention to tagging. It is solved with a null edit, but is slightly perplexing. Is it an issue with the template or with MediaWiki? Regards and thanks. Woody (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. I understand now. No bother, it was just perplexing me why they kept turning up in the Cat. It is no bother to purge the page! Thanks for explaining it. Regards. Woody (talk) 14:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

No problem at all ;) Always good to know there is duplication around (and someone to clear up after me sometimes!) Woody (talk) 18:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Portal:British Army

I was wondering if you could spare the time for peer review this portal? The editor has been slaving away pretty much by himself and really wants input from others. I know you're busy, which makes your input, if you can manage it, so much more appreciated. :) All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 00:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Babakexorramdin

Since you are familiar with prior such case of Artaxiad doing the same [7]. Again a false attribution of myself to another real life personality, located in the same geographic region, violating WP:HARASS - see edit comments.

I recall that all correlations of myself to another person by this name were purged out of Wikipedia by yourself. Now somehow Babakexorramdin makes the same claim after this [8] by User:VartanM and another one by User:Fedayee here - [9]. This has only two conclusions, either Babakexorramdin and VartanM are in communication with Artaxiad to make same false claim unavailable in Wikipedia, or ArbCom is somehow sharing information with these individual users, again on false assumptions of identity. Atabek (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not know what is this fuzz about. I do not know who vartan or Fadayee or Atabeks are. I know doezen of Javids. Javid means eternal in Persian. I assume it has linguistic ties with the word zendegi, to live *imperative is Zi(v( z, zh and J are interchangeable. You hear much of these slogans in Iran Javid bad this or that, means long live this or that. This is word referred to persons you like or as a gesture in order to calm down people who oppose you. This word is usually used by me as a compliment or attribution, like oh man,. or viva, the same as I say zende bashi. I do not really understand Atabek's commotion about this. Especially that I am in general nice and supportive to/of his edits.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I have an email confirmation that Babakexorramdin meant the name and personality, and I can forward it to Kirill if requested. I do expect the comment to be purged out of Wikipedia, since it clearly violates the privacy of unrelated individual. I also believe that Babakexorramdin's claim, which is clearly the same as claims of banned Artaxiad, which were deleted by Kirill earlier, are connected, especially considering additional accusations made by VartanM and Fedayee, threatening with false identity revelations during Ehud Lesar ArbCom case. These folks need to be explained by way of enforcing WP:HARASS and WP:PRIVACY to give up personal battleground mentality, and concentrate on topics rather than personalities. Atabek (talk) 22:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It is funny that you talk about email confirmation. Neither Atabek nor I have ever exchanged emails. Again I do not know who Artaxid, Vartan or Fedayee are. I also do not know who Ehud is and have never followed the discussion thereabout. Moreover I do not think that I ever have revealed anyones identity. There are many people here who call me by names other than mine. Is it a big deal? There are dozens of Ali, Hassan, etc... I do not see the fuzz--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Folks, please take this to arbitration enforcement; there are so many sanctions on this entire area now that the admins there ought to be able to deal with the matter without involving the Committee directly. Kirill 00:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

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Special enforcers

Sounds a bit forbidding, but I had some questions:

• (1) "otherwise interferes" - this sounds a bit like a catch-all, but could be too vague. If it was extended to not allowing discussion of any blocks, that probably wouldn't be good. I'm not clear, anyway, how one can interfere with a block other than by reversing or modifying it?
• (2) The proposal presumes that the special enforcers and the arbitration committee will agree with each other.
• (3) Probably not possible to let all admins know, but as any summary desysopping would still go through ArbCom (maybe make clear that "summarily desysopped" doesn't mean any user can ask a steward), they (or rather you and they) would be able to judge whether it is needed in particular cases.

Will be interesting to see what opinions are on this. Carcharoth (talk) 05:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kirill

I can see with less on at MILHIST you're getting tagged for higher responsibilities (reading the comment above)! Hey just wanted to thank you for setting up the 'milhist articles with no TF tag' category, which I'm starting to work my way through now, and ask for a couple of things to be considered: (a) could you make 'USAF=yes' work for the US task force? If we ever split away a USAF taskforce, they would be all right there. (b) Also I'm starting to add 'Central-Asia=yes', again with the same thought in mind, and just wanted to inform you. Best regards, Buckshot06 (talk) 11:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

My Page

Yes, thats what I meant, thanks.(Red4tribe (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC))

Proposed principles

Sorry, have I done my addition of two proposed principles correctly, or should they be in my own section? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I did get it wrong, but you fixed it. Thanks, and sorry! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks/Citations

Hi there, thanks for the welcome to the Wikiproject! I was wondering if you might be able to point mw towards a page that tells me how to create and apply citations in a wikipedia article. I'm currently working on Airborne forces but I'm unsure on how to add citations. Thanks! Skinny87 (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

WG experiment

Hiya, I've started a thread about my "Digwuren" experiment at WP:AN: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Hungarian-Slovakian experiment. Since you were involved with the most recent motion for a change on the case, I wanted to let you know. FYI, Elonka 12:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Attempt to usurp ArbCom's role in appointing checkusers

A discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia_talk:RFA#BAG_requests_process to have checkusers elected to their positions rather than have them appointed. Apparently, none of the proponents of doing this have notified ArbCom of this effort. I am therefore informing you. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

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FYI

Wikipedia_talk:Governance_reform#Power

If you have time, you might want to go through the conversation. I'm wondering if people's interpretations are drifting from what you intended?

Based on the conversations and interpretations I made this mockup and posted it to the talk page, but I don't know if it's off-center. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 21:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

returning fire

[10]

I figured I might as well ;-)

My question is: how could a respected arbitrator have such an opinion as your own?

I realize you might have been griping somewhat, but still. Could we have a discussion about this someplace?

We could do so privately on skype or irc or on the phone or so at first.

If you prefer a public venue in general, I know just the place. But first let's just talk.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

User's thanks

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For your diligent & continual work in coordinating two major assessment drives in the months of March & April alone. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 22:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: T&A '08 worklists

Thanks! I didn't want to push because I know you've had your hands full with the template :) I've got most of the bits ready; I'll assemble the page ready for you for tomorrow. I'll start the numbering at /001. Does that suit you? Thanks again, Kirill. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I'll start the mail out tomorrow (past participants T&A 2007 and BCAD). Incidentally, the + tab (next to the "edit this page" tab) has disappeared on user talk pages. Do you know anything about this? It'll be a real pain doing the mailing without it. (This is where I discover I've turned it off by accident in preferences :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

LOL! That makes me feel a lot better (on both counts)! Thanks again, Kirill :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I'll leave it as it is now I know how it works. The bigger tab is much easier to hit at speed with a mouse click! :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

For info, the instructions are proving tricky and time-consuming (I'm incorporating changes to the template into them but at the same time keep them concise). I think I'll do them as a separate page, which can be transluded into #Instructions on the drive page and the #Page header on the worklists. I'm assuming the worklists will have a built-in transclusion header per last time. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the message and for the various tidy-ups. If you have other things on, don't worry about doing the worklists immediately. The drive isn't announced to start until the 25th and I was going to hold back on transcluding the instructions until I'd mailed the participants in BCAD and T&A07 anyway. I'm going to sandbox them for you to have a quick look through (if you don't mind) before it goes live. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The instructions are here. I've slept on them and they look alright. Can you give them a quick read through for links, comprehensive etc for me please? I think I'll hide them on the worksheet header. On a related subject, how do you feel about using the B-class short forms (B1, B2 etc) on the template instructions? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

First, thanks for uploading the worklists. I'll add a note to instructions about re-directs. The way round the crypticness of B-Class parameters is probably to put a reference to B-Class-n in the <!-- comment--> that precede each. I think we need an explicit line in the main body of the template display that says Click here for full template instructions or similar that links to the "Banner" page. Thoughts? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

