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Welcome to my talkpage!

Ordinarily, any comments placed here will stay, and only simple vandalism will be reverted. If you wish to make a personal attack against me it will stay for everyone to see. Someone else will judge whether an attack says more about you or about me however.

Note that I am quite inconsistent with where I make responses.

• If it is a response I think several people might be interested in reading, I might respond here. Otherwise, I will probably respond on your talkpage.
• I do not respond to every message (most notably RFA thank you notices), although I normally reply to requests and questions. Sometimes I am unable or do not have the time to do so (or I see that the problem has already been fixed). If I don't respond to your posting, please forgive me.

Previous archives of my talkpage can be found at

• User talk:Sjakkalle/March and April 2005
• User talk:Sjakkalle/May and June 2005
• User talk:Sjakkalle/July and August 2005
• User talk:Sjakkalle/September and October 2005
• User talk:Sjakkalle/November and December 2005
• User talk:Sjakkalle/January and February 2006
• User talk:Sjakkalle/March, April and May 2006
• User talk:Sjakkalle/June, July and August 2006
• User talk:Sjakkalle/September, October, November and December 2006

Note that I am not an administrator, although I used to be one until November 2006, and will therefore be unable to aid in any business which requires such tools. There may be a cases where you have a complaint about an admin action I made previously, if this is so just post it here and we'll handle it on a case-by-case basis. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Roa Station 2 3RR - courtesy note 3 Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/ProtectionBot 4 A very Californian RfA thanks from Luna Santin 5 Article on WP:PNT 6 Livingston Airline Destinations... 7 Wikipedia:Independent sources 8 Discussion about Congress 9 List of Ethnic Chess Openings 10 Newyorkbrad's RfA 11 My RfA 12 List of Dictators 13 Proposed Wikipedia talk:Notability (news) 14 RfA 15 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parents of the Prime Ministers of Canada 16 Gibbs High School 17 AfD Progressive Bloggers 18 VegaDark's Request for Adminship 19 Nya, nya, nya, Nyakagomba 20 to much of languages on deletion log; space shuttle simulator 21 Effects of global warming on Australia page completely rewritten - 40 references 22 Thanks! 23 Again? 24 DYK 25 Smile! 26 you have your opinion and i have mine 27 Regarding the Paul Block article 28 Chess query 29 Iran War

[edit] Roa Station

Couldn't we merge Roa Station to Roa, Norway? Punkmorten 12:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• The reason I created this station article was because I was busy filling Wikipedia with Oslo T-bane-cruft and noticed there was another user following behind making (very good) redirects for all stations which happened to have an "Ø" in the name. But when I created Røa (station), I did not want Roa (station) to redirect there since it would be misleading. So what else was there than to create an article where that redirect should point? In any case I consider Roa, Norway to be a station town, where the railway station is the most significant feature of the community, so I think merging this is a good idea which I'll support. Feel free to do it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR - courtesy note

Hiya,

I've updated that section of 3RR - see Talk:3RR#Update to vandalism section. I have done this because I think a few wording changes solve the confusion and also avoids the concern raised over WP:BEANS and also your observation about new user edits.

Thanks for the input. I think this solves the problem but doesn't raise new ones, enough to edit 3RR directly.

Can you review and comment? Thanks. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 22:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I have looked at the debate on the relevant page since your modifications. To me, I am not too concerned about whether newbie testing is listed as an exception or not, because I cannot think of a single admin who would rules-lawyer over that when it comes to applying the 3RR. (I lost a great example of good use for WP:IAR when the exceptions section was expanded to include "non-controversial maintenance", such as clearing WP:AIV of entries).

The 3RR is a rule which has problems, in my view, because it can put paid to efforts of removing fairly obvious pushing of a certain bias. I am also deeply unenthused about the situation where "A adds something, B reverts, A readds, B re-reverts, A readds, B re-reverts, A readds, B re-reverts, A reports B for 3RR violation". Technically only B has violated the 3RR, but I cannot say that A has behaved any better. The dilemma is, without the 3RR we no longer have a predictable and immediate remedy for edit warring. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/ProtectionBot

I was a bit suprised to see your support of this, particularly when I had blipped over it at first and was in fact coming here to ask if you thought it was a good idea. (Did that make any sense?)

