User:Improv/talkarchive made dec2004

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This is an archived talk page. If you want to comment further on something in it, I'll happily move (or copy) the old conversation from the archive to my current talk page.

Woof

Please observe the following rules of etiquette on my talk page:

  1. Do not change content you have already posted, unless you are just doing markup on it, e.g. adding overstrikes or bolding. I know some of you always claim the right to edit things you post post facto. Please don't do that here, because I will revert your changes and be grumpy about it. Instead, add subcomments or similar.
  2. Do not refactor my page for me. I will refactor when I feel like it.
  3. Please sign any comments you make.
  4. I will possibly remove any extraneous graphics/styling you do of text here. It would be nice if you initially post without this stuff.

Thanks!

Michael Badnarik[edit]

Hi, I assume that the message I got was from you (I'm new to the editing side of Wikipedia; I got an account earlier today after having been a regular reader for about a year). The only edit I did to the article on Michael Badnarik was that I switched 2 of the poll statistics (Nevada / New Mexico). The article from the LP's website that is linked right after those statistics reflects the statistics that I gave; the original writer had them reverse. Check out the LP.org article again. --Idont havaname 03:20, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Sorry, wrong person. The person who actually messaged me did not identify himself at first. (He and I discussed this on my talk page. Everything with my changes to the article is cleared up now.) --Idont havaname 05:03, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

gnaa[edit]

im sorry, but saying that the term 'nigger' is offensive when used by white people, is not 'vandalism'.

Occupation of Palestine[edit]

Please see my question at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Occupation_of_Palestine#Tally: Rephrasing the question -- Jmabel 01:21, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Mozilla (version)[edit]

There was no consensus to deleted so the vfd header should be removed. Rather consensus seems to be to merge so I added it to Pages to be merged. - SimonP 16:40, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

The Apprentice 2[edit]

That was not a list. A list is just a listing with no info. It contains biographical information. I now have to move it back! I wish people would leave The Apprentice alone! I've already conceded defeat. Let me have this just for fucks sake![[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 19:22, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

  • It is a more appropriate title than what you originally chose. Wikipedia is a communal resource. We should not have bad articles just for fuck's sake or because the community has already reverted some of your changes. Ego should have no part in this effort. If I were to write bad articles, I would hope that the community would fix them as well. --Improv 19:25, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I aplogize for the bad language, but what I have there is clearly not a list. It goes beyond that. Please do mnot move again. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you, Improv.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 19:28, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
      • Thinking about it, it's not as clear as I originally thought. I personally think the list title is better, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to fight you over it. I hope you're ok with my removing the grumbling on the main page -- documenting fights is appropriate on talk pages, but I don't think it is on content pages. --Improv 19:31, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
        • Well, I thought my second go at it was much more diplomatic.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 19:33, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
          • That's admirable -- it's good not to offend people, but there's also the issue that it'd be better for the encyclopedia content to only be about topics, and not about the encyclopedia itself or its politics, regardless of how nicely it's phrased. I'm happy that we're having a calmer discourse now. --Improv 19:35, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
            • You should feel sorry for my poor co-worker (and my boss, come to think of it). I rarely calm down this fast.  :-) [[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 19:40, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
              • Your final edit looks good, so I'll leave it be. --Improv 19:48, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Moving On[edit]

Well, now that I've agreed to get rid of the individual candidate articles, I thought we could all just move on, but I guess not. Oh, well. Tired of all this. Going to look for a rent boy for tonight. BTW, your pic is cute.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 00:55, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

  • The last two sentences above are unrelated. Sorry if it appeared that way.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 01:03, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Managed Delete[edit]

See Wikipedia:Managed Deletion and its voting page. Especially see, if you have the time, the Talk pages associated with the two project pages. Geogre 17:16, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rodrigues[edit]

Hey, Improv. No problem. I thought it might be an honest mistake. I did see your post on the talk page. Yes, my posting was for payback. But I'm sure more people know who the contestants on The Apprentice are than who this obscure mathematician is. I believe being inclusive of popular culture in addition to "serious" subjects will help Wikipedia readership (and therefore contribution) greatly. Too bad some people are blind to this. [[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 17:39, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

