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User talk:Sholom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

User talk:Sholom

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Contents

Welcome!

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

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! 

A Mayflower passenger? Huh. Thought we had 'em all already. DS 15:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Jack Abramoff

[edit] Your e-mail regarding Jack Abramoff

Thanks for the e-mail. This guy has been persistent. He now seems to have switched tactic and is trying to remove any reference to religion from the article even where it is appropriate.

The best way to deal with an issue like this is to first place notices on the user's talk page. Other's have been doing this already. You can read about some of the procedures for leaving notices in the Wikipedia:Vandalism article. My favorites are the "test2-n" and "test3-n" templates.

Once a clear pattern is established an administrator can block the user for persistent vandalism or edit waring. You won't be able to block the user directly (neither can I), but you can leave a message at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. This will draw an admin in to look at the situation and take action.

Finally, it is usually easier to reach people via my talk page than via e-mail. It also provides a nice record for any future consideration. As others have said, welcome to Wikipedia!

--StuffOfInterest 12:27, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] His Faith

I agree, that much of Abramoff's religious talk is spin, but the same could be said to be true about most religious/political leaders. I think I wouldn't say so much that he was motivated by religious reasons, but that I think it is worth noting his defense of his actions via religion, and also some of his religious finicial activities. When every you hear about a scandal like this, everyone is dying to know, "how does the person defend their heinious crimes?", I think telling a small part of his side of the story is fair, what do you think?--M4bwav 15:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind noting his defense, nor his monetary involvement with religious instutitions; I was only objecting to any semblence of an implication that his scandals were motivated by religious convictions. Yes, he gave money to Jewish causes after he was collecting ill-gotten gains, but he was doing that even before he got involved in this mess. It's no different, imho, from some Mafia guy who got rich and continued to tithe to the church. The religion was not motivating the crimes. I think we pretty much agree Sholom 15:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I hope you won't construe my Pro-Abramoff faith mentioning stance as anti-Semitic, a good quarter of my family is jewish, though I'm an atheist gentile, I've actually lived in Israel for a month. I will admit that I am anti-religious, but I would only carry out that agenda insofar as to prevent the whitewashing of history by religious people.--M4bwav 21:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template

[stuff deleted] ... should Bob Ney be added to the "Jack Abramoff series" template (btw, that's pretty cool!) ? If so, should I ask The Cunctator, and/or how would I do that? Thanks! Sholom 15:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

To answer your questions:

[stuff deleted] It's a tricky question, if we include everyone related to Abramoff the template will be a mile long. However, since involvement with Ney led directly to one of the charges, I think he could be included on a "short list". Others will probably disagree and want him removed. Don't feel afraid to add him if you think he belongs, you just go to the page Template:Jack Abramoff and edit the page. The template is made up of some HTML codes, but you would add a name like this:

<center>'''People'''</center>
*[[Jack Abramoff]]
*[[Michael Scanlon]]
*[[David Safavian]]
*[[Team Abramoff]]
*[[Bob Ney]] (Add this line here)

Hope that makes sense. Good luck, and don't forget to Be bold... KWH 18:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice find on Sourcewatch, that site is awesome. --M4bwav 21:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category Question

I noticed there is a "Category: Articles lacking sources" at the bottom of Talk:Jack Abramoff. I find that kind of weird. First off, it's on the Talk page, not the main article. Secondly, there are plenty of sources on the main article. I would have removed it, but I am a fairly new wikipedian, and don't know the rules/etiquette surrounding that category. Please advise? Sholom 13:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed it... The category was inadvertently added when StuffofInterest included the {{citationneeded}} template as a demonstration on the talk page.
In terms of etiquette, I would say that the Category is added only so the article shows up at , where well-meaning editors can go and help find citations for the articles in question, and then remove the tag once they've fixed the problem, so generally speaking, it's a good faith thing that if you see an 'illogical' tag like that and are pretty sure it's not justified, you can just remove it (and perhaps leave a message with your reason on the applicable talk page). Of course, don't feel offended or wrong if you do that and someone comes out of the woodwork to argue with you, since people argue on Wikipedia about many things, both important and very unimportant.
Keep up the good work, I like your style... KWH 04:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hat Picture

In response to your question about the caption I added... if you're not aware, there's been a great deal of discussion lately about use of commercial images under fair use. There's a lot of opinions about, and a lot of people think that an image can't be used under fair use unless the article specifically engages in "critical commentary" on the image. If you click through to the image description page, you will see where I have the same text in longer form; referencing the Salon article on "the hat" and other debate should provide "critical commentary" enough.

I added the text so as to make sure that we are using this image in a generally acceptable "fair use" light. I'm open to a change in the "imposing figure" phrase, that was just something I dashed off, literary license... Also it's another bit of commentary on the image itself. Based on the fact that many media members were saying or implying that he looked like a mobster, I think that it's a verifiable view, it's just a matter of style as to whether we say "according to journalist X, he cut an imposing figure", etc. I've seen similar wording even in featured articles, so I thought it was OK...

The only downside is that it is a bit long for a caption, and might normally be put into the article itself, however I didn't take the time to find the best place to put it in the article. KWH 16:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal

FYI, I am working on a whole lot of writing and rearranging at this article which will probably take a few days... feel free to help out, I'm just trying to boil down the story from the Senate's Final Report as well as my notes. Thanks, KWH 05:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Abramoff's Family

BS"D

which of His kids went to school with yours?????? P.S. read the comment I left on Talk: Jack Abramoff relating similarly to this. --Shuli 16:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bob Ney

Thanks for the editing on the Bob Ney article. John Broughton 17:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project US Congress

Just spreading the word. Feel free to help. I'm a congressional employee myself, so I'm not suggesting any additions. Wikipedia has a policy against that. G Clark 17:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism to your User Page

Hi Sholom, thanks for your message. To answer your question, there are a number of ways of monitoring pages for vandalism, and one of the easiest is to use a tool such as CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter. This monitors changes to pages in real time via IRC, and it is very easy to configure and use. Different types of edits can be monitored and colour coded. Included in the edits that I monitor are edits to user pages not made by the user in question. Your page flashed up with an edit by an anonymous user - usually very suspicious - so I checked it out :-)

I see that you are a fairly new editor and I hope that you continue to contribute. If you catch the bug and stay, there are plenty of other tools out there to make editing easier and more productive. You might like to check out Wikipedia:Tools, Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts and the tool I find most valuable of all Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. Hope that helps, all the best. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date links

On 30 January, you asked on my talk page about date linking. Sorry for the delay in responding, I did not notice your comment until just now. The Wikipedia guidance is at:

I hope that helps. bobblewik 11:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Richard Warren

Well, I know a bit about him. But what do you already know? Also, I don't know if you knew this; but have you heard about the controversy over his wife's maiden name? Well, if you havn't, they've shed some light on the mystery. I think if you just Google it (searching for Richard Warren), you should find it. If not, just tell me. Icelandic Hurricane 22:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tags for public domain and/or fair use text

I'm not sure of the question - are you perhaps making this too complicated? If you simply add a standard link/URL as a normal citation for text from a federal site, isn't that enough? (In other words, tags are very important for images because copyright is much more strict on images than on text.) People should know that federal TEXT isn't (normally) copyrighted, and if they think it is, they need to follow the link to the original site and check for a copyright if they suspect there is one.

