User talk:Postdlf/Archive5

Good luck!

Howdy, Postdlf. I was gonna ask you something, but never mind as it will likely be irrelevant by the time you get back. Instead, I'll just wish you good luck on the bar exam! AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 22:11, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

That's ok, go ahead and ask away; it turns out my panic level isn't quite up to the extent it needs to be to keep me off of here yet. Postdlf 00:37, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad you're not too stressed yet. The question is largely irrelevant now, but I'll explain the situation anyway. Remember the deletion discussion for Paul Bremer? You speedy-kept it after realizing (rightly so) that it was an absurd nomination. Well, the same user also nominated American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property using essentially the same reasoning – "I don't like this article's subject and I think it should go away." I was going to ask you to speedy-keep that discussion as well, although it seems there's some legitimate delete votes now concerning the organization's notability. I can accept the notability argument, but the article is pretty much NPOV and not advertising or "inappropriate use of Wikipedia" as the nominator claimed. Anyway, one strange nomination isn't a big deal, but a second indicates a pattern; there's also some enlightening chatter on my talk page. Hopefully Ariele will think twice before making another spurious nomination, but... well, I'll stop venting now. Cheers, AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 17:00, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Copyright on Article Lists

I see that you say that you've gone away, a fact belied by your recent contributions ;-)

However, since you need to have the law on your mind, how about taking a look at the copyright issue raised at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles#Copyright?.

To catch you up, I'll outline the basic issue. Back in March 2004, some users created a list of articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia to help see what topics Wikipedia was missing. It was quickly deleted over copyright concerns ([1] look under March 2), though at the time there was some disagreement about whether this was truly a copyright issue. Subsequent to this, other users have created Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics based on a list of articles appearing in the 2004 Encyclopedia Brittanica. In my opinion, the two situations are exactly analogous and the new 2004 list should also be deleted. Whereas others are arguing either that it is not an issue (i.e. that the Columbia list should also have been okay), or that it is too minimal an issue to worry about unless Brittanica confronts us first, which seems like a dumb approach to me.

It would be useful to have someone with legal training offer an opinion on whether that material is copyrighted and what the worst case scenario could be during a confrontation. Personally, I definitely beleive that the list of articles in an encyclopedia passes the standard of minimal creativity established by Feist v. Rural, that this should apply to derivative works (ie. their list minus what's in our encyclopedia), and that Encyclopedia Brittanica is unlikely to stop at a firm warning if they can make a case for willful infringment and statutory damages.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and best of luck with the bar.

Dragons flight 00:11, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

PS. Right after writing this, I noticed that Jamesday had just chimed in. As another person with legal training, I also solicited his input, but that was several days ago and he is not very active, which is what motivated me to look for another expert. In one sense, the more lawyers the better, but if you would prefer to focus on the bar, you can always pass on this. Dragons flight 00:23, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I have a hard time staying off of here. Damn it.

I'll get back to you with a more complete answer in a day or two after I've thought about it more, but my first inclination is to say that a list of Britannica articles is not copyrightable because it is not itself the creative work that resulted from their creative selection of topics—the creative work is the encyclopedia itself, and a list of what subjects they included in it is merely an alphabetized recording of information about its contents. I think it would be comparable to an alphabetical list of every actor who appeared in a particular television show, or a list of television shows that a network has included in their schedule. Both would involve creative decisions of casting and network programming, but in neither case would the abstracted information about those decisions be a creative work as a result. Postdlf 00:37, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

IANAL, so this may be total bullshit, but I would think there is a distinction between the cases you suggest and the encyclopedia case. I agree that an alphabetical arrangement is obvious, so the whole matter turns on whether such a topic list qualifies as a creative and protected form of expression in and of itself. I would argue that choosing a list of topics to cover in an encyclopedia is a creative and expressive act (expressing their merit as general knowledge) intimately connected with the creation of the encyclopedia itself. By contrast, the list of actors on a show or the list of shows on a network is only an incidental outcome of those creative processes. Generating such a list and imbuing it with any added meaning is not a goal of television. As such I would argue that those lists are not creative expressions in and of themselves, whereas, creating a list of encyclopedic material should be, in and of itself, a protected creative act (same as creating a list of "premium" baseball cards from a selection of all possible baseball cards, Eckes v. Card Prices Update). Dragons flight 15:00, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm also seeing the article list itself as something that Britannica only created incidentally, by its individual editorial decisions about whether each subject should be included; the list doesn't have meaning except as a catalog of the final encyclopedia. I think we can presume that Britannica didn't first make this list of all topics it thought were worthy of inclusion, but rather selected them over time, topic by topic, from a larger pool of possibilities based on how research/article writing was proceeding in certain instances, or simple last-minute space considerations. Our list is nothing but an informational catalog of the end result, which I don't think would support an infringement claim. In Eckes by contrast (based on your account), the list was the creative work—the final product.