Geogre raised your name as a good sanity-checker, so here goes: I'm weighing up the philosophical objections to admin bots and security through obscurity, adding the practical concerns about Wikimedia extensions which are supposed to be written soon, throwing in a little bit of "what's the deal with these admin bot requests all the sudden," and flavouring with not liking the 10K words hasseling oppose voters. Vs. main page vandalism, of course.

So, sanity checker: Grey enough area that it's just fine that you and I are split on the S\O thing, or am I just wrong?

brenneman 00:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I see that the request has been withdrawn by Dragons Flight, but I can still give a response on my opinions regarding such bots.

In general my attitude towards giving bots admin tools is one of scepticism, but I will not blindly oppose the idea without considering the facts. The admin tools are not given away to everyone like the edit tools are for good reason. The powers to block, delete and protect can be extremely disruptive if given to the wrong users, because they can be difficult to monitor and reverse. In general, I would rank the "power" of each tools, from most heavy to lightest, as follows:

1. Blocking, because a person wrongly blocked is in trouble and pretty much at the mercy of other admins good will to get out of the situation. In addition, wrongfully blocked users can be quite upset and we wind up with a huge load of damage control. In my opinion, this tool should almost always be used by a person who is held accountable for each and every block made.
2. Deletion. Actually a pretty close second to blocking. Maybe it should rank ahead because a wrongfully deleted article can really bug and cause trouble to the readers, not just the editors. A second thing about deletion is that the circumstances around it are difficult to review by non-admins (one of the negative aspects I have noticed of giving up my admin buttons). Even so, a wrongly deleted page is an annoyance rather than a nasty predicament like a block is, and the person who feels wronged can immediately seek help without being at the mercy of other admins.
3. Protection is in my view the lightest of the tools. It does not really annoy most of our readers that much, the vast majority of them are not here to edit. (OK, when I say it "doesn't annoy the readers I should perhaps moderate myself and say that I fully agree with this rant when I say it "doesn't annoy our readers") Even so, protections are usually temporary, are still open to review by non-admins, and usually does not really lock the page entirely since changes can still be proposed and discussed on the relevant talk page. The effect of something wrongly protected is still only an annoyance, and a milder annoyance than what a wrongly deleted page leads to.

Now, only in extreme circumstances will I let an automaton be given access to the block button. The exception I have made (and mentioned) is the block bot of Curps which would block people who made ten page moves in under a minute, while always adding a note on the Admin's Noticeboard to please review and unblock if the block was in error. This is a powerful tool, and at times it did make a few false positives so I think we can also say the cost was a great one. But even so, it had a great benefit because it essentially killed off the page-move vandalism which cost us hours to clean up if the vandal was operational for a minute only. In the case of TawkerBotTorA, the benefit would be blocking Tor-nodes, and I felt that the benefit this time was much smaller. The risk of wrongly blocking IP-addresses did not outweigh the benefit of catching some potentially disruptive IPs, hence my opposition to that RFA.

Deletion bots are something which should only be used under supervision from an admin who is held accountable, I see that Cyde has a bot for clearing and getting rid of categories where the decision to delete has already been made by a human. This particular use is something I am not all to thrilled about (I cannot see the full benefit of having a bot do the work here) but as long as there has not been a malfunctioning I am not really going to complain about that.