The Killers[edit]

See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/The Killers. The band is quite notable and I would like to know why you think it isn't. Mike H 06:51, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

  • Oops, you're right. Did a search on google, but apparently I made a typo and got zero hits. Later repeat of intent got many hits, several of which verified notability. --Improv 06:55, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Who is attacking whom?[edit]

Do you believe in that guy? He is who that attacks me. I dont even answer to him. This is the second time. The first time I tried to talk to him. But he continuously attacked me. He is now representative of all Brazilians that contrubute to the article and saying that we all are wrong? and that I was responsable for everything in the article? and he bases his claims on controversial websites. Should we accept that, an idea of him and 2 more people? The only controversy among Portuguese and Brazilian linguists is whether or not to consider Brazilian dialects a variety of Portuguese what some do not accept stating that all dialects vary in the same level. I have talked to other, the stupidity that he says. So I'll not loose no more time with him. I hope people are smart enough to think for themselfs, before going with others ideas. -Pedro 11:06, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

portuguese language[edit]

thank you very much for your comment, Pgunn, it made me feel better. there are now more people involved, so the situation seems to be improving. Vbs 09:10, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

GNAA problems[edit]

Hi Pgunn,

  • please* see this page - clearly GNAA is turning into a problem for us as members cause us problems. --Node 19:14, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Who did that??[edit]

Why did someone change the title of your user page?? Nobody watched out over this user. 66.245.78.75 22:17, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Page move vandalism[edit]

User:GNAA pop-eye sucks cock! moved your user page (but not your talk page) to User:PenisCone. I just moved it back. Please check if everything on your page is where it belongs to. Thanks -- Chris 73 Talk 22:40, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

  • Thanks for keeping an eye out. It's appreciated. --Improv 02:46, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Regarding GNAA[edit]

Hi Improv (Pgunn). I'd like to clarify something with you personally, so we don't end up being at odds with one another on Wikipedia. First off, I am in no way associated with GNAA, and this is the first instance of me getting deeply involved in an issue relating to them. I hope the list of my /. posts helps ensure that. I in no way condone or defend their actions. I think they're generally childish and counter to the spirit of the internet and Wikipedia, aside from the shred of idea of free speech they uphold (a concept they don't completely exhibit comprehension of). However, I think its very important to look into the groups notability without taking into account this behavior, and especially with a blind eye to the abuse you have endured from them. I think that Wikipedia would suffer a loss if we deleted this page; a small loss, yet a loss that I don't think I can accept. That is why I am advocating its inclusion. —siroχo 23:44, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

  • I will trust you on this then. I don't think the abuse has actually changed my position, which was established before I had any contact with them. I understand that you think they're notable, and the page is thus not vanity. I disagree. Let's dig into the meat of that discussion. --Improv 02:45, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Apprentice 2[edit]

Hi, Pat. I am trying to put the past behind me and embrace consensus-building. If you care to participate, I would appreciate your advice here: Talk:The_Apprentice_2#Request_for_Comments:_Candidate_List. Thank you. [[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 03:33, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

User:GNAA Zeikfried[edit]

Hi I just thought I'd bring to your attention the above page, which to me appears to be a personal attack against yourself. It's up to you what you do with this, ignore it, bring it up somewhere, whatever, just thought you'd like to know. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 12:20, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Impersonation[edit]

Hi Improv. Just to let you know, the account impersonating you has been blocked. Regards -- sannse (talk) 17:56, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)


Schools[edit]

Yeah, I take your point, and I feel like I sort of created a monster with the Dr. Michael M. Krop High School.

For what it's worth, I'm going to try to analyze and defend my own view. Most of the articles we get about high schools are stubs that are lazy, irresponsible, valueless, and disrespectful to the goal of creating an encyclopedia, and they make me angry. It can be argued that information of this kind is useful if it is truly comprehensive. I honestly don't know what I feel about the Rambot town articles, but they derive some value from being reasonably complete. Given that we have them, I would not suggest running a bot to delete all the towns with less than 1000 inhabitants or anything like that.

