User talk:Lexor/Archive Jan-Mar 2004

Discussion with 168... regarding user conflicts

In case you would like to say something one way or the other and haven't noticed the couple general notices I posted, I thought you might like to know that I have raised the question of whether Lir does anything around Wikipedia to deserve the continued liberty to post. A couple users besides me have responded at Wikipedia:Problem_users#User:Lir (again), but so far none that I've actually seen discussing things with Lir on biology pages have offered opinions. To my mind, the testimony of cool heads with a good track record would most help people to draw a conclusion--not that a conclusion is likely to be drawn ever--and so I think it would be great if you were to weigh in. To my mind, Wikipedia culture encourages us to tolerate an unlimited amount of uncivilized behavior, and I think this is ridiculous. As I think of it, this project is nothing nearly so grave as running a nuclear power plant or distributing life-saving drugs. I see it more or less like a club, and I think it would be crazy for us not to kick out people who make our lives miserable and pay no dues. You may not find these criteria pertinent to Lir, but they are ones I would love to win people over to (and I've tried to stimulate discussion about it at Wikipedia talk:Bans and blocks). 168... 07:04, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Caveat: I've been reading Wikipedia talk:Bans and blocks and discovered there's actually been a lot of fairly discussion I wasn't aware of (I actually made my post to the Village Pump and only discovered the bans and blocks page when someone transported it there). It may just be I have not invented a new philosophy....168... 08:05, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I understand the frustration in general, but I think the best strategy in most cases is to walk away from the conflict for a while and work on something else. I still think it's possible to work with Lir. Some users draw energy from the fight, if you add yours then it can get worse (I've been guilty of it myself once or twice, I admit). But eventually if you do nothing people will get bored and you can fix it later. --Lexor 09:10, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I take your point and recognize that what you describe might be the best approach in the current political climate here. Re: you finding it possible to work with Lir, I think that represents a valuable way to look at this issue, but my perspective is to ask "what is the point of this work?" After all, it's work--it's not easy, it's often not fun. Is this work for a purpose I am happy to pledge my energies to? I think walking away from a fight is in effect to answer "no." So actually, if you have ever walked away from a fight, I would say that you do not find everybody possible to work with. What makes a person impossible to work with? Are these qualities present at the times the person is just barely possible to work with? From interactions with Lir, for example, I have formed an idea of what these qualities are, and they make me dislike the prospect of having to work with such a person ever. It's obvious that Wikipedia's embodiment of a certain idealogy is a large part of what attracts people to participate here. If libertarianism, all-inclusiveness and anarchy are crucial elements of that idealogy, then we have to be willing to work with absolutely anybody anyhow. I am just a little surprised to find how strongly people cling to these elements given how marginally they are represented by the political parties of English-speaking democracies. Sure, I agree that they would be cool if they worked, I would like to see them work, and I like that Wikipedia provides a low-risk environment for trying them out, but I think we all have evidence that that they don't work, or at least that they now are working far from perfectly. I guess it's just less important to me to pursue this social experiment to the point of absolute conclusiveness than it is to produce a reasonable encyclopedia. I think producing an encyclopedia would be really cool too. At this point I would be happy to get there by a less than totally pure and simplistic ideological route.168.150.238.72 16:46, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Misc discussion from January 2004

Thanks for helping with Goa trance music, I was at a complete loss how to word that. - Hephaestos 08:52, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No problem. The article could still use some more work, I think. --Lexor 09:10, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

History of Computing

Good job on reorganizing by date, intead of I and II ... I was thinking of doing it myself. Fuzheado 10:32, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This article is the top of the History of computing series.

History of computing hardware (until 1940s)

History of computing hardware (1940s-1960s)

History of computing hardware (1960s-present)

History of operating systems

Thanks. I was wondering how to handle History of computing hardware, should we leave it as is, or should it be History of computing hardware (until 1960s), for symmetry? Ideally we would mirror the History of the United States and have a top-level "History of computing hardware" (or history of computing), and then sections for each era, like the table to the right. What do you think? Because History of computing hardware is linked from many places, it would be lot work to fix all redirects (esp to avoid dbl redirects) that I wasn't game to retitle that page just yet. --Lexor 10:58, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This article is the top of the History of computing series.