Then we come to the bot in question now. The protection bot is aimed at catching vandalism to the featured article of the day. The problem here is a real one, a look at this discussion page shows in all clarity the trouble we have with maintaining the article during the hazing a main page feature is. I think that an article is in a vandalised state for about an hour wach day. In particular, vandalism to the images and templates is nasty because they stick out in the article, and even more, because fewer people have the images and templates watchlisted so it can be hard to spot. If for instance chess were the featured article of the day, I would hate to see all the black pawns on the chess diagram be replaced by black swastikas just because someone forgets to protect the diagram template and the images which go on them. In all probablility, featuring a page with vandalism on it will hurt Wikipedia's reputation as well. Therefore, measures which can prevent vandalism to the featured article of the day have a large benefit, and in this case I felt the corresponding cost was a small one. The cost is abandonment of the "no admin bots" principle and the slight risk of a wrongly protected image or template, which, as I said above, is merely a mild annoyance and can usually be quickly reversed manually. With that in mind, I supported the idea. Then the matter of source code... yes I see arguments on both sides here. We have questions on openness vs. security here. (That seems to bring up deja vu... I am sure that the conflict between openness and security has been brought up before... somewhere...) I thought a bit about it, then decided that since the responsible admin in question is known for good, responsible and careful conduct, I am not too worried about hiding the code in the interests of preventing a vandal getting their hands on code like that.

So while I generally do not want to have bots with admin tools, I feel that a principled "no to admin bots. period." approach is too rigid and prevents us from reaping some major benefits, in this case removal of front page and extremely high profile vandalism. I am very conservative with supporting bot-admins, but I feel that in this particular case the risks and costs were low compared to the benefit it would bring. With that said, I am glad to read on the RFA that an alternative function has been made as a substitute to this work and I hope that we can enjoy the same benefits from this feature will be as good as the benefits from the bot. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A very Californian RfA thanks from Luna Santin

Thanks for your support in my not-so-recent RfA, which succeeded with a final tally of (97/4/4)! I've never been able to accept compliments gracefully, and the heavy support from this outstanding community left me at a complete loss for words -- so, a very belated thank you for all of your kind words. I have done and will continue to do the utmost to serve the community in this new capacity, wherever it may take me, and to set an example others might wish to follow in. With a little luck and a lot of advice, this may be enough. Maybe someday the enwiki admins of the future will look back and say, "Yeah, that guy was an admin." Hopefully then they don't start talking about the explosive ArbComm case I got tied into and oh what a drama that was, but we'll see, won't we? Surely some of you have seen me in action by now; with that in mind, I openly invite and welcome any feedback here or here -- help me become the best editor and sysop I can be. Again, thank you. –Luna Santin

Thanks for the trust you've put in me -- let's hope the tardiness of this note is among the least of my errors, so far! Luna Santin 12:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article on WP:PNT

Hi. Zipal has been sitting on WP:PNT since December 27. Apparently it's in Norwegian. If you're not too busy could you possibly take a quick look at it and confirm or deny that it's a hoax? Thanks a lot! Tonywalton  | Talk 16:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• I have prod-ed the article and put a lengthy explanation on the article's talkpage. That it is written in Norwegian is perhaps the smallest problem with that article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your help. I think I'll ask on the PNT talkpage why things are allowed to hang about for so long; the {{tl:notenglish}} template does say that untranslated articles will be deleted after 7 days... Thanks again! Tonywalton  | Talk 09:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Livingston Airline Destinations...

...is available at User:Sjakkalle/Livingston Airline Destinations. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I suppose making a redirect is fine. I don't have a strong opinion either way. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Independent sources

I just speedied it under G7, main author request. I created it under a false assumption. My apologies. Steve block Talk 13:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ah, OK. Actually I understand the wish for sources to be independent very much. I just don't think that it is appropriate to demand that sources be independent for every statement because in some cases a non-independent source can be just as reliable. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  • It's back anyway. Apparently it depends which process you read as to which process can be followed, or something. Steve block Talk 16:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion about Congress

Would you be so kind as to go here and weigh in on the discussion? Thanks --Appraiser 15:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I too, see some merit in keeping both types of lists; my main concern at this point is which group of lists is linked to from the 10,000 -or-so past congress-members' articles. I saw that you had asked to re-open the discussion, (which is fine), and I thought you might be interested in this discussion too. But, anyway, sorry to have bothered you. --Appraiser 16:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Ethnic Chess Openings

