User talk:MichaelBillington/Archive

You have a new memo from TehKewl1.

Custodian
I have promoted you to temporary custodian for the duration of your mentorship period until January 8. Your mentor will be User:SB Johnny. Whenever you get a chance, you might want to list yourself at Staff. Good luck with the mop! sebmol ? 17:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Mark as small edit
Dear Michael Billington, Can you mark your blocking and other user edits as small edits?--Hillgentleman|Talk 08:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately the blocks can't be marked as minor, but I'll see what I can do about the talk page posts, I should be able to fix them so you can hide them from recent changes. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 08:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Open proxy blocking
Hi Michael, I'm wondering why you have blocked so many open proxy addresses today - ie why they "need to be blocked" - and indefinitely at that. Open Proxies doesn't really explain anything.. Cormaggio talk 00:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how much you know on the subject, so I'll start from the beginning: Open proxies are computers that anybody on the internet can connect to in order to make edits to Wikiversity whilst hiding their true IP address. Most planned (as in, not just from a schools somewhere) vandalism comes from open proxies. They are abused most often for spamming, crapflooding forums and - adding obscene images to wikis. When a vandal is banned, they will often just find an open proxy to continue editing, and because Jimbo himself couldn't come up with a valid use of open proxies for editing, they have been systematically banned on all Wikimedia projects which have a userbase willing to do so. (see )  This is done pre-emptively, even to IP addresses with no contributions, in order reduce the number of possible ways people can evade blocks and bans. I hope this explains it to you, cheers. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 00:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yep, thanks. I didn't know anything about open proxies, but only went off to read about them after I posted here - sorry about that! Cormaggio talk 00:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Mike
Hi - I just wonder if that's fair to claim this username, when it's not the one you use. Is this in anticipation of Single Login perhaps? Sorry to chime in critically again - and thanks for all your work over the last two days or so. :-) Cormaggio talk 14:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It's probably a good idea to turn it into a userspace disambiguation page or something similar, as single login will be enough to bug anybody editng under a common user name - so I wouldn't edit with it, only use it for testing and anything I can't do with this account. It's the ability to make templates in userspace that take 13 less characters to type out that I'm after, so feel free to rename it to User:M if you feel the name should be given to somebody else. :-) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 15:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, it's just that it's such a common name - and someone will doubtless try to log in with it - if it's just for testing, how about calling it "User:Mike2"?


 * Sounds fine, I hope you are familiar with how to rename users (*runs off to delete redirects*) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 15:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, that's done - renamed to User:Mike2. Cheers. Cormaggio talk 19:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Custodianship
I was wondering if you could check my contributions and place a vote of any opinion onto my candiates for custodianship section. I've been trying for ages, but nobody has left a comment saying "Support" or "disagree". Would you mind voting? Student Galaxy 13:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

What the hell?!
What the hell went on here? 


 * Judging by the timestamp on that message, I think I had just finished blocking a few more open proxies. You may wish to read the above section about it if you are looking for the reason why I did that :-) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 04:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

thanks
--JWSchmidt 22:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikiversity
Thank you for the welcome! I am sure I will fit right in. Somitho 07:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Shell account
I'm a bit more lucid now. I should have asked if it would be ok to use an account to try out our multimedia stuff on. Last night, I was just thinking "student" accounts, for some odd reason. And, thanks for the offer in the first place. :) Historybuff 14:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for your efforts to protect Wikiversity! --JWSchmidt 01:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

blog rss feed
My RSS aggregator is linked to User:User:JWSchmidt/Blog rather than User:JWSchmidt/Blog. Did I do something wrong? --JWSchmidt 01:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Oops, sorry, my fault. I think I know what caused it though. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 04:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

"Try refreshing it now" <-- I'm not sure what "refresh" means in this context. I have a serious problem remembering to add my signature to new blog entries, so some of my problems are due to that. I added an entry on my page today with ~, but I did not see an automatic addition to the rss. Is there a way to know if the bot is active? --JWSchmidt 01:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

rssbot
trust a bot to do boring jobsmy trainer told me, "Publish blogs!"so feeds I make, I can not stopas long as the latest entry is on topbut other tasks, I also craveif I disobey will I know my grave?the Colloquium is up-side-downso, while idle, new code I hacknew ways I need to parse the stackif I solve this puzzle, I'll win renownand Wikiversitans will remark,"Who needs that Billington?"