I think the only way in which we could infringe any rights Britannica had to the selection of article topics itself would be to create an encyclopedia that only included the same topics theirs does. That's not what we're doing—we're using it just to ensure we don't miss anything in our selection of topics, which is already broader than theirs. Our resulting selection of topics is so much broader that their editorial decisions do not represent the main substance of our final selection, so I don't think we can be liable. Compilation/database protection is rather narrow. Postdlf 22:52, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Scalian categorization

I note from user talk about that you're readying to take the bar exam, so first - good luck. :)

Regarding the category - my intention for the scope of the category was to tie together those cases in which Scalia provides his, as it were, "best work", the "definitive stuff", if you will, which Kevin Ring's book tries to be, but never manages.

I certainly recognize that there is no particularly good category ("all things scalia" seems too general, "dissents of Justice Scalia" too narrow) or even category title (having determined the scope of the category, my first stab at a title was "great cases of Justice Scalia", but that didn't really sound very NPOV). Certainly, Scalia is given to dropping in his two cents, but in researching Scalia and Originalism, I've been surprised at how many cases in which (Oyez has a definitive list) he's managed to keep his mouth shut (or at least, his quill in his desk).

I'm not especially keen on the list approach, if for no other reason than because it requires upkeep, which lends itself to becoming obsolete or unmaintained. I'm open, though, to ideas on how to improve the category. Although I'm in the process of developing the section, I don't have a particularly fixed vision of what I want the little corner of Wikipedia to look like; while I feel rather attatched to this section of the Wiki (Scalia, Originalism, The Living Constitution and related topics) I certainly don't propose to go all FuelWagon about it. ;) Simon Dodd 02:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The problem with using a category for your purpose is that the category name doesn't reflect that, and probably can't effectively—the name of the category is ultimately what determines the contents, notwithstanding any descriptive criteria you try to put in the description page (which later editors often won't bother to read before applying the category to further articles). When I created Category:U.S. Supreme Court cases, there would be no way that I could have limited such a named category to just cases in which the Court had overruled earlier opinions, or those cases that introduced new legal doctrines, because the name of the category clearly indicates that it is to include all SCOTUS cases, just as the name of yours indicates that it is to include any case in which Scalia wrote an opinion. A list article is therefore better for your purpose, because you can annotate it and explain why each entry has been included, and what its significance is. Postdlf 01:02, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Category:Causes célèbres

Thanks for your Rv/rv, I was not looking forward to re-editing the lot of them, having "rollback" is a lot quicker. <>Who?¿? 28 June 2005 23:55 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. BTW, check out Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Cause célèbre for a rather unseemly temper tantrum. Postdlf 29 June 2005 00:23 (UTC)

Could you please stop making personal attacks such as "unseemly temper tantrum" [2] and "Shame on you" [3]. David | Talk 29 June 2005 14:40 (UTC)

• Hi there! I know that Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Cause célèbre is a bad-faith nomination, but there seems to be some point in it regardless. Could you please examine the article and see if you agree that it's little more than dicdef? Yours, Radiant_>|< June 29, 2005 21:24 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid you're a bit late to say that, and if you look at the edit history, you'll see why. Meanwhile, the fight to delete Category:Causes célèbres is becoming a cause célèbre in itself. The French government probably thought it had put Alfred Dreyfus on Devil's Island forever but they eventually found differently, didn't they? David | Talk 29 June 2005 21:41 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Law

Postdlf! Hope your bar studies are going well - I've been boosting my chances (I hope) by posting dozens of articles on common law topics (e.g. Leasehold estate, Third party beneficiary, Lesser included offense). In so doing, I've discovered that there is an unfortunate lack of consistency in Wikipedia articles on the common law, and have therefore proposed at the largely defunct Wikipedia:WikiProject Law that we make a major project of overhauling the whole thing, one key area at a time. Can I count you in? -- BD2412 ^talk July 1, 2005 03:06 (UTC)

Sure, though I can't promise anything really intensive that's law-related for awhile. My way of coping with the bar is to focus on frivolous pop culture subjects on here. I get enough of defeasible fees and their ilk during the day.  ; ) Postdlf 7 July 2005 05:54 (UTC)

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Greetings. The reason I removed the images from the Hirshhorn Museum is that the images stretched much longer than the article. I moved the images to the Commons. It's pretty standard to just have a few images in a short article, and then link to the page on Commons where the veiwer can see the rest.