In case you missed it, you may be interested in my comment [1]. Pete.Hurd 16:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Newyorkbrad's RfA

Thank you for your support on my RfA, which closed favorably this morning, as well as for your kind comments accompanying your !vote. I appreciate the confidence the community has placed in me and am looking forward to my new responsibilities. Please let me know if ever you have any comments or suggestions, especially as I am learning how to use the tools. Best regards, Newyorkbrad 19:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My RfA

Thank you for your support in my recent RfA. I think valid criticisms were raised in areas that I need to work on, so I've withdrawn my name. I intend to work on addressing the concerns that were raised, and think I need to work contributing without allowing myself to become as stressed as I have been at times, which did result in some inappropriate behavior. Perhaps I may re-explore adminship at some point in the future, but it's a little early to consider that. Again, thank you. Fan-1967 21:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Dictators

Hi Sjakkalle!

A few weeks ago I found a red link in an article linking to a „List of Dictators“. I had recently read an article about some current dictators and their “exploits” and created a wiki article for it, citing the article which for every person on the list gave the reason why that person was considered a dictator. Today I returned to the article to see if somebody had expanded it and found it deleted. Now I don’t particularly mind the article being deleted, though I think protecting it against vandalism would have been enough, but reading the discussion page about the article’s deletion, I wondered what the criteria for deletion are. On that page there were eleven votes for KEEP and only 4 votes for DELETE, though the outcome was declared as delete. I followed a link to the “List of Modern dictators” and found it also deleted, although you stated in the head post that the result of the discussion was KEEP – with votes being 34 DELETE / 23 KEEP. Now I’ve been looking through the help sections, but I didn’t find the part to explain just how those votes are counted. Do administrators have several votes? Does the vote count at all or are the decisions made by the admins after reading the pros and cons? Thanks --Mirage GSM 16:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy answer! The link you sent me is not the article I created. I only entered those 20 dictators mentioned in the article [2] I referenced, because I didn't have any sources for others ready. It seems like the article had already been deleted when I found it, and I accidentally recreated the deleted page. --Mirage GSM 16:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Wikipedia talk:Notability (news)

On the Wikipedia talk page for Wikipedia :Notability you expressed some opinions about whether things covered by news media should be entitled to Wikipedia articles for having met the criteria of multiple coverage in reliable independent sources I have created a draft of a proposed guideline Wikipedia talk:Notability (news) looking at the question of whether "newsworty" equals "encyclopedic." Your input is welcome. Thanks. Edison 01:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RfA

I am planning to go ahead with it right now, but I'm still going to think more about it. I'm pretty aware of the things you're saying, but the fact is that the ArbCom restrictions won't expire for quite a long time, and one of the restrictions will, according to the ArbCom, never expire. Also, I am not that big of an AfD contributor in general these days, although I did vote on a whole slew of them yesterday and I'd like to stay more active about them. But thanks for your input, and if I do go through with the nom please post some of your supportive comments there to help me out, because I'm sure I'll need it. Everyking 20:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Aside from a gray area of approximately 65-75%, I don't feel admins should be making judgment calls about the outcome, although I have no objection to them using their judgment to eliminate the votes of probable sockpuppets and brand new users. If there's some hugely significant point that the voters haven't considered, you might want to refrain from closing and instead take the opportunity to stress that point, perhaps even raising the issue on the talk pages of keep voters so that they'll be aware of it. If the participants ultimately decide to keep it anyway, then it should be closed as a keep and then the issue can be dealt with editorially and/or through the article talk page; otherwise it'll be necessary to wait a little while and then nominate the article for deletion again. Everyking 08:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parents of the Prime Ministers of Canada

Hi, thanks for your vote to keep on the article on their children, but they have put this one (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parents of the Prime Ministers of Canada) on AfD as well. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gibbs High School