Note that this is the same issue for fair use of text from a copyrighted (non-government) article: giving a URL is enough - there is implicitly a claim being made that the text that is in the wikipedia article (unlike an image) falls under fair use, and it's up to another editor to make a counter-claim (that too much is quoted verbatim, that the information quoted is unique to the source - say, a specialized academic journal, etc.)

[edit] NJ Collaboration of the Week

Thanks for participating in Wikiproject New Jersey. In an attempt to create articles for some of the non-existing pages related to New Jersey, NJCOTW was recently created to bring members of WP:NJ together to work collaboratively on a certain selected topic, which this week is List of Governors of New Jersey. Please help by nominating/voting/commenting on articles on WP:NJCOTW, or by helping to improve articles in the scope of the topic for the NJCOTW. AndyZ 00:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, for this NJCOTW, this is exactly what we are trying to achieve. (note that the COTW might not always be a list though). Consider signing in the Participation section here: WP:NJCOTW#Participants. Thanks a bunch for helping, AndyZ 01:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Great site! The quantity of information there is astounding-definitely a great reference. I added it to the external links section of List of Governors of New Jersey, but that is slightly subtle. Certainly be bold (though not overtly); I added it to Template:NJCOTW. Thanks! AndyZ 02:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately yes it is awfully quiet; only 4 or so users have been really working on it. On the bright side, there are only 13 non-existant articles left; that's a huge improvement since it was before the NJCOTW started. AndyZ 22:15, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Imlaystown, New Jersey

I agree with the comments above that the NJCOTW is accomplishing for the List of Governors of New Jersey exactly what this WikiProject should be all about. I constantly find references to place names in New Jersey without links. Basically, they're either not one of the 566 municipalities or the 150-200 census-designated places. There are pages for otherunincorporated communities, but they may be ZIP Codes or other neighborhoods that never made the cut. A search at the US Postal Service locator tool gave an areas around the Upper Freehold, Roosevelt, Millstone Township area. Thanks again for your efforts. Alansohn 17:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More ADSC (Brent Wilkes) stuff

Thanks for the suggestion - yes, we're both interested in these things. I've been tracking Brent Wilkes; so far the story is still developing. I agree that the Larry Craig article needs updating, but since he isn't up for reelection in 2006, it's less critical. I've updated the Duncan Hunter article, but will try to expand it - for example, it needs a "2006 re-election campaign" section.

[edit] Page protection

You are right, you can't just add the template, as the template has no effect whatsoever. An admin must action the actual protection. see WP:RFP for the process and for placing your request.

Agathoclea 21:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Your message on WP:AIV

Page vandalism can be reported to WP:RFI (watchlist section). However the JFK article wouldn't have been a suitable report for that as that page says: "Do not list popular articles here, as they're already watched.", which is true in this case. To get an article protected you will have to ask at WP:RFPP. Adding the template yourself wouldn't do anything (as it requires an admin to actually apply to protection, the template is only for information). Hope that helps, any more questions feel free to get back to me on my talk page. Petros471 21:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Unprotecting JFK so soon?

Protection and semiprotection should be used as little as possible, and only in drastic cases, such as a massive influx of vandalism (which the article had been experiencing prior to the protection). I decided to unprotect the article because it had, in my opinion, been protected for a long enough time to stop the influx of vandalism. And it had; the one revert that has occured between unprotection and now is not out of the ordinary, especially for this rather high-profile page. I hope this answers your quesiton; if not, don't hesitate to ask me again. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, just to clarify things more after reading your question on WP:AIV: AIV is usually for cases of vandals who need immediate blocking; a page undergoing sporadic vandalism from multiple IPs and/or users usually isn't reported to AIV. As pointed out above, as well, adding the tag does not actually protect a page; instead, the template only informs people that the article has been protected. Only administrators may protect or unprotect pages, and requests for page protection and unprotection should go to WP:RfPP. I hope that clarfies things! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Doolittle

Hi and thanks for your work at the John Doolittle article. When I first saw the edit you made (regarding Julie) I thought oh no, not one. I've been getting so tired of some of the people in this place (wikipedia in general) who use this place to push some personal agenda. But fortunately my first impression wasn't fair. Your actually trying to improve the article. Yay! Perhaps we can work together to expand the article in other directions? Currently about 95% of the article's content is about the "scandals" he's been involved in. 40 years of his life is summed up in one sentence in the preamble.

Oh, regarding the Julie-fund raising section, has there ever been an accusation about some kind of wrong-doing? Usually when I read about it in a news stories it's more of a "Here! Look at this!" and they all assume we should think it's wrong. I would find it more unusual if John's wife, who raises funds for a living, didn't do his fund raising work! This is really what she does for a living. She's done if for charity's, political campaigns, PACs, etc for about 15 years. That's extremely important context that tends to be left out.

Well I've rambled on long enough, ---J.Smith 19:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Semi protection on JFK

Thanks for your message Sholom, nice to see you're making good use of the many valuable tools available :-).

I've had a look (somewhat belatedly this morning) at the JFK history. Since you posted your message there has only been limited vandalism by 3 different users, all reverted. I understand how frustrating it is to deal with this, but the protection policy is, correctly in my view, quite conservative in advocating that protection is used as little as possible. There are an army of RC Patrollers who are doing a fantastic job, and it seems you also now contribute to this, keep up the good work.

Revert the vandalism as you come across it, warn the users with the appropriate warning template on their talk page and report it on WP:AIV if it continues beyond a final warning. The warnings really do have a positive effect on the majority of 'test' type vandals. A simple benign {{Test}} more often than not helps the innocent "can I really edit this stuff?" user, and they will not cause further damage. Keep the contributions pages of vandals you encounter open for a while and monitor them for activity, issuing further warnings if necessary. I made the mistake when I started of trying to revert as much as possible and ignoring the test warnings. Use the warnings progressively, and use WP:AIV, the system works fairly well.

You also might find this page useful in assessing the level of vandalism to an article. The JFK page for example has significant levels of vandalism, but it's not out of control. I hope that helps. Cheers. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katherine Harris

Regarding the word "alleged"; the sentence in question reads "[w]ould have benefited...". Suffice it to say, that's speculation. Unless a) the bill passed and b) there was actual benefit, then it's only "alleged" as to what the effect of the bill might have beeen. Think about it. Merecat 23:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the word "harassment", which you directed at me on Talk:Katherine Harris: I dislike you saying that and I feel it's an overwrought characterization. I ask that you not speak to me that way in the future. Merecat 14:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Shalom - I see that Merecat has run into somewhat of a buzzsaw for his redirect, and that it's been reversed. So any help I could offer there [not much, really] is unnecessary.
In general, my philosophy on wikipedia is (generally) that it's best to trust the system (i.e., that other users will help), and when that doesn't seem to be occurring, to reassess the value of a prolonged effort.
More to the point, I'll try to devote some effort to monitoring the Katherine Harris article, and see if that helps. John Broughton 00:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monitoring

Sure, please give me a holler anytime you want another editor, where you think I might be helpful.

