User talk:Mr.Z-man

Thank you from Horologium

Thank you for participating in my RfA, which passed unanimously with the support of 100 editors. Your kindness is very much appreciated. I look forward to using the tools you have granted me to aid the project. I would like to give special thanks to Wizardman, Black Falcon and jc37 for nominating me. — Horologium

Re: Lists of basic topics

I've replied to your post at WP:VPR.

The Transhumanist    20:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Assistance request

I was wondering if you could help me on two things -

1. The closure of an outstanding CfD for categories I created, where it was decided they should be renamed to reflect WP:1.0
2. An {{editprotect}} here to implement the new categories for our project. Thanks! JohnnyMrNinja 23:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Issue with TinucherianBot in Project Banner Tagging for WP:FOOD

Thank you for expressing your concerns on the recent issue Issue with TinucherianBot in Project Banner Tagging for WP:FOOD . I have make some comments at Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval#TinucherianBot and I am leaving this note just for your information -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 08:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

A discussion

An important discussion on " Should WikiProjects get prior approval of other WikiProjects (Descendant or Related or any ) to tag articles that overlaps their scope ? " is open here . We welcome you to participate and give your valuable opinions. You are receiving this note since I thought you may be interested in this disussion. -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - , member of WikiProject Council. 13:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Frank West

I noticed that this page was marked for deletion back in March in relation to the discussion on characters from the "Dark Rising" video game. I have re-done the page, which is now dedicated to the 19th century major league baseball player of the same name. If possible, can this page be un-marked? Dewelar (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Oops...should be "Dead Rising", not "Dark Rising"...Dewelar (talk) 18:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean, it doesn't seem to be marked for deletion. If it was I would hope someone would have gotten to it since March. Mr.Z-man 20:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

This may be my misunderstanding. I thought the Frank West article was covered under the "Characters and Story of Dead Rising" AfD. The article was previously a simple redirect to the Dead Rising page Dead Rising#Frank West, so hopefully my coopting the page won't be problematic.Dewelar (talk) 20:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as the page is about something totally different, it doesn't matter. Mr.Z-man 20:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Protection of Olympics templates

I question why you've recently protected, seemingly without reason, several Olympics templates to the point where only administrators can edit them. Most of the editors at WP:OLY do not have the privileges to edit fully protected pages, so we would kindly request that you at least minimize the protect level. Thanks in advance! Jared (t)  23:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ditto for Template:PeruProjectBanner and Template:PeruTasks, used by WP:PERU. What's the point of such level of protection? --Victor12 (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

These templates all have several thousand transclusions (listed on Special:MostLinkedTemplates, hence the "Heavily used template" in the protection summary...) I've downgraded the protection on those to semi-protection. A fairly shocking number of our most heavily used templates are not protected at all (and probably not very watched either), a significant vandalism risk. Since these templates are not used in articles, the risk is lessened, so semi-protection should be fine for them. Mr.Z-man 00:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks both for your understanding, and your will to make this project a better place! Jared (t)  00:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Mammal

Could you lower this to semi-protected, too. We haven't had any issues and need to maintain it every now and again, see the protection log. Thanks. --Tombstone (talk) 00:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done Mr.Z-man 00:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

{{Convert/rand}}

Please unprotect {{convert/rand}} for the time being. There is some trouble shooting that needs to be done. JIMp _talk·cont 00:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done, but as this one is used in articles, it should be protected. Mr.Z-man 00:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it should be once fixed, thanks. JIMp _talk·cont 00:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the problem might have been fixed. Please put the protection back on. JIMp _talk·cont 00:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the big problem by reverting to the old version but now I notice that the small problem that the reverted edit had patched up is showing it's ugly head again. I'm going to have to ask for unprotection again. JIMp _talk·cont 05:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Museums template

Not requesting unprotection because I understand why it's needed but I have a question. Do you have any objection to my occasionally turning it down to semi for fixes? I ask primarily because I'm template stupid and of the two who regularly fix it for me one isn't an admin and the other edits frequently from his (I think) public account which isn't an admin. Theoretically they could show me what changes need to be done and I could do but I think a fair amount of the fixes are trial and error and I have no problem dropping it to semi to let them play. Thoughts on that? _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 01:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Feel free. Mr.Z-man 21:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