It might be idea, given the number of number of participants already signed up, to have Worklist B ready to go at the weekend. Can you manage this? I noticed you are traveling .... --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I know what you mean about visual space :) Whenever you're ready for the Worklist B files. I'll do the Worklist B list in a sandbox. It can then just be copied over to T&A08 when needed to go live. Another thought? Do you think that the banner ought to be protected? I know there are many eyes on it but someone editing the instructions could cause havoc, especially in the middle of a drive. Thanks, as always, for everything :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Neat. I think that does it. Thanks! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to do "B" today then sometime, real-life pressures permitting (a horde of noisy builders rampaging through my house, who keep turning off the electricity without telling me).--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just put Worklist B on the drive page. No rush about populating it: it'll be a day or two, I guess, before A fills right up. Where are you travelling? Anywhere nice? Thanks in advance, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) I imagine Alaska is lovely at this time of the year. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again, Kirill :)) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, could you please look at User talk:Woody#Second opinion and let me know what you think? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I've done so far and pretty much my feeling. Thanks :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

semi protection of rfarb

17:44, 10 December 2007 Kirill Lokshin (Talk | contribs) changed protection level for "Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration" ‎ (No reason for IPs and socks to be editing this anyways [edit=autoconfirmed:move=sysop]) Err ... I disagree. I feel IPs are a part of the project and have a right to comment. If socks are messing up the page, block, ban or semi-protect, but I don't think you can permanently lock IPs out of the page, they have a right to offer a comment just like other guys and gals. Reconsider? 86.44.17.45 (talk) 10:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4

Any comments you have about location would be appreciated. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Advice

I advice you regarding violation of user:DIREKTOR for this restriction. Always DIREKTOR persists in several edit wars pushing his POV statements. Articles involved:

• Republic of Ragusa
• Albania Veneta
• Dalmatian Italians‎
• Josip Broz Tito
• Foibe massacres‎
• Istrian exodus‎
• many others.

You can control history of these articles for evidence! Regards and best wishes. Nemo, 1 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.67.84.15 (talk) 15:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Enforcement of Arbitration Committee remedies should be requested an WP:AN/AE, as it is not generally carried out by the Committee itself. Kirill ^(prof) 18:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Please consider joining the working group for the WMF DC Chapter

Please consider joining the working group for the WMF DC chapter. Since we have a very active and very community oriented DC/MD/VA area group of Wikipedians, it only makes sense to develop it as a chapter, especially given the recent changes to the Board of Trustees structure, giving chapters more of a vote. Hopefully we will be either the first or the second officially recognized US Chapter (WMF Pennsylvania is pending as well), and hopefully our efforts will benefit WMF Penn as well. Remember, it's a working group, and this is a wiki, so feel free to offer changes, make bold changes to the group, and discuss on the talk page! I hope to see you there, as well as Wikimeetup DC 4 if you're attending. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

MilHist FA split

Kirill, Roger is traveling, and I've left a message at User talk:Raul654#MilHist FA problem; I don't know how to sort this mess out, and need help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008)

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New Project

Myself and several other editors have been compiling a list of very active editors who would likely be available to help new editors in the event they have questions or concerns. As the list grew and the table became more detailed, it was determined that the best way to complete the table was to ask each potential candidate to fill in their own information, if they so desire. This list is sorted geographically in order to provide a better estimate as to whether the listed editor is likely to be active.

If you consider yourself a very active Wikipedian who is willing to help newcomers, please either complete your information in the table or add your entry. If you do not want to be on the list, either remove your name or just disregard this message and your entry will be removed within 48 hours. The table can be found at User:Useight/Highly Active, as it has yet to have been moved into the Wikipedia namespace. Thank you for your help. Useight (talk) 02:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions suggestion

Hi Kirill,

Since you are involved in the wording of the discretionary sanctions decision on Homeopathy, and since you commented that you may consider applying it broader (I don't edit Homeopathy), could you please consider my suggestion of adding an RfC to the process?[11] --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Would you and the other Arbitrators also consider this suggestion of mine?

If you enact discretionary sanctions on paranormal and fringe articles, I suggest that some kind of mentorship should become optional for editors seen as problematic. This would allow an admin whom the person can agree is neutral to become intimately knowledgeable about the user, and thus to have an expert opinion on a user's behavior. A similar situation took place in the case of Dana Ullman, where LaraLove mentored him. It failed. But her giving up on him should have counted heavily in the case. Similarly, if she thought he was ok, it should have factored heavily. If it were ever to become necessary, I, for one, want someone involved who is neutral and actually knows my edits. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

ACW raids

Hi Kirill,

Are you also a student of ACW? I have been reading a book on ACW cavalry raids, and noticed that all bar one are not on the ACW list of battles. I had asked if anyone minded me adding them, but received no replies, and I lack the time to actually write the articles. Would you like to consider these?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

peer review

Hello Kirill. Hope your trip to Alaska went well. On a slightly more urgent MilHist note, I've got a peer review up for Battle of Verrières Ridge which I haven't been able to get a lot of feedback on. if you've got any time in the next several days, would you be able to take a look at it? Thanks. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 05:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

thanks for your helpful comments in the peer review. I'm in the process of trying to find a numerical strength statistic. Thanks again. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 06:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Ambiguous image

A photo you uploaded, Image:German advance (1914).jpg, is currently being used on two articles with one claiming it shows British troops retreating and another claiming it shows German troops advancing. The uniforms appear to be closer to British than German, and I note that the original en.wiki page was edited to reflect this before it was uploaded to commons. Can you shed some light on it? Leithp 08:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed decision - Tango

Just wanted to remind you (or in case you didn't see it yet, to inform you) that the Tango case has a 5.1 principle proposed by Uninvited Co. Would request your vote on it, as well as on principle 9 and Fof 3. Please also note that FloNight is reconsidering her votes on the remedies after checking the talk page - it may be eye-opening. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)  Done

Would request you recheck principle 9 also. Thank you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)  Done

Sorry to bother you again. Would request you reconsider the 3.1 remedy - 3 to 5 arbitrators now also favour it as first choice, based on Tango's responses and discussion on the talk page. Thank you again, Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects

Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. – GregManninLB (talk) 17:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia meetup

As someone who may live or work near Washington D.C., you may be interested - if you've not heard already - about the meetup scheduled for Saturday, May 17th, at Union Station. For details, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4.

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Template Problem!

Are you aware of the template problems showing now on the main talk page? Buckshot06 (talk) 00:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

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Volume 4, Issue 18	2 May 2008	About the Signpost

From the editor
Wikimedia Board to expand, restructure	Arbitrator leaves Wikipedia
Bot approvals group, checkuser nominations briefly held on RfA	WikiWorld: "World domination"
News and notes: Board elections, milestones	Wikipedia in the News
Dispatches: Did You Know ...	Features and admins
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News	The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Volume 4, Issue 19	9 May 2008	About the Signpost

Sister Projects Interview: Wikiversity	WikiWorld: "They Might Be Giants"
News and notes: Board elections, milestones	Wikipedia in the News
Dispatches: Featured content from schools and universities	Features and admins
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News	The Report on Lengthy Litigation

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Need guidance please on questioning

Dear Kirill. I am puzzled by your "... it shouldn't cross the line into McCarthy-style questioning.", in the context of asking people whether they are operating a particular abusive e-mail account. Surely, editors must clear themselves, immediately and clearly, of any suggestion that they are acting collusively, with CoI, or abusively sock-puppeting. I've never cheated (despite, for instance, strong incentives imposed on me to sock-puppet) - how can I AGF towards people who seem to be lacking in personal integrity? User:Hypnosadist may have breached good taste, decency or policy - but he and all of us are entitled to full disclosure on these subjects. PR^talk 15:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

In my view, there's a distinction between asking about actions (e.g. "Did you send these emails?" or "Did you recruit meatpuppets?") and asking about allegiance (e.g. "Are you now or were you ever a member of group X?"), and it's the latter mode of questioning that I'm particularly concerned about (and which Hypnosadist was engaged in).

Mere membership in some outside group is not, generally speaking, a violation of Wikipedia policy unless one actually does something. I don't think it's a good idea to countenance people demanding answers to such queries. Kirill ^(prof) 01:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about Hypno and zeqzeq2 - but I had two disturbing experiences, one over a reasonable suspicion of CoI and another over very deep suspicion (virtually cast-iron proof) of sock-puppetry.

I couldn't get answers on either of these subjects from the subject, was sanctioned for the first question and aggressively treated by the project over the second question.