Regarding the Thomas M. Davis article, I've added that to my watchlist. Seems to be a relatively low volume of changes.

As for trusting the system, that approach doesn't work well (I agree) with pages where only a few folks care (Davis, for example, or John Doolittle, where things managed to get fought out and resolved to something acceptable but less than very good).

On the other hand, if only a few folks follow an article, that can be taken as an indication that putting a huge amount of effort into the article isn't the best use of one's limited time. John Broughton 20:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFC started on Merecat

In light of recent events (not discussing disputed edits, edit warring and making personal attacks) this Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Merecat has been started. Maybe you want to make an observation there, if not OK. SincerelyHolland Nomen Nescio 18:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I am no expert, and in fact this is my first RFC too. Although you have not contributed to the Rationale ..., I would think that any comment on his behaviour based on your experience on other articles is permitted. This is about user conduct, not about one article in particular. SincerelyHolland Nomen Nescio 13:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] [Thomas M. Davis]

Yeah, I've been watching that train wreck. I was hoping things would sort themselves out. (I added a note to myself, a few days ago, about using the unsigned template to give attribution to the paragraphs inserted amidst old text.)

I've not checked this morning on the reactions to my (hopefully not extremely heavy-handed) edits; I'm in the middle of moving (to the DC area, it happens), and need to get other things done. I hope the edits have been helpful. John Broughton 16:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] nationality!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please add nationality to the articles about humans that you create or edit. In an Encyclopedia is not written anywhere that people must be American or English or what. Thanks!!! Attilios 21:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russ Feingold

Thanks for adding some cites. FYI: some of the links you use fail the WP:RS test and I anticipate deleting those cites and re-tagging. From what I saw, it's about 20% of your links. Merecat 03:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Merecat is Rex071404

FYI - Merecat, the editor about whom you commented on RfC, has been shown to be a likely sockpuppet of User:Rex071404. Thought you should know. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 19:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SourceWatch

Yeah, you're right...actually I noticed that you removed a bunch of content here -- some of that info looks like it would be nice. I don't know, really, what the best thing to do with GFDL source notices, whether they should be kept for posterity or not. I'd say that we could replace the GFDL notice with a link to the SourceWatch article ? ? Either way I don't mind terribly. --User At Work 21:27, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tom DeLay peer review

You may be interested to know that I have submitted Tom DeLay for peer review, in hopes of eventually nominating it for Featured Article status. Please leave your comments and suggestions at Wikipedia:Peer review/Tom DeLay/archive1. Thanks, NatusRoma | Talk 21:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: not current?

I'll be sure to be more careful in the future when removing {{current}}. Thanks for bringing this to my attention so that I can improve my editing. --digital_me(Talk)(Contribs) 00:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maria Cantwell & immigration bill

Aside from not mentioning the republicans (which can be added rather easily 23 of 55 Republicans voted for it), what part did you find inflammatory? Only reason I left the Republicans off was because I wanted to show the Cantwell voted with a majority of the Dems. --Bobblehead 18:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Considering what was left by the previous update, I don't blame ya for thinking it was anti-immigration bill.;) Feel free to update as you see fit. --Bobblehead 18:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The claim about a filibuster being possible because of the 58-42 vote would fall under original research. The only places I've found mention of it has been liberal blogs. Either completely removing that sentence or something like the following would work:
In January 2006, after publicly announcing her opposition to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Cantwell, along with 18 other Democrats and all 53 present Republicans, voted for the cloture motion.[1] The success of this motion ended an unlikely attempt to filibuster the confirmation of Judge Alito that was being led by Senator John Kerry and Senator Ted Kennedy. [2] Alito was confirmed the next day by a vote of 58-42, with most Democrats, including Cantwell, voting against.
That seems to throw a bone to the people want to make her cloture vote controversial. --Bobblehead 18:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Lewis, et. al.

Offer accepted. I was thinking about the article being about the lobbying firm - it's not clear that White or Lowery or Shockey is really that significant (although, for all I know, there are articles on one or more of them; if so, I might change my mind). Something that is more or less a chronology, I'd guess. What do you think? John Broughton 17:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm signing off for today; I've got to work on other things. John Broughton 20:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup, caught that. What I think I'm going to do is add a "to be processed" section at the top of the article, with links and comments. John Broughton 17:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should set a deadline for "publishing" the piece, yes, and then do so. Friday? As for the title, perhaps "Jerry Lewis lobbying controversy"? I'm reluctant to include Lowery in the title because of Wilkes involvement. I also thought about "Jerry Lewis earmarks controversy"; that sort of implies that the lobbying fees paid are in exchange for earmarks, and it would then be a stretch to put the stepdaughter into the article, although that's clearly of the same piece.

What I was thinking of doing was creating yet another temporary page (perhaps when we agree on a title), as a draft, and leaving the top sections (working notes) of the existing article as is. And yes, it would be good to provide links (best is non-TPM, but TPM will have to do if time or other sources are lacking) to text that isn't supported yet - might as well anticipate those who are looking to nit-pick. John Broughton 16:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here you go: User talk:John Broughton/Jerry Lewis - Lowery lobbying firm controversy

Thanks for writing the intro; it was a very helpful first draft, which I've been working on. Also, for User:User At Work, you somewhat read my mind - I'd seen Jeff Shockey go blue (I then put a redirect at Jeffrey Shockey), and thought that the author seemed simpatico. John Broughton 18:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if you run across conflicting information on payments to Copeland Lowery, where one source is a government agency or school, drop me a note. I've see discrepancies in the data (for example, the City of Redlands says that they pay $30K per year, but I think I saw a figure of $40K for 1998-2004 based on lobbying disclosures by Copeland Lowery. I sort of wonder if the FBI is investigating under-reporting of income by the lobbying firm. John Broughton 21:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Your help was invaluable - I don't think it would have gotten done (at least anytime soon) without your initial suggestion, all the stuff you put in in a rough draft, your writing the first draft of the opening, and your suggesting it go live (not to mention the title). John Broughton 18:23, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christine Jennings

Just a quick note of thanks and to compliment you on creating an excellent article about Jennings. --Flawiki 21:47, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More scandals

Thanks for the heads up, I have been somewhat busy with things off-wiki but will try to get up to speed on these matters. I've also been interested in creating maps (know any articles that need a map?) KWH 02:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding an article on the scandal in the Marianas Islands - I can help with editing in general and copyediting in particular, but don't expect to have much time to do anything else (i.e., finding sources). Please let me know when you put up a draft page. John Broughton 12:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is notability?

Thanks for the pointers to the election discussions; very interesting. John Broughton 21:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thelma Drake

You wrote: Might it be the same people? Is there an easy way to check? Any advice? Thanks. The only tool I know about is Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser. But that's really intended for cases where at least one account is a registered user (since, at that point, one isn't supposed to use multiple accounts). For anonymous IP accounts, the best you're going to be able to do (and you can do this yourself with reverse IP lookup, of course) is determine if the anonymous IP addresses are from the same network.