In reverting the image removals, you also reverted a couple other changes that you may not have meant to. (My addition of a new image, addition of the link to Commons, and movement of the stub notice.) I'm going to revert back, but I mean no disrespect and certainly don't want to get in a revert war. Cheers! – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 00:21, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Stop your trolling

There is nothing wrong with what I had done. Leave me the fuck alone. TheUnforgiven 04:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

What an obnoxious comment. You're not even doing what you're trying to do correctly—have you actually seen how disambiguation links in articles are handled? You don't simply leave an unexplained link at the top of the text. But the main point is that the link is utterly worthless in both articles. No one who goes to David Coverdale is going to be curious about other uses of "Coverdale," nor is anyone going to confuse the lead singer of Whitesnake with a 17th century Bible translator just because they share the same last name. If you haven't noticed, we're not in the habit of linking to every other use of a last name in every article that uses it. Postdlf 20:42, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

It's your problem that you cannot file index encyclopaedically. That is standard procedure with all the bigwigs and is used for the back of all reference books. Be less hot on the trigger and more inclined to understand why things are the way they are.

"Otherwise, this is nothing more than bad faith stubborness on your part."

That's what I could say about you, although general ignorance fits the bill you must pay. TheUnforgiven 02:10, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

New USSC case article

Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement has been written recently, apparently by a partisan. I began work on NPOVing it, and correcting the facts. But it'd be great if someone familiar with the Supreme Court and how we write articles about their cases could also participate. Any interest? If not, can you suggest another editor who might be? Thanks, -Willmcw 20:52, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Tolkien metal - VfU / RfD

Should Tolkien metal be listed for RfD now, or after VfU goes through? I don't really care one way or the other about whether or not the article content is kept, as long as similar articles are treated in a similar way. I just listed it on VfU for some clarifications, with the major goal of getting rid of that useless redirect that Radiant dreamed up. (There were as many redirect votes as delete votes in the VfD, so perhaps it should have just been deleted outright anyway, since the delete arguments were definitely stronger.) --Idont Havaname 03:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

• Go ahead and list it now. Whatever happens on the VfU wouldn't have any bearing on the fate of the redirect. Postdlf 03:17, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Circuit court biographies project

I am ready to start creating biographies for all of the current circuit court judges (and many of the former ones). Should we first create a preferred standard format for the these biographies? (preferred source, amount of detail, etc.) I have also contacted User:BD2412 User:DLJessup and User:Saucy Intruder about this, please involve anyone else who you think may be interested. NoSeptember^- 03:27, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

History Videos VFD

Well, I wanted to be sure if the consensus was to delete, still. And, it looks like, many people see it that way. As mentioned before, it has been recreated twice, so speedy any recreations, and suggest a block to whoever does it for a short time. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 06:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Requiem (musical)

When I put the Speedy tag on the article, it was in pretty horrible shape, and now it's much better. The topic itself is notable, but the article was not, as was originally written. Thanks for working to improve it. EvilPhoenix talk 04:26, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Categories

I admit I'm new to Wikipedia, but your criticism of my categorization is still unclear. For example, "Criminal law" was not a category of "Law", which is bizarre. It seems to me that the category system is, in general, a total mess. You can't get anywhere in a logical fashion, and it's easy to miss topics that may already be written because they're not in the category you think they will be. I didn't notice that where I placed my article was already a subcategory of "Criminal law" because it was several levels down. I'll try and trace the subtopics up the chain in the future.