When conduct can be so intensively scrutinised but cheating is protected it's hardly surprising we have problems like Zeq, who is clearly not alone. (sorry to bring this to your TalkPage, I have immediate concerns about other obvious cheating, backed by admins, and I really don't know where to take them). PR^talk 07:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

17th Airborne Division

Hi there! Thanks for all the help on the article's project page. I think I've done all you asked, so I was wondering if you might give it a look over and see if it was up to B-Class status? Many thanks, Skinny87 (talk) 16:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

kitties

Any clues to give the new lead coordinator of the Christianity Project? Jumping out the window has already been considered and rejected as maybe a bit too extreme. John Carter (talk) 18:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Giovanni33

I noticed people are using the Workshop page for this Arbitration hearing. Does that mean the evidence I have presented will no longer be looked at? --I Write Stuff (talk) 19:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so - it just means some people are moving on. The arbitrators decide what they look at and when. Am I right, Kirill? John Smith's (talk) 20:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Please stop following my edits, I find it quite disheartening. --I Write Stuff (talk) 20:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not "following your edits", I'm taking an interest in things related to the subject at hand (the contribs tab is there for a reason) - I was also trying to be helpful. Please assume good faith. John Smith's (talk) 07:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Fairbanks!?!?!?!

You were up here less than two weeks ago? Damn, wish I had known; I'd have loved to have meet you for a beer or something. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Photographer question

Pre-1923 PD in the U.S. PD in Europe?

Hi Kirill, back in 2005 you uploaded this image to en:Wikipedia. Today I discovered a duplicate version on Commons that's being used on the French Wikipedia. Trying to locate the author info in order to find out whether it satisfies the "author's life +70 year" clause of European copyright. It's being used in the French Wikipedia, but might not be a legitimate Commons hosting. The Commons uploader is inactive. Any chance you recall where you found this, so I could follow up with research? Best regards, Durova^Charge! 10:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Professionalism essay link

How would I get my signature line to link to your professionalism essay? Not exactly the same way, superscript as you've got it, but something like Buckshot06 (prof)? Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 22:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete obsolete userpage

Hi Kirill, is there anyway to delete this dead and inactive user page: [12]. I used it years ago here [13] to edit but when I switched computers in early 2006, I found I couldn't access it anymore. So, I created a new user site for myself at Leoboudv. I ask you this since you signed the first introduction to my old talk page above. I found it on google a few days ago..and am surprised to see it still exists. Regards, Fabian Leoboudv (talk) 03:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI, governence reform

User_talk:Kim_Bruning#Tangential_question. I am sorely tempted to do just what I wrote here. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 04:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Distance in military affairs: an essay?

This is looking perilously close to an essay to me, but wanted your thoughts. Regards Buckshot06(prof) 06:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The standardness of "Who's who"

Kirill -- I have to say I'm disappointed in the sentiment you expressed here. You really haven't thought this through. Surely you don't think that beyond the borders of Maryland, the rest of the country is just more Maryland but I don't know what else to think. I guess I think we wouldn't be having this discussion if Northern California were a nation state, because your war brain would kick into gear and you'd get it right away. If I tried to argue, by way of personal example, that every Israeli nationalist wikipedian I've ever disagreed with was the same person or a meatpuppet thereof, I'd be laughed out of the project. Sure, it really feels that way sometimes, but I know that's not the case: this is a culture of people, though Western (perhaps even "Maryland-ish") in many regards, that got the same education, were taught to believe the same things, were raised by parents who believed the same things, and so on. Do you know the population of Israel? 7 million. You know what the population of metro San Fran is? 7 million. It's not that different; I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's some nutty professor at UC Berkeley telling all his students the U.S. is a terrorist state; it's a liberal and permissive culture and such ideas easily spread. I wouldn't even be surprised to find this suggestion in a high school textbook there, just like every Israeli is taught it's the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and thus all think they are the underdogs, and so when they come to wikipedia and switch out those links, I know why. San Francisco, I assure you, likewise has a unique culture, maybe not as monolithic as Israeli nationalism, but which nevertheless shares many cultural memes -- especially radical anti-Americanism -- and we simply can't just decide one day they are all the same person. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, OK, I see where you are going with this then, but I too often see editors labeled as "disruptive" in much the same was Caesar was labeled as "ambitious." When you scratch the surface, as Shakespeare's Marc Antony eloquently did, it's as often as not merely a pretext to break out the knives. -- Kendrick7^talk 16:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Signpost updated for May 12th, 2008.

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Volume 4, Issue 20	12 May 2008	About the Signpost

Explicit sexual content draws fire	Sighted revisions introduced on the German Wikipedia
Foundation receives copyright claim from church	Board to update privacy policy, adopts data retention policy
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cla68, fm, sv

Hi. I request that you not recuse from participation in the potential case. It will be a case about personality, and personal issues within en.wikipedia and not having full personal particiaption from the committee I think would hurt the end result. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely understand, I think my point is that the entire committee is likely to be insufficiently impartial with these users. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Links in Camera Lobbying

Hi Kirill, hope this finds you well. I was just wondering, would you have any objection to me going through Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying/Proposed decision and converting all the secure.wikimedia.org links to traditional en.wikipedia.org links? Some proxy servers, my university and local library included (so I presume the issue is prevalent to some degree), do not allow for whatever reason access to secure.wikimedia.org (as I have established with both trying to access OTRS and now this). Feel free to reply here or on my talk, I'll see either way. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 13:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Of candlesticks and kings

I was going to do the country TFs yesterday but other things intervened. Among other things, I've got major building work going on at the house and it's started to go wrong ... I'm off to France in a half an hour for a meeting so I'll try to sort it later. Korea probably needs handling slightly differently because it's not "on" Milhist turf. If you find yourself with a little spare time ... :)) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for sorting that, Kirill, I'll work up the announcement tomorrow. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

That was extraordinarily kind of you ... A very nice surprise, indeed. Thank you, Kirill. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for doing all the review announcements and so forth just now :) By the way, I'm about to raise a thorny subject in Coords and I'd particularly value your wise counsel there. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you entirely. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

My take is that the future lies in large wikiprojects, with an efficiently administered shared support structure, and considerable autonomy for the task forces within it (which effectively act as mini-wikiprojects). The theory is that this combines effective logistics with effective decentralisation.--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I was interested by the low take up for the proposed new task forces. (Apart from Pakistan, which is probably inflated by newbies who may or may not actually contribute once/if it's up and running.) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, pretty much my feeling. My approach (which may or may not have been transparent) is first let's see who's interested then if there are enough of them, let's fine tune and perhaps implement it. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't get Talk:79th Fighter Squadron (USAF) to automatically assess as B-Class after I'd completed the checklist. I had to enter it manually. Previously, it was unclassified. I thought the template read the perimeters no matter what the starting class. Can you cast any light on this, please? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That's fine. Thanks for clarifying, Kirill :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like "Special Projects Dept" is finally up and running. I'll create the home page later today, probably here Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Special projects with shortcuts of WP:MHSP and WT:MHSP. Do these seem sensible to you? Also, there's been little discussion of the mechanics so far so input from you would be welcomed :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I thought. As I'm away for a few days next week (21-25 May) can you pay it extra special attention then please? (I know you'll keep a general eye on it anyway ...) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 03:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, if you have a minute, could you take a look at this please? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Am I alone in thinking that giving a user this is a curious decision in the light of this? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Quote of the evening:

"Damn boy, you're white!" -- random homeless guy outside Union Station talking to Kirill. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 03:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

clarification

Hi Kirill, unfortunately the request for clarification was closed and archived before I got a chance to say anything. I am willing to voluntarily avoid biophys as I have done so far, but he has not avoided me (his revert was on Nuclear terrorism is a case in point). He has persistently filled the article with material that has nothing to do with nuclear terrorism (to the point where the page is an embarrassment). He did that on Communist terrorism before, and he used the RfA to bully me away from that page; I have avoided it since then even though it is even more of an embarrassment. Now he is using this clarification as a way to bully me off of nuclear terrorism as well. Do I have to back off of any article he tells me to? May I tell him to back off of articles as well? I don't think it's a good way to work here, it makes it seem like there are ownership issues with the page. I have expertise on terrorism related issues; while I can live with avoiding certain pages just so he stops attacking me, I just wonder where we decide who gets to edit which pages. csloat (talk) 23:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for interrupting, but I think this can be easily resolved. There are two clear, simple and easily verifiable options, which could be even adopted by Arbcomm in case of binding sanctions. First option. I do not edit any articles edited earlier than me by csloat and vice versa (this includes talk pages of the articles, since we have to avoid any communication). Second option. We also do not edit any articles that we both edited before Arbcomm ruling. That would put off limits for both of us "Communist terrorism", "Nuclear terrorism", "Operation Sarindar", "Criticism of Bill O'Relly", "Intelligence summit", "California in focus", and whatever else. I agree with any option (1 or 1+2). If csloat agree with any of that - end of story. If not, let him suggest any other option which would be simple and verifiable based on edit histories, and I will probably agree on that. Thank you.Biophys (talk) 15:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

TTN

TTN got recently blocked because he honestly did not think his restrictions meant that he wasn't able to start a thread on a project notice board, myself and several other Wikipedians in good standing were under the same assumption. That's not gaming the system or pushing the limit, that's nothing more than miscommunication. TTN even pleaded with you guys to get some guidance, and you ignored the request for clarification for weeks. Now you come out of no where with a complete and total ban? That's a horrible idea. TTN has been behaving very well, and hasn't been doing anything wrong. The flames you see that you want to get rid of are nothing more than the left over feelings from the past, not because of things that are happening now.