Anyway, I've added the article to my watchlist, and I'll be glad to revert whenever I see an anonymous IP address has deleted something. I've also posted a warning on one of the user talk pages. But my sense is that the vandalism is infrequent enough that doing a vandalism report really isn't worthwhile. If the frequency increases (to much more than once per day), then try this. John Broughton 21:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Sholom - I really think there should be a separate article on the election itself, like New York 20th congressional district election, 2006. That would (a) eliminate the duplicate stuff being posted on Kellam's page, (b) preserve the info after the election is done; and (c) remove some of the (justifiable) argument that the article on Drake is giving too much space to her opponent. I also suspect we'd have a lot easier time with the anonymous IP addresses if there were a separate article, and a lot easier case to make of vandalism if the IP address folks start to delete stuff like the CQ analysis of the race. John Broughton 23:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Sholom - yes, I saw the edits. I don't really want to fight this battle on the pages of individuals; I think a case can be made that there really shouldn't be that much about campaigns there. On the other hand, deleting stuff from a campaign article is where I'd feel really comfortable calling for reinforcements and arguing that deletions are clearly vandalism. John Broughton 21:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

We're dealing with one person, I think. He's using a Cox cable IP address, 70.160.180.8, in the mornings and evenings and weekends, and is using a company address (155.188.xxx.xxx) during working hours, Monday-Friday. (It's in Columbus, Ohio, so Eastern Time.) (For example, look at July 1-4, holidays: only 70.160 appears.) I'd like to ask him (70.160 only) for mediation, involving you, me, and him, and see what happens, before we request softprotection. I suspect he won't agree, but that would be okay too. Your opinion? John Broughton 17:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that 70.160's edits have been almost exclusively on the Thelma Drake article. John Broughton 18:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've asked three other users to help with the page, so you and I don't have to deal with the 3 revert rule (in theory). I've also placed a warning on 70.160's page that he violated that rule, using a combination of two IP addresses. I gave him a first and final warning that I'd report him if he did it again. And you should be careful too - it's 3 rvs within ANY 24 hour period, not just a calendar day. Again, there shouldn't be a problem if we treat the 155s (lunchtime) and the 70.160 edits (morning, evening, weekends) as being from the same user (which I'm confident they are), since there is one of him and two of us. (I really wish he'd negotiate to a consensus, or agree to mediation, but that's sort of a counterfactual: if he were reasonable, we wouldn't be having these discussions.) John Broughton 01:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I got the rule wrong. If it were me, I'd call it the 4RR rule - the first three are okay, it turns out - see Wikipedia:Three-revert rule. And in this case, although there WERE four edits by 70x (including one by 55x), two of them were back-to-back, and that counts only as a single edit. So he/she is still okay unless he/she does another edit in the next hour and twenty minutes. John Broughton 23:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion. First, the policy says that an editor must not perform MORE THAN three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single Wikipedia article within a 24 hour period. (emphasis added). By my count, 70.160.180.8 only did THREE edits on 20 July. (That's why I think the rule really ought to be called 4RR - because it's only after you've done four reverts that you can get blocked.)
Second, if you were counting the 09:58, 20 July 2006 edit by 155.188.247.5 as being separate from he 07:48, 20 July 2006 edit by 70.160.180.8 (I don't know that you were), this is not correct - because the edits were back-to-back, they count as one edit. (I'm assuming, with pretty good evidence, that any 155x edit is actually done by 70.x while at work.)
Hope that helps. John Broughton 01:42, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, he just did number four (or to be technical, I just noticed number four. I'll report him per 3RR policy (I say without having read it in detail, but there must be a reporting process ... ). John Broughton 02:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to get into an argument about whether the 155x and 70x edits are by the same person, although I believe that to be the case. (Among other things, filling out a 3RR complaint is NOT trivial.) Let's see if my last edit (paring the CQPress info to the absolute minimum) is acceptable (I note that the 2nd District revert war seems to have ended, but I'm probably unduly optimistic on this one.) After that, you might want to consider just dropping the fight over the CQPress thing; it is after all in the campaign article. John Broughton 13:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Saw your posting to User talk:The Thadman, nice summary. My only suggestion is not to focus too heavily on the 70/155 connection/overlap/sock puppetry, mostly because it's almost impossible to prove (sock puppetry is typically identified via IP address matching, where someone logs on via the same IP address with multiple identities, obviously not the case here). I think there are a few cases where 155 refered to "my edit" or "I" when 70x did something, or vice versa, but I'd have to spend a lot of time confirming (or not) that.
To me, this is really about how wikipedia as a community deals with a user who won't act reasonably. I suspect the process will take a bit of time; perhaps treating it as a learning experience will make the slowness easier to deal with? The good news, as far as I'm concerned, is that (a) 70/155 edits aren't staying up that long, and (b) the fight (at least until yesterday) was occurring only on the Thelma Drake page, which has a link to the campaign article with full info. John Broughton 13:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas Davis

You argued with me last time you made changes to the Davis page that a 15-year-old recognition of Fairfax county was worthy of the Tom Davis page because he was Chairman of the Board of Supervisors -- although not the Executive - of Fairfax County. I relented and left it in, although nothing suggests Davis deserved credit for the recognition.

Now you remove current news about criminal activity and conflict of interest in a controversy raised in a minority report of a committee that he chairs.

I fail to see how this information is not relevant and properly included. Please explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acham (talk • contribs)

Sholom - regarding your question about Tom Davis and the United States House Committee on Government Reform, my immediate thoughts are (1) the committee article is an excellent way to keep out all but a brief summary of the committee's actions (and inactions) in the Davis article (the analogy is to a candidate and a campaign article); (2) it's worth stressing that everything in the committee article needs to be sourced. Other than that - I'll think about this, and see what I can do to help on the Davis article, at least. John Broughton 02:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Negative information about people

Here's the link to the wikipedia policy on negative information. Not only should unsourced negative info on people be removed, but such an edit doesn't count as part of the limit of 3 edits per day (whereas someone ADDING negative unsourced info IS subject to that limit, of course). John Broughton 16:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AMA request