Hi...Mike!
Real96 10:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

FAA Airplane Flying Handbook attribution
Thanks for the information on attribution. It was my intention to add an attribution today just before noticing your message to me. Interesting coincidence. Since there is not currently a link to the chapters, I didn't expect anyone to be reading the pages yet.

Is there a way to include a page within a page? For example, I'd like to include the entire Table of Contents on each page (and the attribution) without needing to edit every single page whenever it is necessary to break chapters into individual sections. It is looking like that will be increasingly necessary.

Using pairs of double curly braces seems to call up a template page, which is not exactly what I expected.

There is lots of interest in this information in the Piloting community around the world. As a result, eventually, it will be necessary to separate the US information from generic information. For example, there is a contributor from New Zealand who is offering information from that country. In addition, the FAA handbook is out of date with respect to current regulations and with respect to current technological advances. As a result, the pages will diverge from the original source.

Once again, thanks for any help. AuntPeggy 15:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Welcoming
Woops. Thank you for the heads up. --Remi 22:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Advice
My first vandal ... yay :S. I blocked two accounts, but am not really sure what comment I should have made. You can Special:Contributions/Bill_Dorku Check out the vandal -- I don't think blocking him was the wrong thing to do -- but I want to make sure comments make sense. thanks Historybuff 08:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

probation
Just a reminder; User:Historybuff is at the end of the one month probation period. --JWSchmidt 13:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Mentoring
Hi, MichaelBillington, I have a humble request for you. Would you be willing to mentor me as a probationary custodian? I'm willing to help out all I can - and really just need someone to get me going and a solid reference point should I encounter situations where I'm not too sure what to do (although this shouldn't happen to much after reading the guide and being well versed in Wikimedia projects). I run my own private installation of MediaWiki so the technical aspects shouldn't be a problem. It would be great if I could learn from someone obviously experienced and with the project's best interests at heart. Cheers, --Pumpmeup 06:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Heya. I've been away from wikiversity for a long while, and only got this message yesterday. If you come back at any time and return to being active, let me know so we can talk about mentoring. Cheers. --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 04:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedian Demographics update
Hello MichaelBillington. I'm writing because you requested a reminder about progress on Wikimedian Demographics. For the time being these will be about once per month.

Speaking of reminders, it turns out the template question isn't the most efficient way of coming up with a mailing list. If you want to recieve this message on another of your talk pages (or don't want them at all), please edit the list on Wikimedian Demographics/Reminders.

To update on progress so far, there have been somewhere around 50 respondents over the past month, with more trickling in slowly but steadily. There are 7 major surveys (or 12, depending on how you count them):
 * 1) The basic survey (about your participation in Wikimedia)
 * 2) The "geography" surveys (actually 6 of those, for each inhabited continent)
 * 3) The Operating System survey (still stubby)
 * 4) The Wikipedia survey
 * 5) The Commons survey
 * 6) The US presidential elections survey
 * 7) The sexuality and relationships survey

Only the geography surveys have had any major modifications since being originally posted (more countries were added to those).

Several new surveys have been discussed at Talk:Wikimedian Demographics, as well as other places within Wikiversity. A few that might be ready sometime in February include:
 * A survey about Women in Wikimedia
 * A survey about Wikibooks
 * A survey about Wikiversity
 * A survey about administrative issues (including cross-wiki topics such as CheckUser and "global blocking")
 * A survey about environmental issues
 * A survey about religion
 * A survey about international trade

If you have ideas for more surveys, please share them on Talk:Wikimedian Demographics. Thanks for your participation thus far, and we hope to see you soon! --SB_Johnny | talk 11:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

User:MichaelBillington/IRC
I made something similiar for wikinews, I'm not sure if it is useful to you. Its at n:WN:IRC (code at n:mediawiki:Irc.js) in case it is. Cheers. Bawolff


 * Thanks. That's a big help&mdash; my own one is truly terrible. Cheers. :) --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 11:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the Bloom Clock!
Hello, MichaelBillington, and thanks for signing up as a contributor to the Bloom Clock!