WPIN Template

Hello, you recently protected the Project Template for WP:WPIN. I am one of the primary editors in the project as of late and have been doing most of the assessments on new articles. I have been tweaking it lately to recognize different parameters and all are working except the "class=image" "class=Image" parameter, could either fix that problem or unprotect, or make it semi-portected it so that I may? Thank you. Charles Edward 03:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. Could you please address my request above. Thanks. Either unprotect the page so I may make the adjustments or please make them for me. There are no admins in our project that can make this change. Thanks Charles Edward 19:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I set the protection level of Template:WikiProject Indiana to semi-protected several days ago. Mr.Z-man 22:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Charles Edward 01:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

{{S-rail/lines}}

Hi, could you change this template protection status to semi-protect? It's a list meant for editors to add in new rail lines parameters and would be extremely inconvenient if it were fully protected. You may wish to see {{S-line}} or {{S-rail}} for more details. :) - oahiyeel ^talk 04:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Already done, though that one poses a bit of a risk... Mr.Z-man 21:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Protection of Template:WikiProject Anime and manga

Hi Mr.Z-man,

Please downgrade the protection level on the above mentioned template to semi, as we are currently discussing and implementing changes on it per discussions on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga. At least the following changes are still due:

• Adding an importance parameter. For use in assessing importance for cleanup.
• Adding a "needs TLC parameter. For use in identifying major cleanup projects. (Refer to Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Cleanup task force).
• Other changes has not yet been discussed, but are likely.

The template is watchlisted by 'at least two editors, probably three.

G.A.S 04:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Already done. Mr.Z-man 21:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

On preemptive protection of templates

Hi,

I left a note at User talk:Wknight94#Thanks on this issue too. The avril troll has led to a spate of admins mass-protecting templates, in many cases preemptively. To put it mildly, this is a huge pain in the ass for non-admins who work in templatespace. While there's a policy that heavily transcluded templates may be fully protected to prevent vandalism like this, I think if there's going to be a mass effort to preemptively protect all heavily-used templates then this should be discussed first. It's going to seriously impact my productivity if I have to request editprotected every time I make corrections to an infobox, something I do on a daily basis. I didn't see anything about mass preemption on ANI. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This isn't just the Avril troll (though it could be the same person with a different M.O.), template vandalism is far worse than normal vandalism. Not only are changes to templates less patrolled, but vandalism to a meta-templates, which many of the ones on the most-used template list are can take a long time to even find once its noticed. Also, due to caching, if the vandalism isn't reverted quickly it could still be seen by unregistered users even after its reverted. While templates used in talk pages and outside of articles aren't as much of a risk, a template used in 5000+ articles should be protected. Template:Infobox Single is used in 23000 articles and was only semiprotected. If someone wants to downgrade my protection, I won't complain, but if its used in articles, I won't do it unless there is a pressing need. Mr.Z-man 21:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

And again, the problem isn't necessarily the rationale, it's the extreme escalation of what was previously taken to be an acceptable solution in specific circumstances into a hard policy seemingly without discussion. Changes to templatespace are going to be far less patrolled if non-admins give up on it because the barrier to editing is too high. It's worrying that the Avril troll seems to have kicked off such a trend without any public discussion of the policy. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Before doing this, I wrote up a quick python script to check the list of the most used templates to see which ones weren't already protected, I expected to find a handful, instead I found dozens. As I've said above, I have no problem with other people unprotecting these. I did this with no special authority nor as an attempt to create a "hard policy." I saw what appeared to be a significant security hole and decided to remedy it. As far as I can tell, changes to templatespace are already fairly unpatrolled, else this vandalism would be reverted before it ended up in hundreds of articles with people scrambling to figure out which template or meta-template was vandalized. Mr.Z-man 00:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