See Thelma Drake history. User (known only by IP) insists on having his way, violations of 3RR (he was locked out for 24 hours), refuses to talk, refused offer of mediation, using sock-puppets. (In actuality, I think the situation is that he has one IP at home, and another at work -- but if you check the history, it's clearly the same person. This is, admittedly, nowhere near as severe as other cases here listed, but seems to need mediation and/or arbitration nonetheless -- Sholom 19:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Sholom, I'm Steve Caruso from the Association of Members' Advocates. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. I'm writing to inform you that we have recieved your request, and that we are currently in the process of finding you a suitable Advocate. You should be hearing from us soon. In the meantime, be sure to read through the AMA pages here at Wikipedia to get more aquainted with the process of Advocacy and what to expect. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave me a message on my talk page. :-) אמר Steve Caruso (desk/AMA) 23:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I made an entry to AMA two days ago. Until I actually get an Advocate, I'm wondering what I can do to stop a stupid edit war (see my own talk page for info). Thanks. -- Sholom 13:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Right now I would have to say that your best bet would be to request for Semi-Protection. If approved, this would prevent anonymous users from editing the page, in a sense forcing the anonymous IP to either register and name themself, or stop the vandalism. First completely read over the policy WP:SEMI and follow the instructions that it gives. If I were not busy, myself, with a case I would be of more assistance, but please rest assured that we are dilligently searching for a suitable Advocate. אמר Steve Caruso (desk/AMA) 14:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello again -- I filed my AMA around a week ago or so. Other than your comment that "we are diligently searching for a suitable Advocate", nothing has happened (except the continuation of the edit war). The person involved is engaging in a war of wills, telling us that he will keep up his behavior thru the November election. Any help would be appreciated. Sorry to bug you -- if there is someone else I can bug, please let me know. Thanks! -- Sholom 12:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Sholom. As of the moment, we have 5 cases that need Advocates and they are trickling in one by one as they finish their current cases and other business. Since you have been waiting so long, allow me to take on your case, myself. אמר Steve Caruso (desk/AMA) 12:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I have moved our discussion over to User:The Thadman/Advocacy Requests. :-) אמר Steve Caruso (desk/AMA) 13:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good work on Darcy Burner

Hey that is some good work on the Darcy Burner entry. I personally think she is inspiring and I am proud to have met her. --8bitJake 06:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AP info

Thought you mind find this to be interesting. The UI is a bit tricky for drill-down: pick a state (obvious), then a category (e.g., House, obvious), then, to get a detailed candidate profile (seems to be only incumbents for the moment), click on the PICTURE of the incumbent. The historical info on the district's voting seems useful, too. John Broughton 01:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Link seems to be working for me. John Broughton 20:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Congressional races - wikiproject

[edit] August 2006

On McKinney, I'd vote for creating a separate campaign article. If you do the first cut on it, I'll be happy to help you on it.

On the larger issue, I think it would be a serious mistake to put campaign information into the articles on the districts, tempting as that may be. I think that would work for one or maybe two campaign cycles, and then the articles would get unwieldy. Plus when redistricting happens?

I've also been thinking about this larger issue. It would be great if for the 2007-2008 cycle, a campaign article were set up for every competitive/notable House race, well in advance. For example, every race with close results this November is likely to be hard-fought in November 2008, so those need 2008 campaign articles. And then perhaps "local correspondents" could be recruited who would take responsibility for adding information to the article throughout the campaign, starting with 2007 jockeying for the opposition party nomination. (The model here, in terms of level of detail, is the 2005 Ohio special election that Jean Schmidt won.)

I guess this could be a sort of wikiproject, with recruiting focused on those who did reasonable posting to candidate articles this cycle? John Broughton 13:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any urgency on this - I was really thinking about a January 2007 kickoff. There is a process for getting access to the contents of deleted pages (attached to the user who requested the page), so nothing would really be lost if there are a bunch of AfDs that kill off failed candidates in September (next set of primaries) or November. (In other words, we can create some more House campaign pages in the next few months, as we want or need to, but it's probably too late in this cycle to do anything other than planning for such a project, I think.) John Broughton 15:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] October 2006

Nope, didn't want to build an article for every race - just recruit folks for races that can reasonably be expected to be competitive, and add races as events change. I'd expect that to top out at no more than 100. What I do what for the other 300+ races is something (a template would be tremendous) that we could point to, after they've created a page for a non-notable person, and say "Why don't you set up a campaign article, and put a redirect here, so that no one (like us, hint, hint) comes along and deletes this page, and so you can put a legitimate link on the incumbent's page to alert people that he/she has an opponent." (I'm thinking of an easy, say six-step detailed set of instructions.) John Broughton | Talk 14:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - competetive primaries where the general election is non-competitive are worth doing as well. That translates into: (a) all open seats except where there is an overwhelming favorite, and (b) [much less frequent] districts where an incumbent is being challenged within his/her party by a viable opponent. John Broughton | Talk 10:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November - preliminary plan

You wrote about (elsewhere) about your dream of creating election pages after the election You're anticipating part of my proposed wikiproject (House - 2008). I'm was thinking that the parts would be something like this:

  • 0 - Create a draft of the project; recruit some editors to do phase 1.
  • 1 - Move REALLY FAST to create campaign articles (template/shell/skeleton/whatever) for all competitive races where an incumbent won or there was an open race. Copy the info from articles on challengers into the campaign articles. Then slap redirects on the articles on challengers (if of questionable notability) so that there is no need for AfDs for these. (Such AfDs are bad precedent, in general a waste of time regardless of outcome, and successful AfDs could kill off source info.)
  • 2A - Refine the phases of the project and what needs to be done - for example, what a really good campaign article might contain (polls, snapshots of campaign funding at various points, results, newspaper endorsements, a good selection of links to local newspaper stories, etc.)
  • 2B - Create campaign articles for all competitive races where a challenger defeated the incumbent.
  • 2C - Finish the 50-100 campaign articles for 2006 House races. That might include a rating/evaluation of the quality of each article.
  • 2D - (Optional) - do the same for the 30+ Senate races. (I just looked at the Florida Senate campaign article the other day - except for the polling info, it's devoid of any significant content except primary results.)
  • 3 - Improve the quality of wikipedia bio articles for incumbents in competitive races (defeated or not), winning challengers, and notable but not-winning challengers: good citations, good copyediting, etc., as baseline for 2008.
  • 4A - (Starting mid-2007?) Build a 2008 comprehensive master page, and set up campaign articles for every race expected to be competitive/notable (that is, every race listed on the master page). Evaluate feasibility of doing transclusions from individual campaign articles rather than updating the master page directly. (There are both human and technical issues here, I believe).
  • 4B - Recruit editors to take responsibility for maintaining each (individual) campaign article. Ideally we can find 3 or 4 editors who are (a) local and (b) can work together well, for each campaign (race) expected to be notable in 2008.

Your thoughts? John Broughton | Talk 15:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November - further discussion

Thanks for checking in. Quite a night. I like to think that you and I had a part, even if small, in what happened, and that voters were better informed (regardless of who won) about those asking for votes.

Anyway, to answer your question:

I suggest starting with United States House elections, 2006. Wherever you find (a) a wikilink (blue) for a challenger, where (b) that challenger lost, and (c) there is no campaign article mentioned in the paragraph on that race, then (d) go to the challenger's article, and (e) evaluate whether he/she appears notable (probably requires winning an election as mayor, county commissioner, state legislature, or similar);
if you decide not-notable, then (f) do a MOVE and name the moved article as State Nth congressional district election, 2006, with a standard edit summary (e.g., moving to campaign article per Wikipedia:Candidates and elections, because individual is non-notable per WP:BIO ; then (g) insert a standard paragraph at the top of new article (E.g., "The information in this article is, for the moment, only about the challenger, who lost. It has been moved here from the challenger's biographical article, which was judged non-notable in accordance with WP:BIO, and a redirect put in place there. In accordance with Wikipedia:Candidates and elections, this information will be the basis for a full article about this race."), and finally (h) insert a standard link in the paragraph on the U.S. House races page, "For details, see State Nth congressional district election, 2006."
Doing this will protect the information, and also avoid a lot of pointless AfDs. While it seems a lot of steps, I think that with cut-and-paste of the standard text, you can probably do one race in less than five minutes.

