your message sorry for not replying earlier i wasn't really sure what to say in response to your first message and besides i've had a million and one things to do recently anyway there's a lot of things to be positive about red is back even if he has withdrawn from the arbcom election durin looks to still be around to me essjay is probably being more sensible than anyone by not getting involved in stuff plus wikipedia passed articles recently not that anyone seemed to notice in all the hubbub we're still almost as accurate as brittanica and whatever the failings of the arbcom elections at least they'll make it more democratic than it has been for the past few months rfr a good idea p s i think i've come up with a compromise for the userbox conflict basically to delete all the current userbox templates bear with me and replace them with equivalents like on essjay's page using template userbox and a bot i think this has a number of advantages but i'm still thrashing out the details just wondering since i haven't really been following wikiproject userboxes that closely only the conflicts around it has this been suggested before and what do you think