I think some of the school inclusionists have some kind of fantasy that by contributing half-a-dozen little stubs they are somehow progressing toward the goal of having some kind of comprehensive school encyclopedia. This is wrong, because unless the number of people contributing stubby school articles were to increase by a factor of about 10,000 we would never get close to a complete listing.

What I've been saying is that I will accept a good article about a non-notable school. I have some rationales for this. The first, which is probably a mistake on my part, is that was hoping to win some consensus from the diehard inclusionists. I've about concluded that I don't really understand their motives and that what they say is not sincerely meant. The second is that if we accept good articles, and only good articles about schools, we will screen out about 90% of the garbage. I don't think there are that many User:AAAAA's out there. The third is that if someone is willing to put in as much work as, say, went into Dr. Michael M. Krop High School, I believe they have the potential to be valuable Wikipedians.

Another point, which occurred to me when looking at List of songs whose title does not appear in the lyrics, is that I guess I sort of feel that if a reasonable group of people is willing to roll up their sleeves and put together an ongoing effort to produce a lovingly assembled corpus of factual information, that the topic in fact becomes encyclopedic by virtue of someones' being willing to write an encyclopedia-quality article about it.

I'm not quite sure how to deal with the real situation which is that there is no consensus about high schools. I have this vague notion that there could be a consensus that says we should keep good articles about high schools and throw out bad ones. The advantage, were such a consensus to become policy, is that it gives an outlet to people who really want to have an article about some particular high school. You can improve the quality of an article, but you can't change the notability of the school. The disadvantage, of course, is that it gives an outlet to people who really want to have an article about some particular high school.

But on the whole, I don't think an article like Dr. Michael M. Krop High School damages Wikipedia, and I think an article like Kettle Falls Elementary School really does. I think the damage is not the effect that bad articles have on encyclopedia users, but on contributors. Every low-quality article we have reinforces the belief that anyone is entitled to throw any kind of crap they want to into Wikipedia and have it stick.

Having said all that, I've really not at all sure whether my well-meaning efforts have actually been constructive.

By the way, I'm not quite sure what the trollish elementary-school articles by Haydes are all about or who they are aimed at. Do you have any idea?

So, anyway, there you have it. I've allowed myself to get slightly obsessed and Wikistressed about school articles. If I had any sense I would probably avoid commenting on them for a while. But I'm not that sensible, yet.

Cheers, [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:14, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • It's a difference of opinion, certainly. I guess with regards to the three reasons, while I think it's great when we're able to get people involved in Wikipedia who otherwise wouldn't be, I don't think that's really a compelling reason to smile on articles that are on non-notable topics. I feel that we should be aiming for good articles on good topics, and while it's possible to improve a bad article, it's not possible to improve a bad topic. I don't actually know what I feel about rambot either -- sometimes I think its work should be undone, and at other times I feel more neutral. What makes me worry with mass-imports of data like that is how we handle keeping it up-to-date. Either rambot only runs once, and the data eventually gets very stale, or it nukes all further edits to its topics when it is run again. Either way, it seems unfortunate. Moving to the list of song lyrics, that kind of article entry really makes my blood boil, but lists generally do. I don't see the topics as encyclopedic at all, and I think they add very little to Wikipedia, no matter how well-written. Perhaps a sister project, or some other wiki, should focus exclusively on this, but I think by including that, we're setting precedent for feature creep into things done much better by other websites. In recent times, I worry that we're going to attempt to duplicate, badly, IMDB, Freshmeat, Google News, the Yahoo web directory, and half a dozen other sites that do a good job at what they do, and cluttering the encyclopedia with all that mess. Keeping things in a separate site will enable us to keep track of them as a whole and decide if they're worthwhile without establishing undeserved precedent from them being in the encyclopedia, and will help us keep the encyclopedia with a simple focus. Anyhow, thanks for stopping by to leave the note. --Improv 13:54, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and with regard to "list of songs"... when I posted that remark, I was accepting as fact the statements of others that it had survived VfD several times. I should have gotten suspicious when I glanced at the History and couldn't find the earlier references. I was quite annoyed to find that apparently it has only been up once before and it only got three votes. But since I am OK with keeping the list—I hope we can "agree to disagree" on that—I decided just to let things ride and not comment any further.