To get started, all that you need to do is keep your eyes open for flowers on plants growing outdoors. Then, depending on how well you know plants, you can either try to find the plant using the global keys, or just check the master list where plants are listed by their scientific names.

Assuming you find a log page for the plant you saw, all that you need to do is click [edit] above the list of signatures, and add *~ on a new line below the last signature and above the line that begins with, which will make your signature appear on the profile page.

If you don't find a log page, just add an entry for the plant to the Master List using. Someone can then show you how to create a profile and log page for the plant.

If you don't know the name of the plant you saw, try asking on Bloom Clock/Unknown Plants using the template there. Photographs are very helpful, but if you don't have a digital camera, just give the best description you can and hopefully someone can identify it for you.

After you've logged 10 or more plants as flowering for your location, another bloom clock contributor will help you set up the categories and templates used to construct a key for your region, and try to match up your region to the global keys.

If you have any questions, ideas, or need something explained, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

(Apologies for the long-belated welcome message... finally got around to writing one!) --SB_Johnny | talk 09:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey thanks SB_Johnny. I'll see how I can help later in the year when spring comes around (southern hemisphere here :)). --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 08:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

access blocked
Michael,

You have blocked an IP address for a school district ~ can we please be removed so our students can create accounts?

Thank you

Inexplicable Physics
Hello,

There is an RfD by this name that needs to be reviewed by an uninvolved custodian. Can you do so and bring closure to this matter? Geoff 22:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking at this. I generally agree with your close, but some aspects of this may have escaped your notice. First of all, all the pages were already tagged with by the nominator. Then I moved them all, after the nomination, fairly recently, to become subpages of Nonstandard physics, which was not nominated for deletion (which is why I've removed the tag you placed there.) As these resources are seeing activity by the original author, and a little from others, such as me, the six-month slow deletion idea really didn't apply any more. It was the idea that these were orphan pages, with an anonymous editor, that led to the slow wastebasket idea, which is still a good idea, for untended pages. They aren't that any more.
 * The deletion discussion was pretty confused. I was new at Wikiversity when this was RfD'd. The author is, in fact, a physicist, it appears, and I know that some articles were genuine physics, if presented somewhat idiosyncratically, perhaps. Or not. I don't think we should stand over his shoulder, judging the content without knowing the subject!
 * It's not clear to me what more would need to be done to "convert these pages into useful content." We have lots of pages that are articles, in effect, and these ones are now organized, by default, under a Nonstandard physics resource, though that was not intended to be definitive, it was more neutral than the Inexplicable physics category, and less easily overlooked. In other words, the possibility of people being misled had already been addressed, in two ways, and the template you added may inhibit work.
 * The pages are already linked to resources through categories.
 * It may be easy to miss the real value of these resources: they are being maintained and improved by an academic, apparently a physicist, Fedosin. So it's now possible to discuss any of these topics with an expert, he has offered that. How valuable is that?
 * I especially agree with your assessment regarding copyvio, and with your unblock of the IP. I'd noticed this block, but hadn't given it priority, since Fedosin had become active. Thanks for helping out. --Abd 00:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your assessment, Abd. My level of Internet connectivity prevented me from templating that, and I don't think my request for custodian assistance with tagging the remaining pages was saved either.


 * Everything you mention is very reasonable. I was aware of how strange it was while I was writing (given the page moves), but you're correct in saying there are other things I missed. The intent was to mirror what people had been saying as closely as possible, to avoid creating a kafuffle about the lack of process in the closure.