To add in, I support Mr.Z's actions, templates used on thousands of pages should be edited carefully both due to the performance issues of changing a widely used template and the issue of fixing vandalism. For instance it takes 3-4 days to undo the vandalism from a single quickly reverted edit to a template used on 57,000 pages. In the past template "experts" who need the tools to edit protected pages have found warm reception at RFA, you might contact User:Davidgothberg as I think the direction the site is moving in is to limit potential damage to places with preemptive protection. MBisanz ^talk 00:56, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, okay, I get the rationale - but could someone, like, go and update WP:PROT to indicate that this is not a "may" but a "will"? Preferably with an explicit transclusion threshold over which one can expect a template to be protected? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you read my last comment? I'm not trying to change policy here. What a few people decide to do does not make a policy and that is not my intention. If people want to change the policy, I would probably support it, but I really could care less. As I said, I have no problem with other people overturning the protections, but I'm not going to do it myself if the only reasons are procedural. Mr.Z-man 17:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox road

I regularly make improvements to this template, and would appreciate if it were unprotected. Thank you. --NE2 12:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

 Not done This is used in nearly 10000 articles, unprotecting it poses a security risk. You can ask at WP:RFPP Mr.Z-man 21:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

CSD

What were CSD A4, A6 and A8? And would it be possible to have a CSD for "Substantial copy of other Wikipedia page" e.g. {{db-g13}} or {{db-substcopy}}? Rdbrewster♪♫♪ 15:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

You can see the old ones in this old revision of the page. A6 and A8 became G10 and G12 and A4 was merged into A3. There was also an A9 for a while, but this was removed but it doesn't seem to have lasted long enough to get a placeholder. You can propose new CSD criteria on the talk page. Mr.Z-man 17:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Main page discussion

Greetings. I am not going to revert your revert. But I'd like you to know my opinion that the main page resdesign discussion was interrupted by the effort to centralize and coordinate. I'd suggest retaining the comments links. It would have been a nice thing to do. —SusanLesch (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

See my comment on the talk page about this, Wikipedia talk:2008 main page redesign proposal#Refactoring. Having the talk page links in addition to the central discussion might be helpful where there is already a discussion on the talk page, but if we divert all discussion to dozens of separate talk pages, we'll never see any sort of resolution and comparison of different designs will be near impossible. Ideally, we'll stop accepting new designs at some point soon and focus on creating one or 2 "final designs" to put against the current page in a poll. Mr.Z-man 20:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you'll join the discussion--if your expectations are to "stop accepting new designs at some point soon" others might like to know that. I haven't read everything but so far comments were this might take a month. P.S. Your suggestion of "a few weeks" from 6 July works out to about 27 July or the following week. —SusanLesch (talk) 21:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Military Unit

Hi, I wanted to let you know that some of the parameters aren't displaying properly for this template. I noticed when you use the parameter for helicopters, the banner for aircraft flown doesn't display or you may get a red link (attack helicopter parameter) Shinerunner (talk) 20:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't change anything in the template, all I did was protect it. Kirill Lokshin made some changes a few months ago, you may want to ask him. Mr.Z-man 23:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

do you mind if I use part of your monobook.js?

I was talking to dragonfly6-7 on IRC tonight about new page patrol and he suggested that you have a good tool that helps with the task.

I wanted to check with you first to make sure that it would be ok for me to copy the top part of your monobook.js to add to my own page... this would be the code from the start of the page up until the comment line as follows

// End autopatrolling

if you dont mind me using this, do you have any advice on things that may go wrong or things to be careful for? I am trying to get involved in helping out with the New Pages patrolling. Thanks in advance %%-SYKKO-%% (talk to me) 03:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have tested and taken a closer look at the code which confirmed something I was wondering, which brings me to a new request. can you point me in the right direction to add the patrol link to the list of New Articles for quick patrolling? If not, that's ok I have gotten much quicker at doing patrol by going into each article anyway but I figured there are some that you can tell before you even go into them that they are ok. Think ya would be willing to help me out? I would very much appreciate it! %%-SYKKO-%% (talk to me) 19:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You'll need User:Mr.Z-man/patrollinks for the links. I haven't really tested the autopatrol script heavily. There's a chance it only works in FF3. There's no confirmation step or anything, or even something to say when its done. Once you click the tab, it will click all the patrol links on the page (you have to sort Special:NewPages by user to make it useful). If you have a slow internet connection or your computer doesn't have much memory, I would recommend not doing it on huge groups of pages at a time. Also, the "end autopatolling" comment was in the wrong place. I moved it to the correct location. Mr.Z-man 22:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! that's got it working, thanks for your help. I am on FF3, ram is so-so but internet is plenty fast enough. I prefer to refresh here and there anyway. I appreciate the help %%-SYKKO-%% (talk to me) 22:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Request to undelete user talk page