And you come completely out of left field with a proposal to ban Kww, who hasn't even had any kind of RfC or mediation, or focus of any kind in the last two cases. It's like you're swinging around blindly, smashing furniture and breaking walls, just to put out a candle. I beg of you to reconsider your proposals. -- Ned Scott 02:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, we obviously have differing views on what the real problem is here. If you're working from the assumption that TTN (and everyone helping him) is fundamentally in the right in this dispute, then I quite expect my proposals look like the confused ramblings of someone who just doesn't understand the real issue. But that's not the only way of looking at it, I would think. Kirill ^(prof) 04:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't blindly stand up for TTN, and I've agreed plenty of times about where he went wrong. Please Kirill, I know I can be heated and such on these discussions, but please please don't just assume stuff like this about me or about the other people who are involved. You have every right to throw out everything I've said, since I've been rude to you in the past about this, but if there's any tiny little bit of respect that you might have for my opinion, please consider what I'm saying. TTN has been neutered, he can't do squat anymore, and I honestly didn't think we'd see him again. The fact that he's come back and is willing to participate in discussions made me very happy. I agreed with some of conclusions he made, but really disagreed about some of his methods. His edits with the video game articles were clearly walking the line, and he should have been smarter than that, but he's not even doing that anymore. Otherwise he's been doing pretty well with just dealing with discussions, and it's really not necessary to ban him from those as well. TTN works great with boundaries clearly set, and we've been asking for clarification to help avoid an incident for weeks.

TTN even got unblocked from this last block because he said he would refrain from posting on project talk pages until there was clarification about his restrictions. Honestly, several users all thought that his restrictions to project space was meant for XfDs and other formal requests, but not notice boards. He wouldn't have started any discussion if he had thought it was against his restriction.

Even if you don't believe me there, at least reconsider the proposal for Kww. Kww was vocal about standing up for TTN, but hasn't been disruptive outside of that (if one were to consider him standing up for TTN to be disruptive). If you really believe there to be a behavioral issue with Kww, please let us try other levels of DR first.

If I could get down on my knees over Wikipedia and beg this of you I would. I'd do anything you'd ask me to do. -- Ned Scott 04:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Any limited restriction on TTN is going to be rules-lawyered to death. It happened with the video game articles (which aren't technically covered); it happened with the noticeboards (which may or may not be technically covered, depending on how you define "request"); and I have every reason to believe that even if we clarify the present matter, TTN will continue to try to act as a driving force behind the removal of content on fictional topics through some other method. He is not, at this point, legitimately helping things—his reputation is such that anything he does will likely be reverted regardless of its merits—so all he's doing is needlessly antagonizing the editors supporting this material. If he can't see that and step away from the front line, then we're forced to do it for him.

As far as Kww goes, you may feel that equating the editors that worked on Bulbasaur with penis spammers is acceptable, but I do not. Were it up to me, he'd be off the project for that little burst of odiousness alone. The least I can do is keep him away from the areas where he's likely to actually put such an ideology into practice. Kirill ^(prof) 05:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"TTN will continue to try to act as a driving force behind the removal of content on fictional topics through some other method." That was never the issue, the issue was his methods. TTN has every right to act as a driving force to clean up Wikipedia, as long as he's not forcing the issue on other editors.

How do you know that clarification will be rules-lawyered to death? In the first case arbcom gave us useless advice, and the second case was the first to give any clear instructions on what to actually do. Fluffy proposals like "be happy and work together" don't do squat. We warned you during the second case about the clarity issue with video games, and you ignored it. TTN edits those articles, gets blocked, and we have clarity the hard way. So then TTN only edits on talk pages, and is under the honest impression that he is allowed to have full participation on talk pages. He gets blocked again, and we plead with you guys again to give is clarification (even though you've still ignored the first request, which sits and collects dust).

The idea that you would ban an editor like Kww for some minor incivility in a heated debate disturbs me. It's an abuse of your position as an arb, and it's highly inappropriate.

You're not helping us to resolve a dispute, you're being a bully, and trying to scare people away from any form of participation as a solution. -- Ned Scott 06:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

And the fact that standards of conduct have degraded so much that Kww's comments are now merely "minor incivility" disturbs me. But obviously some people don't care, since they happen to agree with his sentiments. Kirill ^(prof) 13:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I covered this in the subtopic below, but that's not at all what I'm saying. I take into consideration that these comments are happening during a heated debate, and while that doesn't make it any better, it does give a better impression of who Kww is. You shouldn't take those comments as representation of his normal behavior. This is something I keep in mind for all participants of this debate, even the ones who've told me how horrible I am (for sticking up for TTN, not because of anything I've actually done). When we are a little understanding of each other we tend to get along far better, and I would hope that's a concept you would agree with. -- Ned Scott 03:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

"his reputation is such that anything he does will likely be reverted regardless of its merits—so all he's doing is needlessly antagonizing the editors supporting this material. If he can't see that and step away from the front line, then we're forced to do it for him." Unless I'm reading this wrong, you're saying that because other editors have a bad opinion of him, that even if he makes good suggestions, other people will assume bad faith and they will cause disruption. And so it's his fault that he doesn't go away because other people don't like him? Is that what you are saying? -- Ned Scott 06:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I've asked other editors to comment on our discussion on my copy at User talk:Ned Scott#TTN. On a side note, as passionate as I am about this issue, I really hope that we can still get along on unrelated issues, regardless of the TTN/Kww situation. I might get all huffy and puffy about some stuff, but I try to take a "this is this, that is that" kind of approach to issues on Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 07:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Kirill, this is just absurd. If people are so incensed against TTN that they will revert whatever he does regardless of its merits, then obviously they are the disruptors, they need banned. And as for "little bursts of odiousness", have you any idea how often anti-cruft editors have been accused of "vandalism" for their good-faith cleanup edits, by pro-crufters? Are you going to take the same stance against those? You said "these senseless flareups must be stopped". Yes. The only way of stopping them is to sanction the people who fill the pedia with crap, not the people who do the hard work of cleaning the crap out. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely correct - Kirill, I had to read your quote three times before I could be sure that an Arbitrator was suggesting topic-banning someone on the basis that his edits would be reverted by anti-policy editors intent on creating unencyclopedic articles. But apparently, that's exactly what you're doing. Black Kite 10:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

(copied from TTN's page) Kirill, rather then discipline people for breaking the rules and reverting regardless of merit, you'd say "Well, even if he's following the rules, other people will break the rules to get at him, so it'd be best if he went away?" Are you seriously saying that? Do you understand how incredibly dubious that sounds? SirFozzie (talk) 11:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It may be worth re-reading one of the principles from the last episodes case: "The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia, in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. While disagreements among editors are inevitable, all editors are expected to work calmly and reasonably towards resolving them, to collaborate in good faith, and to compromise where appropriate—even if they believe that their viewpoint is the only correct one." Describing editors as "pro-cruft", "anti-policy" or claim they "fill the pedia with crap" does little to promote a cordial atmosphere among contributors. Catchpole (talk) 12:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a two way street. Being accused of being vandals and the constant AN/ANI/ArbCom/"Ban Them for blocking what we want!" threads does even less to promote cordialness. SirFozzie (talk) 12:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be much easier to edit if the policy was "The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia, in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. While disagreements among editors are inevitable, all editors are expected to work calmly and reasonably towards resolving them, to collaborate in good faith, and to compromise where appropriate—even if they believe that their viewpoint is the only correct one." Quality is the reason people use reference works. Quality is the #1 reason for the good name of Wikipedia's reputation. How much any editor had regard for their reputation is how much Wikipedia has, because people will never say I have read a great FA article, but news of the smallest error will be spread through the web like a wildfire. And here is the news, Wikipedia is full of mostly substandard articles. What is the proportion of FAs and GAs to stubs? Instead of admins wielding their batons we need QA people who can step in and say, "dear editor/author, you have just produced BS, please try again with some better sources." Judge editors only on the quality of their edits. One good editor with bad attitude is worth 100 people who will add a 1000 articles that will either remain as stubs or be deleted. --mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 12:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) In response to Ned Scott, Fut.Perf, Black Kite, & SirFozzie:

The problem with your approach is that you continue to insist on "enforcing policy", no matter the cost, rather than actually coming to the negotiating table and working out some compromise that both you and your more inclusionist colleagues can live with. I'm quite sorry, but the various "policies" on fiction, notability, and so forth do not fall into my list of things that need to be forced upon unwilling editors this way; and it is unreasonable to think that doing so would be effective, in any case. We've had many of these articles for years, and have trumpeted their presence when talking about how much broader our coverage was compared to that of traditional encyclopedias. Many people have joined Wikipedia specifically because we offered the opportunity to work on such articles. You can't simply expect to come in one day and decree that all of them must be removed, and expect everyone to comply.