You also might want to monitor AfDs for proposed deletions, and if the race was listed as notable or (even if not) if the incumbent got less than 45% of the vote (my criteria), you might want to do the above redirect and then comment in the AfD that it is no longer needed.

I'd help out, but I'm on the road, and have very limited access to the web, timewise. I'll be back in full swing on Friday morning. John Broughton | Talk 17:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've got a list of races where this needs to be done; I just did AZ-1 to test things out: CA-4, CA-50, CO-4, CO-7, CT-2, FL-8, FL-13, FL-16, HI-2, ID-1, ID-8, IL-8, IL-10, IL-11. I'm going to continue with IN-7 and IA-1, if you want to do the others I've listed. (And if you don't get to them before I do, there is still a lot of work to do ... of course.) John Broughton | Talk 23:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I figured out how to do this fairly quickly, and some of the races where I thought this was necessary turned out to have losing challengers who I think won't be AfD'd (or successfully AfD'd, if it comes to that). So phase 1, above, is mostly done, at least the urgent stuff, and my next step is to do phase 0 - set up the wikiproject page and then start recruiting editors. I think you and I should discuss what campaign races REALLY need to have articles, and which others would - in the best of all worlds - have such articles but, given everyone's limited time, won't, at least until all the races where it's agreed they are important ARE finished. I suggest we have that conversation once I've got the first cut of the wikiproject page up, for your review. John Broughton | Talk 01:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November - prior to the official kickoff

Actually, I think we're ahead of the power curve, so whatever you do is fine. In fact, one of the things that I wanted to do is work with you and perhaps a couple of other editors on what a good article looks like, and a set of instructions and other aids to editors to help them get there. So let's start with Arizona.

For the Rick Renzi article, I'm not sure what you're looking at - perhaps the section on the 2002 election? For 2006, the section, as is, is about two sentences too short of what it should be, I think; certainly nothing to remove to the campaign article.
I'll take a look at the two AZ district election articles you edited, probably tomorrow, and give you some feedback. (Feel free to edit further before then.)
As for "open primary", I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean a "jungle primary" like Louisiana (top two finishers meet in the general election), no, each party's top vote-getter goes into the November election. In 2006, the Libertarian candidate got about 4% of the vote in the November election. So I think the way you did the AZ-8th is correct; for the 1st, I wouldn't bother with a table with just Renzi in the primary - just text that says he was unopposed and the number of votes he got.

Finally, please let me know if you see any AfDs on candidates where I've not added my comment already; I'd like a steady, good start to this project but I don't want to see information lost on AfDs. (My understanding is that the page that was deleted is easily retrievable as a copy in one's user space, but that the history - and thus the contributors and older versions - are lost.)

And finally, if you're not already relaxed, please work at that - let's think of this (at least for the moment) as an opportunity to help a bunch of other editors (and I have to believe there are those out there who contributed to various articles and are still interested in political stuff) learn how to write a good article, rather than as something that you and I are going to have to slog through, article by article, for the next six months. John Broughton | Talk 21:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, in case you're unaware, that for many people "the" exemplar of a campaign article might be the Ohio 2nd congressional district election, 2005. (We probably should rename that, by the way - "special election".) It's based on a featured article on Jean Schmidt, and it's very long. I wouldn't hold it out as the example for this project, but if you weren't aware of it, you might find it useful. John Broughton | Talk 21:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Email etc

I've activated my email account on wikipedia; you can now reach me that way. John Broughton 14:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take a look at the three articles; may be tomorrow.
And I'll look for the AP site; it did look like the sort of thing for subscribers/reporters (e.g., no ads), so it's possible they've firewalled it. John Broughton 18:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty much finished with the Georgia 4th article, so it's all yours from this point out. I think it ended up looking pretty good, if I do say so myself. You were absolutely right that none of the detail belonged in the McKinney or Johnson article; it's great that it is now preserved. John Broughton 14:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] A cry for assistance to revitalize the NJNom

The title is as stated. Please, either resume your duties or leave your post. Thanks for your patience. -Evan 03:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal

Would you check in on Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal? -_User At Work 19:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Texas 22nd

Welcome back!

The special election isn't going to happen, as you know, so that article is pointless. I agree about creating a Texas 22nd congressional district election, 2006, but suggest you use the "move" function for the Texas 22nd congressional district special election, 2006 article; that kills two birds with one stone (wipes out the article, and and creates a redirect that keeps people in the same page).

Then a "see also" in the Texas's 22nd congressional district and a See for details in the Texas United States House elections, 2006 (and in the United States House elections, 2006) article, and you're all set. (And links from the articles on the candidates, and DeLay, too ... ).

In short, I agree. -- John Broughton 17:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC) (P.S. Have you thought about archiving some sections of this page?)


[edit] Governor races

Something you might find helpful, or not (I'm trying to focus on House races): Governing magazine guide to governor races 2006. John Broughton 15:17, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia 2.0

Sholom - I was going to ask for your opinion when the document was a bit further along, but I do appreciate comments at any point. I hadn't realized the potential for confusion between a project page and a wikiproject; I'll try to make that clear when I do some more edits.

The larger point (the purpose of the white paper) is that I'm getting tired of fire-fighting, and I'm convinced there are some things that can be done to reduce the number of fires. John Broughton | Talk 21:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Grover Norquist.jpg

Sholom - just wanted to let you know that the license information on this photograph is probably incorrect; just because it was found on SourceWatch doesn't necessarily mean it's GFDL. It looks like it might be a promotional photo which Norquist uses in various places, but we need to make sure we have the copyright information correct... you might not be aware but people often make a big deal over copyrighted photos, and Jimbo recently has suggested that copyrighted "promotional" photos shouldn't be used often. I'll also spend some time trying to find a potentially copyright-"free" picture of Norquist. Thanks, KWH 00:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Harold Ford et al

Yeah, I suppose the relevant articles really need to go through each of the recent polls and present the results. My summary from earlier was just the result of laziness. You're right, and I'll fix it. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] California 11th

Well, the Sunlight Foundation gave $25K to the U.C. School of Journalism to do a pilot project for "transparent" elections, and the school picked the California 11th for the test.

Here's an announcement: [3]

Here's the (internal) blog on progress - so things are happening, but slowly: [4]. This would seem to be a good source for info/updates/links, if you have time to keep the article current. And once the actual site is up, of course, a link would be good.

I'm very curious to see how the site ends up - while it can't be an exact model for a wikipedia article, it probably can offer some good ideas. John Broughton | Talk 19:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Deleting candidates

A relatively new user (Watchinglikeahawk?) did a bunch of prods to candidates (both parties, including Gus Bilirakis, the Republican heir and expected winner in a Florida race), and upon being rebuffed, put three of them out for AfD, including McNerney. Mr. Watching did get beat up a bit (I posted a couple of comments to him), and essentially stopped, but the AfDs were out there. Fortunately, he didn't get any support for the deletes (on McNerney, while there were merge suggestions, you'll note that the final decision was keep), so I didn't think it worthwhile to call on you and others for help.

