User talk:Pointillist/Archive 2011

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archives

2007–8 archive, 2009 archive, 2010 archive (to Feb 2011), 2011

...once again. I do this from time to time, to avoid "

I am beginning just now. Perhaps some corrections by editors who are more familiar than me with standard wikipedia formats for articles will be necessary. Amending (talk) 14:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I would be happy to help with formatting. I suggest that you leave me another message when the article is ready for polishing. - 17:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your translations. I have updated them just a little – hope that is OK. - Pointillist (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems that you did more (and better) work than I did. I had neglected several details that you valued well. I am looking for more statistical informations in terms of education, social structure etc, but it is not easy to retrieve them at municipality level and when one finds something, it dates back to 10 year ago like the entrepreneurship index I entered. Perhaps I can find the average ages of the whole population, and the detail for males and females updated to a recent year, maybe late 2009 or late 2010, in the ISTAT website. That's next thing I plan to add. I think also the unemployment rate is interesting. Best regards. --Amending (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I just thought I would say thank you for your very thorough report at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism (diff) about

Many thanks for taking the trouble to let me know. BTW, when you click "edit" at

WP:AIV the first thing you see is a rubric that says "brief reason for listing (keep it short)" three times in succession, which positively discourages long explanations like mine. Maybe the regular AIV-admins should re-think those instructions? - Pointillist (talk

) 19:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Just to let you know (since you said you'd be taking the page off of your watchlist) that I've tried implementing a possible solution for the problem you raised here regarding the country-of-birth data in the London article. Cordless Larry (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. As I've posted on the London talk page I think you've hit on the "least worst" way of doing it. I'm glad you found a use for File:Polish-born people in employment in the UK 2003-2010 - chart 2369a at statistics gov uk.gif too. Hope we can work together again sometime. - Pointillist (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes indeed - it's been a pleasure. Cordless Larry (talk) 00:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

for this.  :) Crazy times. The Interior (Talk) 08:32, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

An attack similar to the one you saw on BioWare overloaded the pending changes queue of this article during the trial, and it was semi'd. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 16:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Is the pending changes queue length inherently restricted? That isn't a point that has come up on in the community discussion, AFAICS. - Pointillist (talk) 16:27, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not. All edits that were made since the last approved edit are in the queue, regardless of how many there are. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 22:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Kirkham and Wesham railway station in 2008.jpg was cc-by-sa-2.0 when I copied it. The license can't be revoked, so it is fine to make derived works under the same license. Edward (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks: I'd already done the changes, but I like to embed the copyright details into the file and that's when I realized there was a discrepancy. All done now. - Pointillist (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		for your great insights at Wikipedia:ANI#Apparent_annual_creation_of_role_accounts_for_a_class_assignment. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk ) 18:33, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

*blush* - Pointillist (talk) 21:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

are you editing this list incorporating from here? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12880840 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.97.245.57 (talk) 11:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Well done for adding the extra column. For the first few sources I used the individual BBC stories, but yes, I then moved over to using that summary table, which I've called <ref name="BBC_20110329"/>. I've only used the confirmed entries on the table, BTW, and I've finished now. I won't watchlist that page for future edits but if you want to discuss just leave a note on my talk page. Thanks - Pointillist (talk) 11:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a good start! Is it advisable to link to uni announcements or news? which is more likely to remain active longer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.97.245.57 (talk) 11:19, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The BBC seems to have stuck to the same story urls for years (you can still find relatively minor stories like this from 2001, for example) whereas university webmasters won't necessarily keep their site maps intact: e.g. there were problems with broken links when Oxford University reorganized their website last year. In general (not just on university websites) I've noticed that aged press releases often get moved from a "current news" section to an "archive" which of course breaks the links. There is a technique for overcoming this, which is to create an independent permanent archive using a service like www.webcitation.org. I've been doing that for some of the sources in the Kamco article, because some of the parties involved might find it expedient to delete records of what they said at the beginning of the myki project. But there's a more general point to consider: when a University makes an announcement it is a "primary" source, but when a newspaper or broadcaster covers it, their report is a "secondary" source. For Wikipedia's purposes, if a secondary source has a neutral editorial stance and a reputation for accuracy, it is better than a primary source. Hope this helps - Pointillist (talk) 11:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC).