Where does TTN fit in, then? He's spent much of the last year leading a slash-and-burn campaign against fictional material that has understandably made its supporters very wary of him. It's not sufficient that he merely stop his more flagrantly unilateral content removals; the problem is that he's still setting the pace at which content will be removed, even if only by "proposing" or "suggesting" it—and it's already been established that his pace is viewed as unacceptably rapid by a large proportion of the editors in the area.

My motivation, in other words, is not to try and resolve your underlying conflict; I doubt people would care to submit to a content decision from the Committee in any case. I'm simply trying to get everyone back to a stable position from which good-faith negotiation can begin. And if we need to remove a few of the most dogmatic editors—from whatever side—from the equation in order to do this, then I view that as an acceptable price to pay. Kirill ^(prof) 13:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Kirill, you forget one thing. Plot-only episode pages are non-free material. Their status is exactly that of non-free images (if not even more sensitive). Removing them is a matter of policy enforcement on a par with removing image copyvios.

There are rulings of American courts in fair use cases, stating that detailed re-narrations of fictional storylines are derivative works. As such they are non-free and potential copyright infringements. The descriptions of the offending material in at least one case ruling I have in mind fits exactly the situation we have here (will dig you out the quotes if you insist). Plot renarrations are therefore on the same level as other non-free text elements such as literal quotes. They can be tolerated if minimized, but only to the extent that they are embedded in and justified by encyclopedic discussion.

It is just like with images, only worse: Non-free images can be technically flagged as non-free, so a downstream re-user knows what he's getting and can filter them out. For text, we have no such technical feature, but the legal issues are the same. Therefore, fair use of non-free text needs to be watched and scrutinized even more closely: it must be minimized to such an extent that it will safely constitute legitimate fair use not only for us but in every conceivable scenario of downstream use.

I can see no wiggling space here. No debate, no consensus, no negotiating table, co compromise; it just needs to be done. I here and now declare that I will, at any time I choose, unilaterally remove whatever overlong plot renarrations I come across, and block anybody who gets in my way as a copyright offender. I encourage everybody else to do the same, and I do not see that even the Arbcom has a right to tell me not to do it. Only thing that will stop me is if Godwin tells me my legal interpretation is wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Apologies for butting in. You might want to check what Godwin has said in the past before you do anything hasty, see [14], [15]. Catchpole (talk) 14:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm perfectly happy to defer to the attorneys on this matter, but I don't think it's quite as black-and-white as "remove all long plot summaries".

(On a slight tangent: why don't we tag plot summaries and other "fair use" text? My reading of the WMF policy on the matter suggests that the machine-readable tagging requirement would apply to all non-free content, not just images; and it shouldn't be too difficult to create suitable tags. The old spoiler templates could have been used to good effect here—it was a pretty safe bet that anything with them contained such material—but it's a bit too late for that now.) Kirill ^(prof) 14:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't been aware of these remarks by Godwin. I must say I remain skeptical though, and it is not apparent to me just how much careful thought Godwin has given to the issue. His argumentation strikes me as unconvincing. His first argument, "plot summaries, in general, are not taken to be copyright infringement so long as they do not include any great degree of the original creative expression" seems to be directly contradicting the ruling in question [16], which describes plot summaries of exactly the kind we are dealing with here, affirming explicitly that the summaries alone even without literal quotes constitute infringements ("we have little doubt that the record supports a finding of substantial similarity through comprehensive nonliteral similarity. Chapter 3 of the Book is essentially a detailed recounting of the first eight episodes of the series. Every intricate plot twist and element of character development appear in the Book in the same sequence as in the teleplays"). His second argument, "we are not receiving DMCA takedown letters regarding plot summaries" seems to me to be missing the point about how and why we guard the free character of our material. Do we ever get DMCA takedown letters for nonfree screenshot images? And yet, we remove those, for the sake of our own principles, not because we're forced.

In fact, Kirill, with your suggestion of tagging those text passages "and other[sic!] fair use text", you have implicitly acceeded to my argument. If these are tag-worthy non-free material, we cannot just tag them. We must minimize them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"Minimize" is not a very precise term here. To be more specific, these passages must be the minimum necessary to accomplish their legitimate purpose within the context of the encyclopedia. What exactly that means in terms of total length and level of detail is a matter for (a) editorial discretion and (b) the courts, in that order. Kirill ^(prof) 03:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That's true. The relevant consensus among well-informed reasonable people about such a measure was established long long ago and is contained in the relevant guidelines and policy pages. The problem is that people who are not well-informed and reasonable produce mass violations of that consensus. The claim that, for instance, the plot renarration in Scan (Prison Break episode) is just long enough "to accomplish its legitimate purpose" is so obviously indefensible that it's not worth discussing; anybody who'd claim such a thing is either clueless or a wikilawyering troll. If you can read through that page and then tell me with a straight face that you would find such a proposition worth considering, please say so now, because we can then drop the conversation – I have no interest in even talking to people who can't tell the difference between an encyclopedia article and that crap. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

In that case, where are the complementary sanctions against such as User:Pixelface, who edit-warred on WP:NOT#PLOT in an attempt to change a policy against consensus so as to open the door for more non-notable articles, or the numerous editors who swamp fiction AfDs with wikilawyering non-!votes (resulting in many non-notable articles ending up as No Consensus) or those who edit-warred with TTN even when TTN was following policy? Black Kite 17:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to continue to agree with the people above here. Kirill, you need to back track here. You are proposing topic banning TWO people because "Other people will break the rules to revert them". The proposed restrictions is a de facto content decision if not quite a de jure one. You're focusing on one person (with a completely bizarre attempt to topic ban someone else because of one statement made out of frustration), while disregarding that the underlying cause of this is people breaking Wikipedia policies and using exhaustion tactics to turn WP articles into a WP:BATTLEGROUND to get their way. SirFozzie (talk) 20:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm hardly disregarding it; I merely happen to disagree with you about which people we're talking about. Kirill ^(prof) 03:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you're aware of what's actually going on in the discussions TTN has been involved with lately. The vast majority have been non-controversial and without incident, and you don't seem to even know that these conversations existed. Allow us a fair chance to gather evidence. -- Ned Scott 03:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Black Kite, I suppose one could make an argument that I "edit warred" on WP:NOT when I removed PLOT from NOT 6 times over the course of 5 weeks[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]. But I didn't edit war "in an attempt to change a policy against consensus." Every removal except my first was supported by comments on WT:NOT (which I explained here[23] and which nobody refuted). After my first removal, my subsequent removals were reverted by Sgeureka[24], Masem[25] [26], and Sceptre[27] [28] — all editors who contributed to the E&C2 case pages (Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2/Workshop, and Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2/Proposed decision). Sceptre was an involved party of E&C1 and E&C2. Sgeureka was an involved party of E&C1. When Hobit removed PLOT from NOT[29], Masem reverted[30]. When Hiding removed PLOT from NOT[31], Collectonian, an E&C2 party, reverted[32]. Masem is an admin and apparently saw no need to protect WP:NOT during all this "edit warring", where Masem performed 3 reverts[33] [34] [35].

PLOT was the *only* possible policy basis for TTN's actions (except perhaps the sentence "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." from WP:BURDEN in WP:V) But PLOT and that sentence in V were both added to policy by one user, Hiding. On July 9, 2006, Hiding added PLOT to NOT after this discussion[36]. At the E&C2 workshop, Hiding admitted[37][38] to coming up with that sentence for WP:V.