 * At least one page I tagged was blank, but most have content. If they are part of something ongoing, they will be de-tagged and hopefully the project will turn out well. If there are additional problems that people think mean "delete, delete!", then I really hope they talk about it in a less-than-1-year, non-stagnant type of discussion.
 * It's something that should have been closed a long time ago. Every point of view was shown at different times, making problems with every outcome. This is probably especially true the unclear and strange solution which was most popular through the discussion, and I went with it. Feel free to un-tag useful articles as you see fit. --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 01:29, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The action with the pages didn't require custodian tools, and any time you need assistance, from a non-custodian, please feel free to ask. One of the problems with the discussion being open for so long was that early comments were based only on early information; it's a common problem with deletion discussions, because people don't necessarily watch them and come back and comment on later suggestions or new information. What was clear to me was that the deletion arguments didn't have a clear basis in Wikiversity policy and practice, but tended toward Wikipedia-style arguments about fringe and OR, or the like. Often happens at RfD. I think we should set a maximum time for discussions to remain open. If there is no delete consensus by then, a new nomination should be made, a clean start that refers to the old discussion but that doesn't depend on it. Maybe a month might be a decent cycle time for now. --Abd 01:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

You are invited to register for the Wikiversity Assembly

 * The Assembly has been established as a technique for developing reports on topics of import for Wikiversity administration. The Assembly is not a decision-making body, per se. Rather, it is designed to create or discover or estimate consensus, through focused, facilitated, thorough deliberation. Assembly reports may be referenced in regular Wikiversity discussions, but will not directly control outcomes. Where full consensus is not found, minority reports may be issued.
 * I invite you to register for the Assembly by adding your user name to the Delegable proxy/Table.


 * Registering for the Assembly creates no specific obligation, but does consent to direct communication as the Assembly may determine is appropriate. You may opt out of such direct communication by adding "no messages" to the Table when you register, in the user comment field, but it is unlikely that the default (communication allowed) will create burdensome traffic for you.

You are invited to name a proxy

 * When you register for the Assembly, you may optionally designate a "proxy."


 * I suggest that you nominate, as a proxy, the user whom you most trust to participate positively in a Wikiversity discussion if you are unable to participate yourself. The proxy will not be voting for you in any process. Rather, the proxy will be considered to loosely represent you, as a means of estimating probable large-scale consensus based on small-scale participation, in the event that you do not personally participate.


 * If you name a proxy, you will be consenting to direct communication with you by that proxy. If a named proxy accepts the proxy, you become, as long as you maintain the nomination (you may change it at any time), the "client" of the proxy, and by accepting, a proxy has consented to direct communication from the client.


 * See Delegable proxy for details.

Comments
I'm inviting all relatively inactive custodians to register for the Assembly, and to name a proxy as described. This is because you who have been and remain custodians have yourselves been trusted by the community, and your proxy choice, if you name one, may carry some reasonable weight, due to your experience. You may, of course, participate directly, whether you do or do not name a proxy. Thanks for considering this. --Abd 01:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Your admin status
Hello. I'm a steward. A new policy regarding the removal of "advanced rights" (administrator, bureaucrat, etc.) was adopted by community consensus recently. According to this policy, the stewards are reviewing administrators' activity on wikis with no inactivity policy. You meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for 2 years) on enwikiversity, where you are an administrator. Since that wiki does not have its own administrators' rights review process, the global one applies. If you want to keep your rights, you should inform the community of the wiki about the fact that the stewards have sent you this information about your inactivity. If the community has a discussion about it and then wants you to keep your rights, please contact the stewards at m:Stewards' noticeboard, and link to the discussion of the local community, where they express their wish to continue to maintain the rights, and demonstrate a continued requirement to maintain these rights. We stewards will evaluate the responses. If there is no response at all after approximately one month, we will proceed to remove your administrative rights. In cases of doubt, we will evaluate the responses and will refer a decision back to the local community for their comment and review. If you have any questions, please contact us on m:Stewards' noticeboard. Best regards, Rschen7754 21:01, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called MichaelBillingtonBot. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name MichaelBillingtonBot~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Mike42. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Mike42~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)