Thank you for such an informative update. With so much focus on 'the now' I can totally understand why it may be easy to forget the important lessons from the past. Webcitation.org looks like a very good tool - I have never heard of anyone using it however so will be sure to pass this knowledge on! Regards.

I'm not normally a fan of DYK, but today's April Fool selection (permalink) is superb. Congrats to all concerned. - Pointillist (talk) 10:58, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Re [1]: Just for information, {{

Thanks for that: I've seen it used on other talk pages recently so perhaps

Template:Schoolblock/doc needs clarification. - Pointillist (talk

) 13:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It's quite acceptable for it to be used on user talk pages as well, as an alternative to {{

t/c

) 13:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

But the text says "editing from your school, library, or educational institution's IP address is disabled", so it would have to be an IP user from a school's IP range, wouldn't it? Anyway, surely these points should be in the documentation? - Pointillist (talk) 13:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It is somewhat impossible (or extremely difficult) to find a perfect reference source when stating what the opinion of the fanbase is. There are multitudes upon multitudes of videos on youtube that indicate this, however. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.217.237.153 (talk) 22:58, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for coming to discuss this. I know how frustrating it can be when you know something is true but you can't produce a reference for it, and you waste time trying to find one. The same thing happened to me early in my editing career and it is the pits. But the rules about sources do make sense in the long run: if no-one in the (reliable) media is saying X, then Wikipedia shouldn't say X either. This is more about creating an "audit trail" back to a reliable source than about absolute concepts of truth or accuracy, and if you try editing articles that are less personally interesting to you (e.g. some of the unsourced

BLP backlog) it might help get a perspective on why we care so much about sources. Anyway, happy editing and let me know if I can help in future. - Pointillist (talk

) 23:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

• Cloud computing Maurice Carbonaro (→See also: Added *Fuzzy logic. Please feel free to undo this change. Thanks.)

Why? - Pointillist (talk) 11:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• Me too... Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 11:00, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Anyway seems like someone had an answer to your question. Please have a nice weekend. Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 09:24, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

hi Pointillist, thanks for the note on Kaligtasan, i hadnt thought of sometimes using redirects instead of nominating something for speedy deletion, its a good idea. cheers -- The Elves Of Dunsimore (talk) 03:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I would like to have that edit (or at least my edit summary) removed, if possible. I realized I said some things which might cause problems that I would like to avoid. Please contact me as soon as you can, if you can help me out. I assure you, it's really something minuscule that will have no effect the article itself.

If you can assist I'll explain further. Goal2004 (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I can't see any issue in

RevisionDelete. I'm not an oversighter but you can find a list of them here. If I can help in any other way, let me know. - Pointillist (talk

) 21:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey Pointillist, you rolled back a couple of Dken5's edits (e.g., Antonio Freeman), I assume for missing copyright information. Would you mind leaving an explanation on their talk page? That editor strikes me as difficult, and in such cases it's best to overexplain, if you will--just in case trouble starts later on and they claim they didn't know or weren't told. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 02:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for dropping by. - Pointillist (talk) 08:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

No, thank you. Drmies (talk) 12:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Pointillist, May I please request your assistance with some disruptive editing made once again by 69.120.229.30. User continues to re-order episodes at

Thanks for your message. I struck out my 23:07, 14 April 2011 comment this morning but I haven't been able to think of an effective way to help with the wider question. I can believe that the edits from this address might be disruptive—they certainly were in the browser articles I checked—but I can't confirm that they really are. I don't know much about US children's TV series and I don't know which sources are reliable. Anyway there isn't enough debate to prove that the IP editor is being deliberately disruptive, rather than just being "