Done. --BigDT 14:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks! :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD Progressive Bloggers

You have edited the article Progressive Bloggers. This article is currently being considered for deletion under the wp:afd process. You may contribute to this discussion by commenting here. Thank you.Edivorce 23:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think that my sole edit to that article was removing an AFD tag after closing a discussion (knowing nothing at all about the subject, I think it's best if I don't touch it). I am afraid I am not properly qualified to offer my opinion on the encyclopedic worthiness of this article, but thanks for asking. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VegaDark's Request for Adminship

[edit] Nya, nya, nya, Nyakagomba

I responded to your very interesting comment about my inclusion standard on my talk page. You might want to have a look, and of course feel free to respond back, I always find this sort of discussion highly interesting. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] to much of languages on deletion log; space shuttle simulator

WARNING!: Bad language (2) is posted on deletion log: space shuttle simulator. Jer10 95 22:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Effects of global warming on Australia page completely rewritten - 40 references

Effects of global warming on Australia page completely rewritten - 40 references The article now has over 40 referenced statements and is based largely on a report prepared by Australia's premier scientific research organisation the CSIRO. The referencing of the article now compares very favourably with most other articles I have looked at. The article has no POV. The report on which it is based was prepared for the Business Round Table. It ought not be deleted now, even if it should have been before. Could each person who has recommended deletion please review and reconsider your view. Thanks dinghy 07:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Thanks for your support on my RfA. It passed with 55/0/0. I'll try my best to be worthy of the trust the community has put in me. If there are any of my actions you have a problem with or a question about, please feel free to discuss this with me and if needed to revert me. If there is anything else I can help you with (backlogs, comments, ...), you can always contact me on my talk page. P.S. I especially appreciate your support for someone you don't always agree with on AfD. Many people seem to treat AfD as a life-or-death situation, while it should be a consensus-searching discussion, where someones opinion may be in the minority sometimes. IF you see me closing AfD's (or ther deletions) which you completely disagree with, please contact me and explain your objections. I am sadly not errorfree, and it's only when people discuss such things that I can learn of course. Finally, It is my intention to be more conservative in actual deletions than I am in starting Prod's and AfD's. Fram 15:12, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Again?

"... Eventually I managed to get most of these biographies reinstated by waiting several months and then trying again, when Louis Blair was not looking. ..." - Sam Sloan (Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:12 pm)

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.politics/browse_frm/thread/7d8fd30b87dcbe95?scoring=d&hl=en

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=68693060#Sam_Sloan

(This is posted here by Louis Blair (March 13, 2007))

[edit] DYK

On 13 March 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Dovrebanen, 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.

--Majorly _{(o rly?)} 20:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It was the Nidareid train disaster which is the new article, but having that on the main page is nice! Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smile!

[edit] you have your opinion and i have mine

hi. thanks for the treathfull message anyway.. couldnt it just be that I actually think theese articles should be deleted? that i had a a opinion about that, with no mean intentions?. i guess you dont think so, to bad-. anyway the articles are staying. and that whats the majority decided and they where closed by you, so why even bather? anyway i dont think you should judge a person.--Matrix17 15:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the Paul Block article

I noticed it in AFD and tried to source it. The name, however, is common enough that there appear to be several Paul Blocks which come up for Google. I noticed that you commented with a Keep in the AFD. If you've got some sources, please put them in the article and then leave a message on my talk page, and I'll change my own voice in the AFD to a Keep as well. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ speak ○ see ○ 13:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chess query

I thought you might be interested in this thread. >Radiant< 07:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• Hi Radiant! I looked at the thread, but I am a bit unsure about the full context of the discussion. Regarding the term "chess-like" that does present a value judgement, and as such may be a bit problematic, but on the other hand a judgement like that is also unlikely to be a particularily controversial or contentious one. On the game chaturanga, a wording along the lines of "one of the predecessors of chess" might be appropriate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iran War

I could use some help here. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iranian-American War--Lee1863 15:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)