I think it's apparent from reading WT:NOT (oldid) and the archives of WT:NOT[39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] that PLOT does not now, and likely never did, have consensus to be in policy. In October 2006, TheronJ[59] questioned whether consensus existed for PLOT. In February 2007, Dugwiki[60], Matthew[61], and Bdj[62] all made comments questioning whether consensus existed for PLOT.

I have been discussing PLOT at WT:NOT since March 10[63], the day the E&C2 case closed. And eleven days after the E&C2 case opened on January 19, I was discussing PLOT at WT:NOT.[64].

Black Kite, you protected WP:NOT for edit-warring, and I wasn't involved. I haven't edited WP:NOT since April 16. You used your administrative tools in a content dispute to protect your preferred version of the policy, which is against the protection policy which says "Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute." Perhaps you weren't involved in the dispute over whether PLOT belongs under GUIDE or not, but it's evident from your participation at WT:NOT[65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101], and from being a party in the E&C2 case, as well as initiating the DRV on the History of For Better or For Worse in order to set some "precedent", that you're not an uninvolved admin in all this. You should be de-sysopped.

Sceptre[102], Eusebeus[103], and Kww[104] all seem to have habit of calling editors they disagree with "vandals." The vandalism policy says "If a user treats situations which are not clear vandalism as such, then it is he or she who is actually harming the encyclopedia by alienating or driving away potential editors." --Pixelface (talk) 05:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

You were clearly edit-warring on WP:NOT, and if you think I should be deadminned for protecting a page which actually isn't in my preferred version, that's a rather weird notion. Still, it's been a week now, and I've been asked to unprotect on my talk page, so I'm going to do that. Otherwise, TL:DR. Black Kite 06:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I have not edited WP:NOT since before you showed up to WT:NOT on April 17. You protected WP:NOT to further your position in a content dispute — you didn't want anyone else removing PLOT from NOT. And you've filled WT:NOT with personal attacks against me.

On April 16 you told me on my talk page to "create a centralised discussion."[105] On April 24 I started an RFC at WT:NOT.[106] On April 29 you told me "this RFC is utterly pointless, and presumably is concocted by yourself so that you can get several people to agree with you so that you can attempt to smuggle an important part of WP:NOT away from policy, to a guideline where you and your fellow travellers can attempt to wikilawyer over it in deletion debates, and insert more unencyclopedic material into the encyclopedia, to your heart's contents"[107]

On April 29 you also said "Because Pixelface doesn't understand the concept of consensus. He believes it means that unless hordes of people descend on difficult-to-find backwater talkpages to defend a particular policy every time he raises a point, it means those policies don't have consensus. He's completely wrong, of course, but refuses to accept it."[108] Is WT:NOT a "difficult-to-find backwater talkpage"? I filed an RFC. I believe it was Kurt Weber that told you at ANI, "Black Kite, you have it ass-backwards. Policy does not trump consensus; rather, consensus trumps policy"[109]

Here's another personal attack by you at WT:NOT.[110] Here you say "the whole conversation is embarrassing"[111] when I referred to the same thread you did and where I quoted people from the WT:NOT archives. Here you say "WP:PLOT is clearly not arguable"[112]

Your preferred version of WP:NOT is the version with PLOT in it. Or is this your preferred version? "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner; a concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work, but such articles must contain real-world analysis such as the reception, impact and significance of notable works."[113]

Here's[114] the version you protected: "Plot summaries. Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner; discussing the reception, impact and significance of notable works. A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work."

I suppose since the version you protected didn't contain "must contain real-world analysis", you're not in violation of the protection policy, is that right?

You were an involved party of the E&C2 case, but I guess I never realized how involved you were. When TTN was redirecting Gilmore Girls episode articles back in January[115], Future Perfect at Sunrise[116] and you[117] were helping edit-war over the redirects (I suppose after looking at this ANI thread?). And it appears to me you used rollback to revert edits that were not vandalism. Was all that too long for you to read or would you like me to shorten it?

In January, Future Perfect at Sunrise told Mvuijlst "They are copyright violations. How to escalate this? Simple: Next time I see you reinstating copyright violations en mass, you will be blocked."[118] At ANI, Future Perfect at Sunrise said "It highlights the need to block people who reinstate crap like this, which is a violation of our non-free content policies and potentially violates copyright. Which is exactly what I intend to do from now on."[119] I'd say someone needs to email Mike Godwin ASAP, considering Future Perfect at Sunrise just said "I can see no wiggling space here. No debate, no consensus, no negotiating table, co compromise; it just needs to be done. I here and now declare that I will, at any time I choose, unilaterally remove whatever overlong plot renarrations I come across, and block anybody who gets in my way as a copyright offender. I encourage everybody else to do the same, and I do not see that even the Arbcom has a right to tell me not to do it. Only thing that will stop me is if Godwin tells me my legal interpretation is wrong."[120]

TL;DR version You used rollback to revert edits that were not vandalism[121] in support of TTN, and you protected WP:NOT[122] to further your position[123] in a content dispute. And someone needs to email Mike Godwin.

I'm sorry Kirill that this discussion took place on your talk page. I won't be commenting further here. --Pixelface (talk) 11:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Not commenting again is a very good idea, if all you can produce is that set of reversions (which were against an edit-warrer and back to the version of another administrator), and a claim that I protected a page to my preferred version (your diffs don't make sense - I would have protected it here [124] if I'd wanted to do that). If you wish to make an issue of my admin conduct, go to WP:RFC.Black Kite 16:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I just don't want to bother Kirill with new message alerts. I know I personally find it annoying when it says I have new messages and it's just two people talking to each other on my talk page. Are you denying you abused rollback? And you reverted to a version by Future Perfect at Sunrise, who should be de-sysopped alone just from their comments on this page: "block anybody who gets in my way as a copyright offender" and "I do not see that even the Arbcom has a right to tell me not to do it"[125]. So this is your preferred version of PLOT? Well here you protected WP:NOT and the section is merely five words different than the one you proposed on May 1[126]. I have to say I'm hesitant to file an RFC on you Black Kite. Now you tell me to file an RFC, but I don't know if you'll just say in a few days "this RFC is utterly pointless, and presumably is concocted by yourself so that you can get several people to agree with you." --Pixelface (talk) 18:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

For a little bit of perspective, I don't agree with the version that got protected either (though I don't feel strongly about it, but it certainly wasn't the version I thought should be there). And IIRC, there still isn't any policy that says rollback is only for vandalism (not saying it is or isn't a good idea to have one that says it, but there currently isn't one). -- Ned Scott 03:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:ADMIN says "Misusing the tools is considered a serious issue." and "Common situations where avoiding tool use is often required:...Conflict of interest/non-neutrality/content dispute — Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools." It also says "If they have been involved in a content dispute, were a significant editor of an article in question, were involved in revert wars, or are under their own sanctions for that topic area, they do not qualify as uninvolved." When Black Kite protected WP:NOT, Black Kite was not uninvolved. And WP:ROLLBACK says "Rollback must only be used to undo edits that are blatantly nonproductive, such as vandalism." Help:Reverting#Rollback says "Rollback is supposed to be used to revert obvious vandalism." Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback says "Conventionally, administrative rollback is only used to revert simple vandalism or large amounts of mistaken edits (such as when a bot malfunctions)." Black Kite was using rollback to help TTN edit-war after E&C1 closed, an abuse of administrative tools. --Pixelface (talk) 07:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you'd claim that edit-warring against policy is productive editing, but then you'd be more familiar with that then me. Still, if you're so bothered about it, open a request for comment. I'll look forward to it. Black Kite 09:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that removing a section of policy that doesn't have consensus is productive. Open an RFC on you? No, I think I'll just go to another arbitrator's talk page and complain about you while you're not there. Although you'd be more familiar with that than me. --Pixelface (talk) 05:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to correct you, you mean "doesn't have consensus in your opinion (and practically no-one else's). Oddly, because something is your opinion doesn't mean it's true. Actually though, to be honest, I wasn't really attacking you per se - you were just the easiest example of a number of editors who could (and should) probably be included in the RFAR if User:Kww is. And I'm going to recuse myself from this page too now, because it isn't the right venue. Sorry Kirill. Black Kite 08:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Ned Scott

I'm making a sub heading for myself, because you've unfairly lumped me into a stereotype (for a lack of better words) that clearly does not describe me:

"In response to Ned Scott, Fut.Perf, Black Kite, & SirFozzie:

The problem with your approach is that you continue to insist on "enforcing policy", no matter the cost, rather than actually coming to the negotiating table and working out some compromise that both you and your more inclusionist colleagues can live with."