WP Nickelodeon, WP:Animation and Television don't seems to be concerned. If you'd like my advice (rather than assistance) perhaps a good starting point would be to find proper references for the article in question, because then you can use the normal wikipedia checks and balances to ensure the article is correct. If this approach is undertaken in a low-key manner, the article will cease to offer sufficient drama to keep disruptive editors interested. At the other extreme, you might stir up some activity by nominating the article for deletion, on the grounds that it is insufficiently watchlisted and a magnet for vandalism! Good luck - Pointillist (talk

) 22:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

This unregistered user (134.151.0.13) appears to be a vandalism-only shared educational institution account, FYI. [email protected] (talk) 21:10, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. As you know (you seem to be an experienced editor) you can report a vandalism-only account at

WP:AIV for an admin to consider blocking the IP address. However, in this case I'm not sure that a pattern of recent and ongoing disruptive edits and warnings has been established sufficient to support a block. - Pointillist (talk

) 21:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Good work

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		To Pointillist: I've seen you around occasionally and you're doing good work. Keep it up! Tyrol5 [Talk] 01:49, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for that - Pointillist (talk) 08:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you please stop changing this page. All things mentioned about pineapple and celebrity boot camp had links to, to show that what is being written is the truth, which you have wrongly removed. The date of birth cannot be proved without a birth certificate, which i have right here...would you like me to scan it in? And lastly, with regards to the blog, the information was correctly linked to the daily mail article which quotes dean rowland and his blog, as well as the source from the Mr Paparazzi website, so yet again there is no need for removal. I shall expect you to revert your edits or i shall report you as this is vandalism. thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.9.214.250 (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me here. The main problem is that Wikipedia has evolved very strict rules about what can be said about living people, much stricter than you will find on social media sites. The central point is that every statement has to be "verifiable", and – this might surprise you – that typically means that it has been reported by an uninvolved third party with a reputation for fact-checking. The birth certificate you hold wouldn't be a good source because it is

Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. However, some parts of popular newspapers, e.g. entertainment gossip, wouldn't be seen as automatically reliable. Dean Rowland's blog isn't reliable because it is self-published and might not even be published by him. Of course, if it is proved that the blog is written by him then it will be considered accurate as a source for his opinions, but those opinions won't necessarily be considered to be true. If his blog makes a libellous statement about a living person we can't use it because he isn't a reliable source (see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons for more info about this). My advice would be to start by establishing that Dean Rowland is sufficiently notable to need an article on Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Notability offers advice about this). Until you prove that he is notable, the article is likely to be deleted. - Pointillist (talk

) 23:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I saw that you had previously edited The Boat Race and wanted to ask for your input. I have been looking over the Media Coverage section of the article and wanted to make some edits so that it better reflects present day media coverage. In the past 5 years the race has been covered in media outside of The United Kingdom including ESPN. News publications such as this article in the New York Times and Washington Post have also provided coverage in the United States. I also believe that some of the points added to this section are not noteworthy in the grand scheme of the article and should either be combined into a paragraph about BBC coverage or taken out.

I hope to rework this part of the article to smooth the edges and add these important facts. Do you have any opinions on how I should format this portion of the article?

Thanks for your help. --RivBitz (talk) 15:47, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry not to have replied sooner. I'm on a trip at the moment and won't be editing much for a few days. Why not leave a note at Talk:The Boat Race? Here are some other links you might find useful:

Wikipedia:How to edit a page

Wikipedia:Tutorial

Sandbox (a place where you can experiment)