--Gtcaz 19:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Sound recording box link thing

Hi, I'm the one who posted the recording for Roe v. Wade... It was my first one and I put it at the top because that's where the instructions said to put it. Is that not right? Are they supposed to go at the very end now? (Good luck on the bar... it's been five years since I took it, and no, you will never look back on this summer with fond nostalgia.) Elizabeth 23:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, and yeah, the instructions do say to put it at the top, but in this instance it totally screws up the case infobox and article layout. It's really a pretty awful template to use because it interacts so poorly with other content. Unless you can figure out another way to integrate it into the article, I think it should stay at the bottom. Postdlf 23:46, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

CfR US Presidential advisors

Hi, I saw you put that CfR about Presidential advisors → presidential advisors in the 'delete me' section over on CfD. I couldn't find the discussion in the archives, so I've moved it to the speedy-rename section which is where that sort of thing belongs (it takes only 2 days). Do correct me if I'm wrong, and have missed the discussion by accident. -Splash 03:10, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I actually didn't know about the speedy renaming page—I thought all such miscapitalizations were just placed at the bottom of the CfD page. Postdlf 03:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

No problem. The speedy rename procedure is just in case someone spots a possible problem/mistook in the rename. I imagine there will be no objections to this one. -Splash 04:37, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Re:Lightning photo

Hi Postdlf, The camera which took that photo is a very basic one - definetly not a special rapid fire camera. I took it at the camera's longest exposure setting (4 seconds). The only thing with lightning photos if you don't have longer exposure time/rapid fire is a whole lot of patience. I took 700 photos that night and in only two a lightning strike appeared. Either I was aiming in the wrong spot, or the camera was in the middle of processing the last 4 seconds (this is where I lost most of them I think as it took about 4 seconds to process!) but I shot a whole lot of black. It's a lot easier with a very long exposure camera as you can just leave it exposing and as the lightning is very bright, you should capture it even at the high aperture necessary for the long exposure. So basically it's just patience and being there at the right time.

Thanks for you nice comment! --Fir0002 07:54, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Irish-American Mayors

Why is Irish-American Mayors worthless? 64.109.253.204 04:41, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

• For reasons already given. I really didn't have anything to add to the discussion. Postdlf 04:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Irish-American Mayors are a very historic part of American history and still play a major role in America. 64.109.253.204 04:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

• Because they're Irish-American? Postdlf 04:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, because they are Irish-American. Politics are a very big part of many Irish-American life-styles. Irish have been involved in urban politics for a long time and political machines in cities have been run by Irish for a long time. 64.109.253.204 04:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

• I am a big fan of Miller's Crossing. Why not a more general List of Irish-American politicians? And can you document that this intersection of occupation and ethnicity has been a focused subject of academic study? If so, I'll change my vote. Postdlf 04:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Untill you are more aware of Irish-American history, you should abstain from voting. 64.109.253.204 05:07, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Most of these black congressmen were elected just because they lived in a mostly black area or they were a good canidate. Irish-Americans are involved in politics and have become mayors because it was a specific thing that Irish-Americans would and still do. 64.109.253.204 05:07, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

http://www.chicagohistory.info/stories/daley/irishpolitics.html here is an example for you. 64.109.253.204 05:18, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

• Fair enough. The link convinced me. Postdlf 05:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

your name

I've seen your name in several places, and to be completely honest, I assumed you were a bot until I looked at your page. So it's pronounced "Post-DEE-ELL-EFF"? Just curious (and bored), and yeah, I'm sure it's all been asked before. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 07:30, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, that pronunciation is correct. You assumed I was a bot? I guess that's the surest sign that I'm on here way too much.  ; ) Postdlf 07:32, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Yeah I assumed the "DLF" part stood for something technical. lol. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 07:34, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Fooish Thingies

Please visit Wikipedia:Categorization/By_country. I've contacted those people from the discussion at KBdank's page now; if everyone agrees on the setup, we can post public notices at WP:RFC and attract attention all over the Wiki. Radiant_>|< 08:05, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Mr Men and the international maoist consipiracy

WP:BJAODN? :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:19, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Go for it.  ; ) To think all this time I was possibly a fellow traveller in the first grade. Postdlf 18:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Polymer City Chronicles

I saw that you marked this listing for "keep" and closed the discusion, but the "pending deletion" notice is still at the top of the article. Can anyone remove that now, or does it need to be left still? Thanks! -- bcRIPster 14:52, 21 July 2005 (MST)

• Thanks for pointing that out to me. I'll take care of it. Postdlf 21:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Darth Inanes VFDs

I really liked the arguments you gave on the Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus VFDs. I just concurred with you on both VFDs, but I figured I'd go ahead and tell you, too. The Literate Engineer 02:53, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Psi edit

Im Psi edit the account name that you though was forged. I was just loggedout accidently during this the time I voted on the Darth Nihilus vfd. So I just wanted to tell that nothing was forged but I still thank you for pointing out the fact that I didnt log in. -- Psi edit