History of computing hardware (before 1960s)

History of computing hardware (1960s-present)

History of operating systems

For the moment maybe a compromise would be this. --Lexor

Artificial Intelligence

Thank you for improving my contribution. Your small edits are evidently very carefully thought out and make a real difference. Psb777 09:58, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

well, I just had a quick look, and that sure seemed weird. I had access to two pages on the web site, and then my computer blew up...I will look better later, but frankly, not only is that weird, but that seems quite wrong to me. Will see... Anthere

Please vote

At Talk:DNA#Voting on February 5 Version Peak 06:14, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Since I'm not a member of the Fire Brigade, I'm assuming that your message is primarily meant as a "heads up". I'll certainly watch out for changes that the user in question makes on pages that are on "My watchlist". Thanks! Peak 07:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Er, I guess you're not actually in the list, but yes, I was thinking more in a generic sense of a Fire Dept as a heads up. --Lexor|Talk 09:28, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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"spliceome"

From User_talk:Dmb000006:

Did you just invent this "spliceome" term? Stewart Adcock 22:51, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually I have heard it (but it should be spelled spliceosome) used in bioinformatics, it gets Google hits if it's correctly spelled [1]. It perhaps doesn't warrant a complete article to itself, however. --Lexor|Talk 23:01, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

From the new spliceome article, he seems to be refering to something quite different from spliceosome (which, of course, I've heard of). Anyway, I've listed the new article on VfD -- Stewart Adcock 23:38, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

hi lexor

I don't think we've really had a chance to meet on wikipedia before. I am glad you've shown some interest in the indie music idea. I'd enjoy discussing ideas with you. I am also curious about what sparked your interest. Sincerely, Kingturtle 03:43, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Kingturtle. I'm interested in all kinds of independent music. My interests tend to be in the direction of electronica, IDM (I've done a fair amount of work in organizing the electronic music series, although I haven't yet felt a need for a WikiProject for that genre), but I like much in the areas of post-rock, and indie music (Stereolab, Tortoise and the like). Like you, I find it sometimes frustrating that bands that are more independent get sidelined on wikipedia.

However, I still think there should be some kind of threshold test, i.e. a band that formed two months ago in somebody's garage or bedroom probably doesn't deserve a mention, but a band (or group of musicians) that has been around for 4 or 5 years, never achieving much in the way of sales, MTV coverage or mainstream press, but is still considered influential or well-known within a style, community or region (e.g. Kid 606 is well known in the Bay Area and in IDM, but probably not elsewhere), does deserve to be covered by wikipedia. If a band makes it into allmusic.com it's pretty good (but certainly nowhere near absolute) test that it ought to be in wikipedia for almost all genres and styles in the United States and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom (although, I hasten to add that the converse is not necessarily true: omission in allmusic shouldn't warrant omission from wikipedia). For other European countries, Africa, Asia, Japan, South America and Australia, it's unlikely to be found there, but should be in wikipedia nevertheless, and with our truly worldwide contributor base we should be able to better allmusic in these regions. --Lexor|Talk 07:15, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Lexor. I see you've added the nifty msg:genetics doohickeys. Did you create the series? I'm curious where you got the idea. I'm wondering if it's a case of parallel discovery or if my WikiCivics series has inspired other series.168...|...Talk 06:06, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yep, I did create both that and the Genomics series. Actually I've been maintaining a few such Wikipedia:Article series already. I did the Electronic music series and the History of Australia series (this was before the new MediaWiki msg stuff came into existence, and I've switched the music series to use the new series, but not the hist. of Aust. series to use it yet). I think there is certainly a role for using these series to bring some order to the unruly beasts of proliferating sub-articles on similar subjects, without merging too many pages (which often upsets people). I'd like to make the overview articles be reasonably lengthy overviews of the subject (with copious links to relevant Main articles:) such as Anthere has done very nicely with ecology. I recommend using the article series judiciously to unite series like Genomics and Genetics, where a subject like genetics has split into many sub-disciplines, in this way, Wikipedia will begin to feel more like a "real" encyclopedia, where there are long articles on major topics, and shorter (or sometimes longer) articles on specialist topics. I checked out the way other encyclopedias organized them, and they often have a longer articles on genetics and biology, for example, than we currently have, and I am working to try and get the balance right without either too much splitting or too much agglomeration. --Lexor|Talk 07:50, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Lexor, Thanks for fixing the mess after my intervention in the von Bertalanffy article. I'm sorry. I got the message and now I know how to deal with such problems in the future. Arnejohs

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Hello, Lexor. Oops, I was asking you about changes to Escape From Noise, but now I realize you'd changed Negativland instead. Sorry if I caused any confusion. :-) --LarryGilbert 21:33, 2004 Mar 6 (UTC)

Lexor, I will take it that you were just correcting a typo. But please, do not edit the first two paragraphs of DNA. Thanks in advance. SweetLittleFluffyThing