Hi. Could you please undelete User talk:Defendersofwildlife? I posted something on this page a while back. I'm having a discussion with someone from this organization and I need to see what I wrote before. I don't remember anything particularly sensitive on this page, but if you have some reason to not undelete it, could you please userfy it for me or email me the contents instead? Thanks! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done Mr.Z-man 20:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

{{WikiProject Oregon collab}}

I see you edit protected this template. As the person who created the template and the person who updates it, how exactly am I supposed to update it each week? I could track down an admin each time, but that seems a little, well, retarded. How about a semi-protect so only non-auto confirmed users are prevented from editing the template, or if possible make it so only those with rollback rights can? In the meantime, please replace the current two with:

• Owyhee Reservoir
• Oregon newspapers

Thank you. Aboutmovies (talk) 11:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I reduced the level to semi-protect. This template is monitored closely by a number of admins and frequent editors in WP:ORE, full protection is more than needed. -Pete (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

{{WikiProject Computing}}

Hi Mr.Z-man, I saw that you have made 'full protection' to {{WikiProject Computing}} , which I am significantly contributing to. I havent seen any vandalism attempts till now on this template.It will be gr8 if you could reduce the level to semi-protection, or else I will have to run behind you for every updates:) . Thanks in advance -- Tinu Cherian - 12:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done Mr.Z-man 22:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) -- Tinu Cherian - 04:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your oppose on my RfA

Hi. I'm just asking for clarification over your oppose on my recent RfA as you said that WP:N has nothing to do with original sources, peer-review or neutrality.

Your original comment was: "Q12 shows a major misunderstanding of WP:N, notability has nothing to do with originality, peer review, or neutrality. If I had to guess, I'd say the user confused WP:Notability with WP:Reliable sources."

Question 12 stated: "Notability, in regards to Wikipedia, is the worthiness of an item to be included within an article, based upon several factors. These factors include whether or not the item is original, or whether it is peer-reviewed or referenced to other articles. The item must be verifiable and must also be as neutral as possible. A good example of a notable source would be, for example, a medical article published upon a large site that is reviewed by a large number of physicians. A bad example could be a site published on a free-hosting service, written originally by the author of the site and not verified elsewhere."

Now, according to the guidelines for WP:N (particularly WP:GNG) the first two statements say the following:

1. ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive."
2. ""Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability."
3. ""Sources," defined on Wikipedia as secondary sources, provide the most objective evidence of notability. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally preferred."
4. ""Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc."
5. ""Presumed" means that substantive coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, of notability. Editors may reach a consensus that although a topic meets this criterion, it is not suitable for inclusion. For example, it may violate what Wikipedia is not."

This seems to go against your idea that WP:N has nothing to do with reliable sources or originality? It's further backed up by the statement: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable."

Any clarification you could provide would be a great help. Thanks. —CycloneNimrod^Talk? 08:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I never said it didn't have anything to do with reliable sources. It has everything to do with reliable sources, but your answer didn't even contain the word "reliable." I didn't want to go into too much detail on the RFA itself, but since you asked...

Notability, in regards to Wikipedia, is the worthiness of an item to be included

This part is actually correct.

within an article,

No, notability has to do with the subject of an article. If something is non-notable, it can possibly be merged into an article about something that is. An article about a band may include sections about their albums even if the albums themselves are not at all notable.

based upon several factors. These factors include whether or not the item is original

I don't see why originality has anything to do with it. Something that is new and original, as opposed to something ordinary may be more likely to get coverage in sources, but that's about it.

or whether it is peer-reviewed

A peer-reviewed article is probably a good source, but not even close to a requirement for notability.

or referenced to other articles.

Huh? You mean like journal articles? Again, its a sign of a high quality source, but all you need for notability is a couple newspaper articles.