I strongly suspect that the stories of people "putting things up for deletion over and over again until they get their way" are legendary, inclusionist tall-tales. If that were actually to happen it would be wrong, and I'm afraid I was suckered into thinking the "list of songs" was an actual example. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:26, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Well, actually with regards to the GNAA VfD I proposed recently, I found, while listing it for VfD, that it had been listed two times before, and it's been rather controversial that it's up again. I didn't know it was up before though, and I do feel that the community should be able to change its consensus, so I'm not ashamed to have listed it again, although I don't intend to be the one to propose if this deletion fails. In any case, I imagine it's pretty clear that I am not an inclusionist by any stretch of the term :) --Improv 13:54, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Deleting Fancruft[edit]

Hello Improv! As the guy who put up the VfD for Molly (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) I agree that there's something that needs to be done (immediately) about the variety of fancruft that gets posted about such topics as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DuckTales, and other television shows. Is there some better way that we could do it en masse? Ian Pugh 05:14, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Don't forget Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures as well. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 06:20, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

  • One way would be to start VfDing, two or three at a time, such articles. I'm not sure if there's a better way though -- at some point I suspect we're going to want to have a consensus-gathering discussion establishing new policy on fancruft. Perhaps the Village Pump, particularly the policy page, might be a good place to start one? If you do, be sure to drop me a note -- I'd be interested to contribute to such a discussion, but I don't frequently read the village pump at this time. --Improv 13:57, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Recipies[edit]

Note that this is part of a discussion on the VfD for Fried Meatballs. I feel it's not encyclopedic because Wikipedia is not a recipiebook, nor should it take on descriptions of food.

  • Before being rude toward me, you could at least look at the effort I put to suit your own views and hardly keep mine. Decisions on the wikipedia are supposed to be based on consensus. To reflect other people opinion, I at least took the time to do something. If this is not even acceptable to you, I'll just restore the article as it was. Storing information somewhere else is one thing, making it impossible to find anymore is just another. So, now that I made an effort to go toward your request, would you consider taking into account opinions differing from yours and acknowledge my attempt to suit your pov ? SweetLittleFluffyThing
    • I don't understand what you're talking about. What effort have you made that I've been ignoring? By reflecting other peoples opinion, what did you do? I don't understand much of what you say here, nor what you're asking me to do. I can see you're upset, and all other things being equal, I'd prefer that not be the case. --Improv 16:35, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • What effort : merging the content of fried meatball into meatball, preserve link to wikibooks, transform fried meatball into redirect ([1], [2]).
      • What have you done. Nothing except wholeheartedly disagreeing with me, not acknowledging my efforts to preserve the link to the wikibooks, and requesting deletion of a simple redirect nevertheless. All things being equal, when I tried to find a middle way (actually more suited to your own pov than mine), I think it is not fair to wholeheartedly disagree with me, and refuse my efforts. Now, what are your arguments to delete a simple redirect and not preserve the link to wikibooks ? SweetLittleFluffyThing 18:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Ahh, I wasn't aware that you had done that. In any case, the point about Wikipedia is not to be a meeting ground for a diverse set of views, but instead to produce an encyclopedia. The fact that a middle ground exists doesn't mean that it is automatically the best solution when people disagree. Let us imagine, for example, if someone were to take my wallet. In such a circumstance, I would not negotiate with them to find a way to equitably split the contents of my wallet. This is similar -- food items do not belong on wikipedia, as we are not a cookbook or a food glossary. Your proposed compromise would still result in nonencyclopedic content being on Wikipedia, which is not something I want to support. I have nothing against you, but I disagree with you wholly on the appropriateness of this on Wikipedia. There have been cases where I have found a middle ground to be acceptable -- I had a disagreement with someone recently on VfD as to their listing of contestants on a game show in separate articles, and they proposed moving all said contestants into a list. To me, that list wasn't something I would *clearly* oppose -- it's borderline, so we found common ground in the compromise. In this case, I'm afraid that it's more clear cut that food recipies/descriptions do not belong. I regret that we're at cross ends on this, but I can see no solution unless I convince you, or you convince me, of our positions on appropriateness of this material on Wikipedia. --Improv 19:01, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In any case, the point about Wikipedia is not to be a meeting ground for a diverse set of views, but instead to produce an encyclopedia.