I saw that, but it couldn't just be left with that typo as it was. Between me clicking the page to edit it another anonymous IP contributor actually deleted some content: see the diff to see what I mean: [1], I actually meant to revert it, but I thought the mistake happened earlier in the editing reversion. --Lexor|Talk 14:17, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you were correct to do that. Best to avoid letting mistakes :-)

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Bird and the Brain

• More information regarding this affair is available at User talk:Bird/Brain and stuff. He has since tried to blank it, however, as well as the links to it on his user page. Fennec 13:53, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Lexor, can you do something to prevent the current vandalism. I'm fairly new to wikipedia, and don't want to exacerbate the situation by doing or saying the wrong thing (that's why I'm not commenting on the talk brain, or bird's own talk page). I'm tempted to wait until the whole thing cools down... But fixing all these changes will not be that easy. Bird is not just undoing his own work here. Washington irving 15:38, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it's all very strange. It appears he left in a huff, and won't tell us exactly why. Seem awfully trivial to get so worked up about. --Lexor|Talk 16:35, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I honestly think his contributions were very valuable. There were one or two things that I thought were questionable, but overall a huge effort, and very worthwhile. I was hesitant to query his content as I thought I detected a sensitive ego in the manic energy of his edits, and the absence of any summaries. Maybe we all read to much into these kind of things. I note his talk page had (about the time he first signed up) he rejected (rather abruptly) an apparently friendly welcome to wikipedia, saying he was not a new user and "offense is a way forward". This was one thing that made me worried about querying his content, didn't want to stir things up. Seems I have succeeded though. Washington irving 16:46, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree, which makes it all the more strange. Perhaps there were already signs. I simply tweaked some image positions, he reverted and I left the way they were, just using wiki syntax. But there are some disturbing things on his talk page, and User talk:Fennec's page, which seem to imply that this was all intentional, i.e. to try and test the wikipedia community by appearing to be a real contributor, but it's so hard to tell what's going on. --Lexor|Talk 16:54, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've protected a whole slew of pages involved in the Bird dispute, and if possible they need to be fact checked and/or listed for deletion. David Newton 20:51, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad you doctors have bird diagnosed. That's it: Bird is sick. We don't hate bird, we feel sorry. irving, you could have edited any article any time and you have no basis for claiming that your intuitive wisdom about bird's ego held you back. You didn't write about the funciton of the hypthalmic pituitary axis and create articles to provide context for people learning about what are the real roots of stress because you don't care. It is your over inflated ego that drove this episode, because you did not know how to react in the face of conflict.

All you need to do is stand back and let Bird question whatever bird wants to question about what Bird has written, pick up where you left off, and move on. But it appears several people would rather play hero than recognize that writers often have changes of opinion and allow writers to openly discuss their opinion of their prior work. You are prohibiting writers from developing thier thoughts apparently out of your desire to be part of what you percieve as a successful project.

Since you opened the door to calling people sick by alleging you have diagnosed Bird as manic, I feel it fair to say you, Lexor David and others who have made sport of this editorial affair are some real sick puppies. 172.194.9.172 01:54, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

To whomever (or Bird, if this is indeed Bird), for the record I have never called anybody manic or sick. I am, however, confused and I honestly don't understand what Bird was talking about on Bird's Talk page before contributions ceased from Bird. I am more than happy to have writers reassess their earlier work, I do the same myself sometimes. I'm simply trying to understand what might have happened here when a contributor had a sudden change of heart, and whether there is something we have done or can do as a community, or whether there is a systematic issue that we need to deal with. I'm not taking this as "sport", I'm just trying to understand and learn what lead to Bird's decisioin. However, if Bird doesn't want to contribute anymore or explain Bird's reasonings, I can accept that. Thanks to Bird for the contributions, I'm sorry it hasn't worked out for Bird, but I wish Bird well. Hopefully this closes the endeavour, we will pick up and move on from now. --Lexor|Talk 02:38, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Although I did use the word "manic" above this was in the general sense (given by the New Collin's Concise Dictionary as "obsessional enthusiasm or partiality"), and not in the sense of manic depression. I'll continue to try and refrain from name-calling, but this can be difficult when one is under attack. Washington irving 09:58, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Have a nice wikibreak Lexor. Hope to see you back here soon. Don't let yesterday's events get you down. Angela. 08:34, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

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Lexor... I think I suddenly have an understanding of what you meant two days ago on IRC. I hesitate to follow this to its latest end. But I fear you were right :-( FirmLittleFluffyThing 07:36, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)