Talk:Universe Today/Archive 1

UniverseToday.net removed

I removed the link to UniverseToday.net because it is not related to the site created by Fraser Cain. The .net site was created by Wayne Smith, a person who is merely trying to leech users away from Cain's popular site. Wayne Smith was banned from the Bad Astronomy / Universe Today (BAUT) forum for disruptive behaviour.

I left the link to UniverseToday.org but it also doesn't appear to be owned by Fraser Cain. KJJ1975

Page Restored

Vandalism repaired. Fraser Cain seems to think he owns the only Universe Today domain on the net. There are many sites called Universe Today. Only the three most popular domain extensions have been listed. There are others.

http://community.livejournal.com/universe_today Universe Today - Babylon 5 Newsletter.

Fraser Cain is spamming. I believe he created this page for the sole reason of promoting his own site. A clear breach of Wikipedia rules. UniverseToday 08:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Reply

Now if only Wayne Smith's site had actually been called Universe Today his complaint might have been legitimate, unfortunately for him, (universetoday dot net) redirects to Universe Daily, which is a clear indication that Wayne Smith is the spammer trying to leech users. It also gives a strong indication that he's the same as the Universe Daily user who has already been blocked from making edits here. HenrikOlsen 12:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Reply

I admit I am new to editing Wikipedia articles, but is it really considered "vandalism" to remove inaccurate information? This article is about the website created by Fraser Cain, not the ones created by people trying to ride on his coattails. Wayne Smith has a history of registering domains that are similar to popular sites or people... he registered robertzubrin(dot)com, badastronomer(dot)com, and everythingspace(dot)com, for example. He can not create a site that is popular based on it's own merits (ie. useful information) so he leeches from others. He may be worthy of his own Wiki page simply as a warning to others. KJJ1975

requested 3rd opinion

Hi. Someone asked for a third opinion. Here is mine:

• I think that this cleaned-up version by User:Kalsermar is a good step, and I would encourage further editing in that direction.
• I agree that this page should be about UniverseToday.com, and information about unrelated things with similar names should be removed.
• If other things called "Universe Today" are notable, other articles should be created along with a disambiguation page. But only if they are notable.
• I caution User:UniverseToday to assume good faith; calling something vandalism should be your last thought, not your first comment. Note also that editing topics in which one has a personal involvement is almost always a mistake; see WP:TIGERS for why.
• The page does not make clear why this topic is notable. If I saw a page like this on WP:AFD I would likely vote for deletion. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.
• A little discussion never hurts. If you have the slightest suspicion that somebody might not get the motivation for your edit, explain it here in a way that shows respect for everybody's contributions.

I hope that helps! --William Pietri 02:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Response to further Vandalism by Fraser Cain Sock Puppet

The sock puppet created by Fraser Cain to monopolise this page only owns a single Universe Today domain yet he seems to believe that he has a patent of some sort on the title. He does not. Universe Daily is only a header title, as is the "Universe Today" banner AND "Bad Astronomy" banners at Frasers pet page. Which is it then? Universe Today or Bad Astronomy? Surely he doesn't expect to retain both banners and keep refusing other identical domains? The dot org domain was left alone so I can only assume this is a personal grievance against me and not any rational excuse. I have reverted the page and given all parties equal mention. In order of domain popularity which puts Frasers page at the top. I don't see how I can be any fairer than that. I resent his accusations of leeching his members. I doubt his visitors would leave his site in droves to frequent the .net domain simply because it is rightfully included on a wikipedia page. It could only possibly draw new people to the net or those who are new to astronomy and space websites. Fraser Cain does not have the priviledge of dictating to consumers which sites they can or cannot visit. This page is about "Universe Today" and the 'dot net' site has as much relevance as the 'dot org' and indeed 'dot com' domains. —Preceding unsigned comment added by UniverseToday (talk • contribs)

Before you accuse people of being vandals and/or sockpuppets I suggest you gather information to support your claim and then take it to here and/or here so that administrators can deal with the perceived problem. As for your reverts:

1. www.universetoday.org links to a page called Return to the Moon.net which is not in the top 100.000 on Alexa's rankings, and neither is returntothemoon.net for that matter. The phrase Universe Today does not appear on the site and it gets a whoppping 5 google "hits"
2. www.universetoday.net redirects first to www.universedaily.com and then the forum for Universe Daily. Neither universetoday.org nor Universedaily.com rank in the top 100.000 according to Alexa and the only mention of Universe Today on the forum site is a link to itself via the same two redirecting links. It gets 41 google "hits"
3. www.universetoday.com ranks in Alexa's top 40.000 (37.991 last time I checked), gets 132.000 google "hits" and prominently displays it's name Universe today on top of the site and also sends out a almost daily newsletter by that name.

It seems to me that ut.net and ut.org should really not even be mentioned in the "other sites" section not have their external links listed. Summary of all this, I am reverting the changes made on June 2nd by User:UniverseToday.--Kalsermar 01:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi. You misunderstand how Wikipedia works. If there are several notable topics that have the same name, we use a disambiguation page, like this one. So if we need articles about the other things called Universe Today, we'd make separate pages for them. So please stop adding back material that doesn't belong in this article. --William Pietri 01:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_investigation#New_requests for additional info on activity by UniverseToday. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl/wp:space) 03:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Enough with the edit war

Hi! UniverseToday, you keep making changes unilaterally. Please dicuss your changes here so that we can all come to some sort of agreement. Also, enough with the accusations of vandalism. That's not what Kalsermar is doing, and I think you know that. Even if you don't, you should assume good faith unless there's no other alternative. Thanks, --William Pietri 05:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I am NOT Fraser Cain

Just to reiterate: I am not Fraser Cain, I do not work for Fraser Cain, and I have not discussed this issue with Fraser Cain. I am a member of the Universe Today / Bad Astronomy forum who saw the link to this article.

I explained why I edited the "Universe Today" article, and if I was wrong to do so then fine. I do not agree that the article should link to every site that has a similar domain, and I explained why I feel that way. I did not remove the .org link because I wasn't sure if Fraser owned it or not, if he doesn't then I think it too should be removed.

Should an article about President Bush be required to link to articles about George Bush impersonators? That is more or less what I believe is going on here.

I stand by my claim that Wayne (the owner of the universetoday.net domain) is merely trying to leech users away from popular websites. Wayne's past actions support this accusation, and anyone who actually reads his forum will see that for themselves since he brags about it there.

It's people like Wayne Smith who ruin Wikipedia. He will not quit editing this page until he gets his way. He will not politely discuss his reasons for wanting to edit the page... he will just keep doing it until everyone else just gives up.

KJJ1975 00:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)