Monty Hall problem

Good rv. Thanks. I thought I was starting to go nuts on this article. Does this happen with every featured article? Jeesh! hydnjo talk 23:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Yes; they're pretty visible targets for vandalism. I thought the usual custom was to protect any article linked to on the main page, so I don't know why this one hasn't been. Postdlf 23:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Oops, we both rv'd the same edit! Sorry, you first. ;-) hydnjo talk 00:02, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• There is no hope for some. See Talk:Monty_Hall_problem#Fundamental_flaw. I remember a quote by someone famous: "Never argue with someone who knows that he's right". hydnjo talk 00:36, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• How do we protect or lock a page. This seems a fundamental right for an article that has been through peer review and gone on to be a featured article. That the article would be troll bait is obvious. So, a reasonable amount of protection during that time frame would seem prudent. I'm just guessing here but the trolls shouldn't be allowed an advantage just because we have chosen an excellent article to feature. hydnjo talk 02:36, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Any admin can protect a page, but it must be for good reason; I've rarely done it myself. I was wrong about the main page custom; it's actually only images that appear on the main page that are protected as a matter of course. I think that a currently featured article should be automatically protected as well...maybe we should post such a suggestion on the Village Pump? I can't imagine that this hasn't been discussed before though. Postdlf 06:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Crisis revert

Sorry about reverting your spelling fix. As you can see from the history, we were editing concurrently, and I've heard that the latest version of the wiki software doesn't guard as well against edit conflicts. Tverbeek 00:11, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Pre-eminence

This is certainly a correct spelling; in the dictionaries at which I've looked it's the only one given. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Ok. I was just going by what the spellchecker I was using told me. Postdlf 18:14, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Right back at ya!

Good luck on the New York Bar, Postdlf. I know you'll knock it out of the park. -- BD2412 ^talk 02:26, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

What American really means

I am here to explain what the term "American" really means. American accurately means from North or South America not just the United States. People from the United States should be called something else besides "Americans". Your problem of having alternative references to refer to the United States is that your not giving them a chance. You keep deleting them. If you would just give the references a chance then the references could become standard usage. The Spanish speaking world agrees with the more accurate definition of American. Here are some alternative references to refer to the United States instead of "American": United States/US/U.S. (used as an adjective which it's use has been fairly common on Wikipedia), United Statian, United Statesian, United Stateser, etc. Read the alternative words for American page to get my point. Heegoop, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Sarah Vowell picture

Hello. It looks like the image you uploaded of Sarah Vowell has no information about its source, nor about whether the photo is permissive use or fair use and why. If it really is okay for Wikipedia to be using that photo, could you update the description with those details? There is more information in the description about how to do that. Thanks! —LarryGilbert 19:43, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Categories

Hi. Haven't seen you for a while at Wikipedia talk:Category titles. A vote has started. Maurreen (talk) 16:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

promophoto tag

Hi. The promophoto tag can only be used for images with a known source. So for example Image:JaneWiedlin.jpg cannot be tagged with promophoto as no source is listed. I've retagged as ((no source)). Thanks Zeimusu | (Talk page) 03:42, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Pet Professional

I recreated it because the comic has been around for a while and has become notable.--Kross 05:23, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

• That may be, however the only way to overturn a VfD is to list the article on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion and make your case there. If a consensus votes to undelete, it then goes back to VfD for another consideration. Until that happens, the original VfD is binding and recreations are not permitted. Thanks. Postdlf 05:26, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

John Stephenson

Just to let you know that the actor is now at John Stephenson (actor) as there's an England cricketer by the same name, who I've put at John Stephenson (cricketer); the basic John Stephenson article is now a disambiguation page. Loganberry (Talk) 01:35, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

San Margherita, Ohio moved

Thought I would let you know so you can update your front-page. Rkevins82 21:35, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

List of notable United States Courts of Appeals cases

I just started up this list - please add to it, if you know of any cases floating around here. Cheers! -- BD2412 ^talk 01:38, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Image:Cosmopolitan August 2002.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Cosmopolitan August 2002.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in its not being deleted. Thank you. —MetsBot 19:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:SMG Buffy season 2.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:SMG Buffy season 2.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in its not being deleted. Thank you. —MetsBot 19:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Both photos are orphans, either use them somewhere or ignore this message. Thuresson 15:02, 3 September 2005 (UTC)