Wikipedia:Where to ask a question

Wikipedia:Manual of Style

Good luck. When I'm back I'll check your contributions to see whether I can help. - Pointillist (talk) 22:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I made a note on that talk page. Talk:The_Boat_Race#Media_Coverage_Section I would appreciate your input.--RivBitz (talk) 21:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, this was not helpful. There was no blanking, and no requirement for IPs to use an edit summary, especially when simply translating an infobox from French to English. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake. Thanks for catching it. - Pointillist (talk) 06:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi - I'd like to talk to you about the Schmollinger Map photos you took. Could you email me at [email protected], please? Thanks - Josh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.244.184.222 (talk) 11:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Josh, congratulations on winning University Challenge 2004. I don't know which of the five map images you are referring to ( Royal Mint, Green & St James's Parks, Regent's Park, Hyde Park or King's Bench Prison) but they were all taken from the same print using a flat-field macro lens and they're all in the public domain in the U.S. because the source image is so old and Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. says any derivative image can only claim copyright if it adds originality. I have explicitly given up any rights to these five images and you are free to use or adapt them in any way, in any jurisdiction worldwide, without crediting me or wikipedia/commons. If these free versions aren't sufficient, I can provide higher resolution pictures of any part of the Schmollinger map on a commercial basis at short notice. If you have a wikipedia account, you can email me here. Cheers - Pointillist (talk) 22:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of RfA reform 2011 at 16:00, 25 September 2011 (UTC).

Funny how two experienced editors turn up at once, like buses going to Youghal. If I'd arrived a few minutes later I'd probably have left it alone. Thanks for your work there, though I hope you'd agree that that text shouldn't all be in the lead. Anyway, shall we see if Hyde09 and the IP editor(s) are prepared to come to an agreement during the next week?  —SMALLJIM  23:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Funnily enough I just replied to your posting on the Youghal talk page. According to Hyde09's talk page he's Adrian Hyde who seems to be one of the prime movers to get the town on its feet again. If so, I suppose he hasn't understood how the secondary source model works here. IMO if they can find sources that talk about how the town is being turned into a success, it should be possible to create a specific section to describe the decline and rise so that it only needs to be mentioned briefly in the lead. Anyway, I have no vested interest there. I like the picture on your talk page BTW! - Pointillist (talk) 23:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Gah - I think my brain must be as decayed as that of the poor old fellow in that photo! I didn't check that Hyde09 was autoconfirmed, so the semi-protection inadvertently gave him the advantage. And although in his favour he did once try to engage the IP editor in discussion,[2] he is, as you pointed out, a member of "Youghal Concerned Citizens"[3] which means he has a definite

conflict of interest. I've roughly edited the page in the direction that I think it should go, unprotected it, and will leave a note on User talk:Hyde09. Any further edit-warring will be dealt with vigorously!  —SMALLJIM

  13:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Nice work! I've taken it off my watchlist, thanks. - Pointillist (talk) 13:59, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

in regards to this message: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:142.31.10.34,

this ip address is the public wifi of a collage library, whoever made the edit in question is probably not going to see the message. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.31.10.34 (talk) 04:39, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out: I'll copy your message to the user talk page. - Pointillist (talk) 08:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you take a look again. Ceoil (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I see you spotted it too. I found three others besides

Thanks for the heads up. The discussion on your talk page seems to be going in the right direction IMO. - Pointillist (talk) 08:11, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

It has already been recognised these vandal accounts are nothing to do with me. Please stop and revert. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.156.181.145 (talk) 22:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I've asked for your edits to be considered at

WP:AIV (here). Please get involved on the AIV page if I've misunderstood your intentions, thanks - Pointillist (talk

) 22:50, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

He's right, actually. It's JtV, per checkuser. Tagging the pages with his name is just plain wrong - Alison ^❤ 22:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for replying Alison – I wondered if there was a wider issue. Actually I haven't done any tagging in this respect: all I did (contribs) was to rollback eleven reverts by 109.156.181.145 to the tags others had already placed on talk pages of registered accounts. Given the concerns you raised when you retired in March 2009, do you think my rollbacks were inappropriate? - Pointillist (talk) 23:15, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This related to an ongoing complaint to ArbCom which I was CCd on. I'm not sure how this relates to the page you linked to, as rollback isn't mentioned and I'm not seeing any other context. Strictly speaking, it's okay to use rollback,

banned and thus covered. But sometimes an undo with an explanation is the right thing to do, y'know? - Alison ^❤

23:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

We must be talking at cross purposes and that probably means I didn't explain myself properly, so I'm sorry about that. There are no IP addresses listed on

Wikipedia:Rollback feature bullet 4, but aren't they covered by the "obvious vandalism" test in bullet 1 because the IP-originated edit is reverting edits to multiple registered editors' talk pages? I always revert and leave an explanatory edit summary if there is the slightest possibility of good faith – I think you'll see that I did that for my first undo at User talk:Square of opposition which is now deleted – but when someone editing from an IP address with no previous history reverts tags placed on registered editors' talk pages there's no possible good faith explanation: the reverts must be mad or bad, surely? - Pointillist (talk

) 23:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

BTW on the wider issue, I was referring to the second bullet in your March 2009 resignation. I permalinked it a few weeks later (here) so it has been part of my mindset for over 2½ years now! - Pointillist (talk) 23:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Just read your Peter Damian SPI post. Isn't this identity community-banned and indef-blocked (per log)? If so, why should admins waste time responding to an IP who might be him/her? - Pointillist (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi again. Wow - you linked to my retirement statement of nearly three years back? Wow ... Anyways - I guess if you'd no knowledge of who it was, revert was technically incorrect, yes. But it *is* nice of you to question it - so many don't. Reverting anyone's edits is akin to a slap in the face at times so it's not always appropriate. Sometimes, I'll use 'undo' even if I can legitimately use revert. And as to why admins should respond to an IP of an editor who may be banned? Well, firstly, banned editors are people too. In this case, it was obvious that the banned editor in question was trying to clear his name and thus required further intervention. I'm good with that and can see where they're coming from. Slamming the door in their face (block/revert) would just be being petty, IMO. In this case, there's an email discussion going on in the background re. the accounts involved so Peter Damien was justifiably irate about being misattributed here. This is just MHO here, of course, and one would be technically correct in block/reverting but that's not always the right thing to do. I've seen banned editors reform, too, over the years, and go on to be exemplary editors - even after I've blocked literally hundreds of their accounts. Even tho' they were banned, I blocked their accounts with a certain good grace, y'know, which is probably why they're back here now and all is well. tl;dr - I know what the rulebook says, but sometimes kindness and understanding is the better answer - Alison ^❤ 01:13, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback—much appreciated! Best - Pointillist (talk) 07:51, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Pointillist. I was just admiring your map of the Championship Course. Very clear. I did notice a small typo, though: "Harrods Depositary" should be "Harrods Depository". Would that be a quick fix, if you have a moment? Thanks! – Wdchk (talk) 17:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Good grief, what a terrible misteak. Sorry about that. It won't be quick, as I can't find the original SVG file (the uploaded version has text converted to curves), but I will try to fix it somehow. Thanks for noticing, and for pointing it out so politely. - Pointillist (talk) 18:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your support at my recent successful RFA. Being now the new fellow in the fraternity of administrators, I will do my best to live up to the confidence shown in me by others, will move slowly and carefully when using the mop, will seek input from others before any action of which I might be unsure, and will try not to break anything beyond repair. Best, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:24, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It appears you forgot to add a

Y I've added PD-self, thanks Pointillist (talk) 11:50, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The weasely words about "generally considered" aren't my addition. My only contribution was to remove an otiose wikilink to "German" that an over-enthusiastic editor had added contrary to

Actually I was referring to your edit that removed the {{By whom}} tag: your edit summary says (rem link: see [[) so I thought you had a source up your sleeve. Anyway, I'll add the weasel tag back in the hope that the original contributor is still watching the page. - Pointillist (talk) 12:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Errr - not sure what you're on about, I never seen that article in my life or edited it! Dunno who said f*****s or why u telling me about it, but if you reckon they didn't, I dun really give a rat's, as they say. Merry Christmas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.209.161.195 (talk) 00:39, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.