I am not, and never will be, a deletionist. I do not think poorly of plot filled articles, and I bend over backwards to preserve them. You know nothing about my viewpoint on the merits of these articles, or how I feel about the editors who defend those articles. I'm bothered that you are not already aware of this, since I first got to know you when I was heading up the Digimon WikiProject. Freaking Digimon, for crying out loud, you don't get any more fanboyish than that. I am a fiction nerd, and I like most of our articles on fiction, even the cruft-filled ones that I've tagged for clean up. I might not feel that al of those articles/information belong on Wikipedia, but my attitude towards fiction is not even close to what you've assessed.

You're also way off on how I feel about TTN's past actions. TTN had a lot of good ideas about what to include/exclude on Wikipedia, but the bulk and force used cased problems that I saw form a mile away. Myself, on the other hand, managed push for the removal of over 500 articles about Digimon without even a single ANI thread.

I've gotten mad at TTN in the past before as well, and have disagreed with him plenty of times. On one level, I'm glad the clean up he did happened, but I would not choose to have it happen the way it did (for obvious reason).

This has nothing to do with the content dispute itself, or with who I "side" with. I've gotten furious with editors like User:Pixelface in the past, but have always told them that no matter what, if they ever were facing a bad ban that I would be there as soon as I heard about it to stand up for them. He's a part of this project and I want him here with us on it. I even feel the same way about User:White Cat. As mad as that guy has gotten me in the past, I honestly don't like the idea of him leaving or being banned.

Kww calling editors vandals because of a content dispute got me pretty mad too. I really don't like it when anyone throws the word vandal around like that, and personally find it more uncivil than throwing around f-bombs. I don't agree with what he did, and I'm not going to defend the comments me made when he was mad, but I will stand up for him when I see a ban that is totally out of proportion.

I am not black and white, and I don't like the idea of being on anyone's "side" and being against someone.

If you ever look at my comments on AfDs for fictional articles you might be surprised. I chose to err on the side of keeping things, and rather we have a detailed coverage of fiction. I'm not an extremist, and dislike making blanket judgements on fiction. When I merge things I try to maintain reasonable coverage, rather than making things redirects to nothing more than a list of names. I try to evaluate situations as they come. I prefer giving general guidance, not rock hard policy, about how we handle fictional articles. I think we should help editors to think about things from a real world perspective (rather than telling them "you can't do this") and then hope those editors can make good judgments based on that.

Some editors here are making claims about copyright issues, but if you look at the history of WP:NOT and WT:NOT you'll see that I opposed including anything about possible legal issues, long before Godwin's comments. It may be an issue, it may not be, but it's not the heart of it.

I'll admit that I've gotten frustrated too in the past, and that sometimes I've snipped at people and have said "you can't do this" or "this article is crap". I've even been rude to editors because I let frustration get the better of me. So when I see other editors make such comments, I'm not quick to assume that is how they truly feel about the situation.

I agree with a lot of editors on your talk page here, but I don't agree with everything they said, and they don't agree with everything I've said. I don't think TTN and Kww should get off the hook like nothing happened, but I don't think they should be exiled from the fiction project. It's pretty clear that I am not who you think I am. -- Ned Scott 02:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for misrepresenting your stance on the issue. I had assumed—based on your comment that "TTN has been behaving very well, and hasn't been doing anything wrong"—that you were in agreement with his actions, and hence his overall goals. Kirill ^(prof) 03:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That's how I felt about his participation in discussion. Not to say that I think it's a good idea that he do things like flat out request someone make a redirect of an article, but I was under the impression that he wasn't breaking his restrictions by doing it. I do admit that his edits to video game articles was walking a fine line, though in that situation I still think he would have complied with a clarification, thus resolving that particular issue. -- Ned Scott 04:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Kirill, given that your reply to Ned and above to SirFozzie indicate that you are proposing sanctions to editors based on the fact that you agree with their aims, and not solely on their actual behaviour, I would suggest that you recuse from the current ArbCom case, as it would be possible to infer from the above that you are not completely impartial in this issue. Black Kite 06:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's rather unreasonable to expect that I would have no opinion on the matter after having gone through two arbitration cases regarding it already. In any case, merely having an opinion is not considered grounds for an arbitrator to recuse in the absence of a substantive conflict of interest regarding either the parties or the dispute itself, and, as far as I know, nobody has suggested that I have such a conflict. Kirill ^(prof) 09:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that you shouldn't have an opinion, that would be ridiculous - I am saying that the above comments, coupled with your proposed remedies that only apply to certain editors, may give the impression of such a conflict, whether you have or not. Black Kite 16:51, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to say you're biased or have any kind of COI, since I honestly don't know how you're viewing us and why, but you do seem to be very quick to assume and judge things (which is what motivated me to make this thread). I know it sounds like the same old crap, but please keep an open mind and consider what we're saying. -- Ned Scott 03:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

question

I'm asking you because you proposed the sanction--is the expert board in the Homeopathy case meant to deal only with homeopathy? I'm a little puzzled how you can find a board of experts capable of making decisions on all subjects. But at least the decision should say one way or the other.DGG (talk) 01:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

you say it is intended to cover all subjects--I think that's a total perversion of the spirit of wikipedia, and I sincerely hope the community is persuaded to reverse you and take back the power. What you are essentially proposing to do is establish a small board of censors with a veto power over the contents of all articles. For it does affect all the content--the sourcing is in practice what determines what content is included. You are in one moment totally reversing the basic power structure here--after years of saying that arb com will not involve itself with content, and that this remains something that needs consensus, you are adopting for the demands of a single case the total opposite, calling for the selection of a small body to do the same, and with the most drastic penalties over anyone who departs from it, and no power of appeal from it. Well, I hope we will consider ourselves left with at leas the power to abolish it. Before doing something like this, you need a general discussion with the community. I'm surprised at you.

I can not see how any small group can possibly take such responsibilities and prepare to discharge them honestly. There's nowhere where a small commission has that sort of universal power across all subjects--there are always a large number of editors, divided into subject committees. The only role of the ultimate editor-in-chief or board exercising this function, is to appoint them, and to decide the differences between the different groups.

Even in the organization of Citizendium, this power id delegated to what, even in their small organization, is over a hundred experts, grouped into several dozen disciplinary committees, and a fairly large board to resolve difficulties between them.

I am preparing a longer rebuttal. I am truly surprised at you--I can not believe you have thought out the implications. DGG (talk) 03:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Kirill, I do not want to repost here, but I have a number of specific questions regarding the Board idea, posted in the thread Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy/Proposed decision#Section break. I'd much appreciate your reply there. Thanks. Nsk92 (talk) 18:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Retraction of a charge against Dana Ullman (the homeopathy case)

Thank you for participating in the Arb case on homeopathy, even though you have voted for banning me for a year.

Sam Blacketer also voted for this one-year ban, and in doing so, he noted serious problems from one of my seemingly erroneous edit summaries.[127] However, FT2 alerted him that my edit summaries were accurate,[128], and Sam retracted his statement. Further, PhilKnight showed good faith in retracting these same charges that he had on the Evidence page. However, because Sam felt strongly enough about the seemingly erroneous edit summary that he made a comment about them, I asked Phil if he would contact the Arb committee members who have voted in case this (false) charge influenced your opinion. [129] Instead, he has suggested that I do so. [130] If, by chance, you too were influenced by the charge of bad faith summary edits, please note that this has been proven to be inaccurate.

Finally, although I have made some errors on wikipedia, I do not feel that they are serious enough to warrant the proposed one-year ban. Due to limited space, I am unable to reply to the many other erroneous charges against me, and I therefore ask if Arb committee members have any specific questions or concerns about my participation here for which they want my reply, I urge you to simply pose these questions or concerns before placing your final vote. DanaUllman^Talk 16:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Appeal - PLEASE HELP

It is high time that the abuses against the unjustly banned user "Gibraltarian" were dealt with rationally and fairly. My ban was brought about by a troll user's malicious complaint, and he continually vandalised any words I tried to post in my defence. I appeal to you as Arbcom member to please contact me on a_gibraltarian@hotmail.com to discuss the matter.

This is a massive injustice, and only allows others to continue to assert factually incorrect, malicious, offensive and POV items about my country.