The item must be verifiable

Verifiability is the threshold for inclusion, and somewhat related to notability.

and must also be as neutral as possible

Its perfectly possible to write a completely biased article about a perfectly notable subject, and vice versa. NPOV is barely related to notability. The only real connection is that a heavily biased source (like a press released) can't be used to establish notability.

A good example of a notable source would be

A notable source? Sources don't have to be notable, subjects do.

for example, a medical article published upon a large site that is reviewed by a large number of physicians

A very reliable source that could certainly prove a subject notable, yes, but far beyond what notability requires. The article itself may or may not be notable, though the site probably is.

A bad example could be a site published on a free-hosting service, written originally by the author of the site and not verified elsewhere

Yes, a very bad source that could not be used to establish notability, but has nothing to do with the subject of the article. If someone creates a website like that, and the New York Times runs a full story on it, the website is probably notable, even though it can't be used as a source except about itself.

Basically, the question was about what makes a subject notable, and you answered it with what makes a source reliable. Mr.Z-man 17:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Drive-in theater

"Drive-by revert"? Wow, very friendly and not at all arrogant.  Channel ®   22:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You reverted me in the middle of doing vandal reversions and as far as I can tell, you've never edited the article before, so its unlikely it popped up on your watchlist. I assume you were patrolling RC, saw my big edit, thought it might be controversial or something, and reverted it I BOLDly edited the article, and you reverted it telling me to take it to the talk page (even though the last edit to the talk page was a month ago), because it was a big edit (since when is that reason for a reversion?), not necessarily because you disagreed with the edit. At least you gave the vandals the courtesy of a talk page notification. Mr.Z-man 23:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You know as well as I do that removing huge amounts of an article can be a reason for reversion, and even a reason for a warning. As it says in the uw-delete template: "discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page". The amount of discussion (or lack of discussion) on that particular Talk page is irrelevant, and so is the question if this particular page is on my watchlist or not. The info you removed had been in the article for over a year, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the general consensus is leave it in. Personally I didn't consider it to be a mindless list of pointless vandalism either. Finally, you would have preferred me to slap a uw-delete template on this page? Weird.  Channel ®   23:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Last I checked, the user warning templates aren't policy. WP:BOLD is at least a guideline. I certainly won't revert a user just because they removed a large amount of content, that's why I was somewhat surprised when it happened. If I disagreed with the removal or it appeared to be vandalism I'd revert it. But reverting simply because something may be controversial is directly contrary to the reason Wikipedia has been so successful: Bold editing and no arbitrary rules. And no, I wouldn't have appreciated a uw-delete, its called a friendly message. Also, I didn't say it was vandalism (though it was pretty pointless). It was unsourced, unencyclopedic, and barely relevant, and an "in popular culture" section (or in this case about 5 sections) shouldn't be more than half of the article's content, unless this is what we really want. Mr.Z-man 23:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Sewersfeet

Hi
Concerning this edit: In User:Mr.Z-bot#Task 2 you explain why you are removing "Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages" from pages, but I can't see "{{Do not delete}}" transcluded anywhere on his user page or his talk page - nor should I, since he hasn't been banned. What am I missing?
Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 23:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it removed it, it seems to have removed it from a lot of pages it shouldn't have. Maybe a temporary API glitch? Mr.Z-man 00:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah ok, good thing I asked then. Have fun undoing that. :)
Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 00:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

SSP & RFCU > SSP2 going slow

Dear Mr.Z-man...Since you agreed that the sock puppet process needed an overhaul, I was wondering if you would be somewhat active in making sure that it gets done. Currently, the merging of Suspected sock puppets and Requests for checkuser is going rather slow. I would like to get the templating done soon. To do that the merging needs to be completed first, or at least the proposed process finalized. I ask you to take part in getting this done. You can start by reading SSP2 and then the talk page. I have already written two of the templates, but the rest will take a finalized process to write. Hopefully, you have the time to take part in this. Have a nice day! - LA @ 05:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Disambot

Regarding this edit, I don't understand what your intention was. Could you explain please? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 10:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, was bugzilla:14933, but when it saved it, it parsed what I actually submitted, so the version that I had in my browser cache was different than what was saved on the server. Mr.Z-man 13:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)