I still think this is embarrasing to wikipedia - somehow our policies don't (many argue) allow even nominees with a good chance to win to have an article (the criteria of "Usefulness" not being part of the wikipedia approach, per se). You'll find a bit of philosophical musings on this at User Talk:Uncle G#Deleting candidates. The Diane Farrell situation (thanks for bring that to my attention) is a perfect example - if she gets elected, wikipedia will be in the position of having refused, for months, to acknowledge that it would be helpful for readers to know a bit more about her from a more NPOV site than her campaign pages. John Broughton | Talk 12:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, "prod" is Wikipedia:Proposed deletion which starts five-day countdown. If no one objects, the article is toast.
Also sorry I didn't respond to your suggestion about changing policy. I think waiting until after the election is exactly right. I'd suggest a minor variant: push for a change to the Candidates and Elections policy (draft) page: for notable RACES in the House (and ALL Senate races), there MUST either be a campaign article or separate articles for each major party nominee. In other words, if someone didn't want an article on Farrell, they could only do a redirect (not a delete), and of course could only do a redirect if there was a campaign article.
Of course, if the House elections wikiproject you and I have talked about - a campaign page and one or two dedicated editors for every notable House race, in 2008 - comes about, then policy issues are somewhat moot, yes? John Broughton | Talk 13:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the links; I voted in most cases. I can't bring myself, however, to vote for what are essentially sacrificial lambs (even with the October suprise of the Foley scandal). Maybe we should systematically try, in 2008, to get those putting up pages likely to be AfD'd (quite frankly, I suspect there are hundreds out there; one could systematically work the list, from here: United States House elections, 2006 complete list, for example) to put up campaign articles instead, maybe with a simple step 1 (name article); step 2 (paste text from template); step 3 (edit template for specific race); step 4: add relevant candidate info; step 5: add new section and link on incumbent page ... John Broughton | Talk 20:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, the result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Van Taylor was keep due to no consensus. I would have thought it could just as easily have been delete, given the voting. So truth and justice won out this time - who would have guessed? Certainly your comment made a big difference. John Broughton | Talk 01:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jim Gerlach

You may want to check the Jim Gerlach page again; you edited it a while ago. An anon user new to WP is in an edit war with me; I've finally gotten him to actually post to Talk (though he still hasn't even given a summary to an edit). No other active editors seem to be monitoring the page. Thanks. jesup 02:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

You may want to consider creating a campaign page for the election; I'll work on it. jesup 03:26, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Doolittle

I have a feeling that the Doolittle campaign complained about his article; an admin with no prior involvement with U.S. political articles dropped in to remove the entire "Controversies" section. I've put about half of it back, hoping that will not trigger the threatened Wikipedia:Office Actions. If you get a chance to look at what's going on, please do so. Thanks. John Broughton | Talk 01:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jim Webb

Thanks for your help on other articles; if you have a chance, please take a look at this one. I think things are reasonably under control, but another reasonable voice might be useful. John Broughton | Talk 13:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Possible new article

Having seen repeated references to the Republican Revolution in bios of various political figures (explaining why they won or lost in 1994), I think wikipedia should have a similar article for the 2006 mid-term election if (as expected) Republican incumbents lose a lot of House and Senate seats, and governorships. Otherwise it will be necessary to insert a couple of sentences, which will be both incomplete and argued over, into 30 or 40 or 50 articles (or quite possibly many more, if we want to say that a challenger was expected to lose by much more, but just barely lost because of the [[whatever the article is called]], and that an incumbent won, but barely, despite or in the face of the [[whatever the article is called]].

So I've written a draft: User talk:John Broughton/Democratic Deluge of 2006. Yes, knock on wood. I'd welcome any edits you might want to do to the article. And if someone else creates something like this, first, feel free to use my draft to do cut-and-pastes into that other article. (At the moment, I'm tentatively expecting to be out of the net from Tuesday morning to Thursday evening - I'll assess things Thursday night or, more likely, Friday morning.) John Broughton | Talk 18:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Your points about primary winners who are too far from center (particularly if both Republican nominees lose; I know Graf is expected to go down) and about gerrymandering are good ones; I'm going to ponder how to work them in; feel free to do so yourself.
As for the name, you're exactly right - it may be just something like Democratic mid-term gains in 2006. I'm not particularly wedded to the name I proposed (in fact, not only did a google search seem to show that no one else had used it in 2006, but also that it had been used in 1998 and 2004 - more tentatively, admittedly - and has historical origins going back to the Andrew Jackson era. But if (and it's still an IF) the Democrats do win big, some sort of article would be useful (see above). John Broughton | Talk 11:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Congressional candidates - articles proposed for deletion

Two more just noted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diane Farrell (3rd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Marcinkowski. I'm in the interesting postion, on the second of these, of having moved the article (essentially, I decided he wasn't notable) and so am not really able to argue it should be kept (which goes against my inclusionary preferences). John Broughton | Talk 14:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, Sholom! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. AmiDaniel (talk) 06:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] VP

Just a question how do you get VP to make edit summary's when posting to AIV, I can't figure this out but you do so how do you do it? Whispering 19:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editor's Index to Wikipedia

Haven't forgot about the wikiproject, but I've been working on something else - check it out: User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia. Comments are welcome (and, of course, feel free to edit). There are a lot of rough edges (minor, I think): I've not checked all the links; I'd like a lot more brief descriptions on the lines, and I know I've missed pages, though I really believe that this is at least 60% of the way to having all the important subjects and links to pages within the index.

And, of course, if this is available somewhere else, in finished or unfinished form, I'd be really interested in that. John Broughton | Talk 17:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Image:Paul Aronsohn.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Paul Aronsohn.jpg. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

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[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Safavian.jpg

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[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Abramoff scotland small.jpg

Thank you for uploading Image:Abramoff scotland small.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

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[edit] Image:Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island.jpg