Many thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.120.246.83 (talk) 15:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Starting a new taskforce

Hi Kirill, me and some of the other editors who cover the Falklands articles we're thinking of starting a taskforce, what would we need to do? Cheers Ryan4314 (talk) 19:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Please reconsider

I understand your desire to be unquestioningly objective, but now that the JzG case has been shoehorned into C68-FM-SV, the case has become gigantic. It really deserves the careful, thoughful attention of all arbiters, regardless of past involvement. --Dragon695 (talk) 12:11, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Military operations of World War II

Hi Kirill. You created this category back in 2006, and I would like to suggest it for deletion. Here are my reasons.

The category ambiguous. Many authors who used it to categorise their articles, used it for any and all operations, including air, naval and land, and including events that are only named operations because of their codeword, e.g. Operation X.

The purpose of the categorisation is to enable the reader to find similar articles in Wikipedia. The question is therefore what would make "operations" similar. As it happens I was not the first to think of this question. There is a book by an eminent, recently passed away, military historian and theoretician Trevor N. Dupuy, Understanding War [131] to answer this question. As you may remember we discussed before that combat occurs in difference scales. Dupuy, through historical case analysis came up with a categorisation found on pages 64-71 of the book. Essentially he defined five scales of combat:

• war - a conflict fought between two factions, states, nations or coalitions
• campaign - a phase of a war involving a series of operations related in time and space and having a common strategic objective that may include only one battle, but usually several; is fought in a single theatre of operations, and lasts from a few weeks to a year.
• battle - is a combat between major forces, usually as part of a campaign; lasting from a few days to several weeks, and are made up of several engagements. Naval battles tend to be short, an decisive
• action - is a combat between forces neither larger then a battalion nor smaller then a squad, each side having a tactical objective. As part of the engagements actions can last from a few minutes to hours, but never longer then a day
• duel - a combat between individuals, individual fighting aircraft or vehicles, and naval vessels, and usually last minutes

As you can see this also creates the additional commonality between articles in terms of common thread of goals, objectives and missions to define the articles as related to tactics, operations or strategy, a previously thorny issue due to lack of use in the English language of "operational" as a level of combat within a doctrine

This produces the relationships

• war - national goal (national forces - strategic)
• campaign - strategic objective (Army Groups or Field Armies - strategic/operational)
• battle - operational mission (Field Armies or Army Corps - operational/tactical)
• engagement - tactical mission (Divisions - companies - tactical)
• action - local objective (battalions - squads - tactical)
• duel - local objective (individuals or individual crews - tactical)

The above relationships would encourage use of Category:Battles and operations of World War II, with the proviso that the articles only named "operation" to facilitate a code name, but not the scale of combat are categorised elsewhere. The further development of this category name can be

Category:Land battles and operations of World War II Category:Naval battles and operations of World War II Category:Air battles and operations of World War II Category:Combined arms battles and operations of World War II

and

Category:Japanese land battles and operations of World War II Category:Soviet air battles and operations of World War II Category:United States naval battles and operations of World War II

with Category:British battles and operations of World War II assumed to be Combined arms to reduce the length of the category name. Look forward to your reply/ Please repost this to main categorisation discussion in the WWII task force if you think it necessary--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you happen to know why it is that I can't see new articles being added to categories that I'm watching? Also, what is the best way of monitoring new article creation in Wikipedia in general?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 14:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way I can set up Special:Recentchangeslinked as a regular watch, or do I need to do this manually for each category?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 01:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

So I need to set up a link for each category I want to watch as Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:World War II and access manually? Thank you for this assistance. I looked but was unable to find this feature.

Are you still participating in the Wikipedia Board?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 01:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Advisory Board - though you were involved with that--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 03:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, for some reason I though you were involved with the Foundation. Thank you again--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 03:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Tag worklists

How did you create Milhist worklists such as this? Do you run any program? Or use a combination of AWB and Excel? We are planning something similar at the India project and your response would really help. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 03:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

We have about 7700 articles in Category:Unassessed-Class_India_articles that will need to be seperated into the worklists at Wikipedia:IN1-T&A08#Worklists. I would really appreciate it if you can run the perl script to create the worklists. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 13:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Me too - thank you. :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Help with grammar

Could you please check and proofread the article from my sandbox User:Whiskey/Sandbox. I'm trying to put it in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Essays. --Whiskey (talk) 10:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed decision - Footnoted Quotes

Please note that 3 arbitrators have expressed a desire to move finding 2.1 to the principles; the remainder (including yourself) have not commented yet. Once this is resolved, and 1 more vote is cast in favour of it, the case should be ready to close. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Translation

Hi, the "template:Infobox Military Unit" has some problems on bangla translation in bn.wikipedia.org article বাংলাদেশ বিমান বাহিনী [http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6_%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A8_%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B9%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%80 |বাংলাদেশ বিমান বাহিনী](Bangladesh Air Force). May be you can help to solve this. --Tanveer.bhuiyan (talk) 22:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Goals

I took that straight from the Wikipedia article so don't blame me :)--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Adding your essay to civility page

Hi, Kirill. I am copy editing the Civility policy page. I have seen your excellent essay on professionalism and civility and wonder if you would mind it it was added to the footnotes on that page.(olive (talk) 17:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC))

Excellent! Thanks. I messed around with it but couldn't figure out a better way to include it other than than linking it. I'm sure there's a better way. ... argh.(olive (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC))

Deletion review for Zemax

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Zemax. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Srleffler (talk) 02:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Signpost updated for May 19th and 26th, 2008.

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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)

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This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 01:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

India worklists

Thanks much for creating the lists! Can you e-mail the Perl script to me please? Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 01:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much!! Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Awesomeness

		The Barnstar of Awesomeness
		For your awesome efficiency, general support, and for being an all-round good egg, I'm delighted to award you the 'Barnstar of Awesomeness :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 12:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Part of the challenge here is finding ways to display this tasteful barnstar to maximum effect :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 12:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

More awesomeness

Can you fix the African taskforce talk page? Under the references tag visible at the bottom people are having their text not showing. Can you either fix it or alert the Coding Troops, whoever they might be? Buckshot06(prof) 02:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That's awesome!! :) What was the problem, and how did you fix it - be interested to be able to fix this sort of thing without bothering you :) Buckshot06(prof) 02:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

This and that

Hi Kirill: May I trouble you please to populate Worklist C as T&A08 when you've got the time? I've put the new worklist on the drive page but left it commented out. Many thanks in advance :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Another measured Lokshinism in Milhist talk: "possibly interesting indication" :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Heh. ;-) Kirill ^(prof) 12:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

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Happy First Edit Day

Happy First Edit Day, Kirill Lokshin, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! User:MiszaBot III (talk) 05:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Idontknow610^TM 15:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

С днем рождения" --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

Hi Kirill, which would be the procedure to demote an A-class article which obviously does not meet the A-class criteria any more and may not even fall within our scope? Cheers, --Eurocopter (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking of this, but if I put it under another AR the Milhist banner automatically changes from A-class to Start-class. Is this the first time an A-class article would undergo an A-class review? --Eurocopter (talk) 19:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Is it worth amending the ACR instructions to explicitly deal with this? Or is that WP:BEANS? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Given the relative rarity of re-reviews, and the fact that this is a technical issue with the template code that really has nothing to do with how the review should work, I wouldn't think that mentioning it explicitly is needed. We can just explain it on a case-by-case basis if it comes up again. Kirill ^(prof) 12:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Military, er, things

Sorry for the delayed response but I was traveling. I'll respond shortly on my talk page. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Re:Military history WikiProject!

Thanks for the welcome note. I will try my best to contribute to the prjt -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 14:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ask first

No reason to nominate something for MFD when I offered to take it offline by request. PouponOnToast (talk) 14:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

FAC query re infoboxes

FAC query on Roger's talk page, in case you want to have a look. The issue raised is about road icons in road article infoboxes, and it was compared to the use of flags in MilHist infoboxes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Requests to amend discretionary sanctions

Hi Kirill. Following on from your comment at the two requests to amend, I was wondering whether you could consider putting them up for voting now that the Committee has clearly decided which version they favour? I commented to that effect on RfAr, but due to understandable reasons at this time of the year, things might not happen for a while. :) Cheers, Daniel (talk) 01:53, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Email and threats

You've got email related to today's death threats, see history of footnotes PD page. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:19, 15 June 2008 (UTC)