I've tagged this image as replaceable fair use since it illustrates a subject for which a free alternative could reasonably be found or created. --tomf688 (talk - email) 00:01, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your disputed claim, please understand that just because there aren't any free-use images on the internet at the moment is not a valid reason to keep a fair use image. See the first line of the fair use policy: "No free equivalent is available or could be created..." Very few images on Wikipedia should be used as fair use, i.e. unique and unreproducible events. --Tom (talk - email) 02:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I understand what you are trying to say, but Wikipedia is attempting to make its material as free as possible, which means as little fair use as possible. Even if it is arguable that an image "could" be used as fair use, it is against Wikipedia's primary objective of being a free encyclopedia. The presence of a fair use image may discourage a user from uploading one of their images that they took which is under a free license. Many governors have had their portraits deleted (check through them; only in a select few instances are governor's portraits present, and some of those are questionable as well). A copyrighted image of a living and high-profile individual such as a governor is reproducible using a free licensed image, i.e. them speaking at a conference, or in a parade, or in the form of an image taken by a US Federal Government employee, etc. etc.. --Tom (talk - email) 19:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
There are many instances of fair use that are of reasonable rationale. For example, a fair use image of someone who has died or is reclusive is acceptable (but not ideal) since a free image may be very difficult to find and is not possible to create. In the article Harry S. Truman, the famous image of him holding up the newspaper proclaiming his defeat is a good example of an acceptable fair use image. In most cases, however, the common argument is something along the lines of "no image is better than a fair use image". --Tom (talk - email) 21:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
No, not really, at least from how I interpret the policy. I hope you understand that this is an extremely contentious issue that is not necessarily about the interpretation of copyright law, but rather is largely about what path Wikipedia will be taking (with one end of the spectrum restricting all but freely licensed images as other wikis have done, and the other end having no restrictions). Please see Wikipedia:Fair use (and the official policy) and Wikipedia talk:Fair use for ongoing debate on the issue. --Tom (talk - email) 21:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
It is not as if the issue is unresolved, rather that there is a policy in place that many would argue is too stringent. I've said really all that I can say on this issue, but I would encourage you to see the last line of the fair use policy section: "As a quick test, ask yourself: 'Can this image be replaced by a different one, while still having the same effect?' If the answer is yes, then the image probably doesn't meet the criteria above and should not be used." Also, there was an intriguing message on the mailing list recently regarding why we have a replaceable fair use policy (RFU; applies to your img); I would suggest you check it out, at least to understand where this policy is coming from. [5] Thanks. --Tom (talk - email) 01:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, this policy is not being applied just to your images; MANY images have been deleted under this policy, easily hundreds or thousands. --Tom (talk - email) 01:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Doug Lamborn.jpg

This image you have uploaded has been tagged as replaceable fair use. --Tom (talk - email) 16:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The images are only to display the likeness of the individuals and are clearly situations where free alternatives can be created since they are high profile figures. There is nothing to dispute. These fail the first fair use criterion quite clearly. --Tom (talk - email) 17:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar for Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy and affiliated articles and biographies

The Current Events Barnstar
For diverse, wide ranging contributions and improvements to the many articles and biographies related to the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, for creating an informative template, Template:Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, plus placing categories on articles associated with the subject, and generally making visible the many people associated with this United States governmental issue, and for cooperative collaboratons to make it possble for other editors previously unknown to you to improve and add to the related articles. Thanks! -- Yellowdesk 02:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Dismissal Template

Point taken. I noticed this when updating Miers, who resigned, but "apparently" did not resign because of this controversy. I invite you to improve, revert or fix to some better listing. -- Yellowdesk 19:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I changed to "during the controversy." Feel free to revise. -- Yellowdesk 19:56, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Abramoff and email

Are you able to provide good citations to well regarded sources (Washington Post/New York Times/etc to the Abramoff controversy as it relates to the non dot.gov email server that various White House officials used? I invite you to put them on talk:gwb43.com, (which may shortly change its name to a more general topic). -- Yellowdesk 20:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] William Sprague

Are you a descendant? If so, would you drop me an email (as my wife is also a descendant) -- Sholom 14:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC

Sorry about delay in replying I'm very new to this. No I am not a desendant of the above but live just up the road from Upwey in Dorset UK where the family had it's origins and was fasinated by the Historical connections. Regards bestride. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bestride (talk • contribs)

[edit] Possible peer review for Dismissal of USA's controversy

At the instigation of User:Bdushaw I have drafted something (based on his questions) for the Wikipedia:Peer Review page for Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. I'm interested in knowing your level of interest in participating in responding to suggestions made there, whether such a review would be worthwhile, given the changing nature of the article, and your suggestions for revisions to the request for review, which is in draft form at User:Yellowdesk/scratch4. -- Regards, Yellowdesk 05:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Giffords of az.jpg

Hello, Sholom. An automated process has found and removed an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, and thus is being used under fair use that was in your userspace. The image (Image:Giffords of az.jpg) was found at the following location: User talk:Sholom/Congressional race template. This image or media was attempted to be removed per criterion number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media was replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg , so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. Please find a free image or media to replace it with, and or remove the image from your userspace. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 05:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Randy Graf.jpg

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[edit] Thanks for the barnstar

I always appreciate getting these. Thanks again. Remember 14:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US Attorneys section draft - interest invited

There's a draft outline on rewriting the "administration planning" section. Probably will evolve into thematic section building. Thoughtful additions/comment desired. I don't think I'll have time to convert from outline to prose; it looks like Bdushaw is willing to take that on.
In progress at Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy/sandbox. See also: Talk:Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy#New_section_underway_in_sandbox.

-- Yellowdesk 17:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of Donna Edwards

An article that you have been involved in editing, Donna Edwards, has been listed by me for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donna Edwards. Thank you.

[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Anthony_Porter.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] DC Meetup notice

Greetings. There is going to be a Washington DC Wikipedia meetup on next Saturday, July 21st at 5pm in DC. Since you are listed in Category:Wikipedians_in_Virginia, I thought I'd invite you to come. I'm sorry about the short notice for the meeting. Hopefully we'll do somewhat better in that regard next time. If you can't come but want to make sure that you are informed of future meetings be sure to list yourself under "but let me know about future events", and if you don't want to get any future direct notices \(like this one\), you can list yourself under "I'm not interested in attending any others either" on the DC meetup page.--Gmaxwell 22:08, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Erik_Fleming.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Jack_Davis_(politician).jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Jay_Fawcett.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Jill_Derby.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Geography of NJ COTW

I've nominated Geography of New Jersey for the article improvement drive. Being that you are a member of the Wikipedia Nj project, your input would be appreciated.--ZeWrestler Talk 21:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use disputed for Image:Jeralyn Merritt.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Jeralyn Merritt.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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[edit] Ross Detwiler

Hi. I've nominated Ross Detwiler, an article you worked on, for consideration to appear on the Main Page as part of Wikipedia:Did you know. You can see the hook for the article at Template talk:Did you know#Articles created on September 10, where you can improve it if you see fit. Thanks, Fbdave 23:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Updated DYK query On 18 September 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ross Detwiler, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.
Cheers, Daniel 05:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Randy Graf.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Craig Foltin.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Phil Kellam.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Creation of wikiproject

Just thought you would want to know that Wikipedia:WikiProject Past Political Scandals and Controversies has been created. It will take it awhile to get it running. Feel free to jump in and help out. Remember 04:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DC meetup #3

Interested in meeting-up with a bunch of your wiki-friends? Please take a quick look at Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 3 and give your input about the next meetup. Thank you.
This automated notice was delivered to you because you are on the Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/Invite. BrownBot 01:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly unfree Image:Grover_Norquist.jpg

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[edit] Replaceable fair use Image:Jeff Shockey.jpg

Replaceable fair use

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[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Christine Jennings.jpg

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[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Brent Wilkes.jpg

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[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Charles J. Fogarty.jpg

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[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Ellen Simon.jpg

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[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Davd mccurdy.gif

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[edit] 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) 19:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4

Please note that there is a DC Meetup planned for May 17th at 5:00 p.m., though a place has not yet been set. You're receiving this notice because you posted to the page for the prior meetup - Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 3 - but haven't indicated whether or not you're interested in attending this one. (Apologies if in fact you have.) BetacommandBot (talk) 01:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


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