Sorry, as far as I am concerned, Wikipedia is also a meeting ground for diversity of viewpoint and compromise seeking.

The fact that a middle ground exists doesn't mean that it is automatically the best solution when people disagree.

Quite true. But currently, you reject my personal position, you reject my compromise and I reject your position. So... what do we do now ?
We discuss, and then we vote. One of us loses. It's that simple.

food items do not belong on wikipedia, as we are not a cookbook or a food glossary

This is a pov. Some editors here consider that some recipees may belong in Wikipedia. Indeed, the foundator of Wikipedia itself, Jimbo, holds that position. Recipees have a cultural value in particular, which is encyclopedic. Note as well, that there might be a cultural issue here, as many non english wikipedia do consider recipees are encyclopedic and welcome them. But I perfectly recognise that you have a right for a different opinion. Which is why I support keeping some recipees and not others.
So we disagree. That's not a surprise -- it happens. I think food may have a value, but they're not at all encyclopedic, and so I support deletion of all articles on food, especially recipies. --Improv 08:36, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your proposed compromise would still result in nonencyclopedic content being on Wikipedia, which is not something I want to support.

This comment is interesting, and I wish that we work along those line. My compromise results in two articles. The first one is now a redirect, and the second is the current meatball. So, what you mean in the above comment is that the current redirect is non encyclopedic and should be deleted and second that meatball is non encyclopedic and should be deleted.
Let's consider the redirect : I absolutely agree with you that a page containing #redirectfoo is indeed non encyclopedic, and as such might be deleted. Now, unless I missed something, 1) there is nowhere a rule saying that redirects are non encyclopedic and should be deleted and 2) redirect are not article page, so they do not require to be encyclopedic. Consequently, if you want to support deletions of redirect from now on, I suggest that you start a policy discussion for this. With no policy to show me, deletion will not be acceptable to me.
Deletion doesn't need to be acceptable to you to happen. The VfD process decides, quite separately from either of our opinions except to the degree that they are components of that vote. Understand too that the VfD criteria are only guidelines, and policy discussion on VfD is mainly about changing guidelines. Broad leeway is given to people voting there.
Now, for meatball being non encyclopedic, you are entitled your opinion as well. I think it is encyclopedic and we should keep it. If you do not agree, please list it just on vfd. This should not be a decision of the two of us.
In all this, I regret that you do not give your opinion on the simple fact that deleting all links allowing access to information on another project is just contrary to what we should do. Our goal is not only creating content but giving access to it. What do you think ? How do you think people will find the recipees now ? What do you suggest so that they find it more easily ?

SweetLittleFluffyThing 19:42, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't care -- it's not our job, in my opinion, to be a web directory. They can go to recipies.com or google to find such recipies.

Lists, spelling errors[edit]

Hey Improv, I've noticed a couple patterns in your VfD votes that I wanted to adress. First, note that Lists and Redirects for spelling errors are both currently accepted by Wikipedia. If you oppose their existence, VfD is probably not the proper places for that, try out the talk pages of the corresponding project pages, or maybe the pump. A good thing to think of when casting a vote, is that voting on VfD should not be to make a point, rather it should be for maintenance of Wikipedia as it currently exists. —siroχo 20:11, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

  • I am not against all lists, I am against most lists. I feel that lists are only rarely encyclopedic, but there are occasions where they are. I dont feel that this indicates a fundamental disagreement with current policy. Given the number of people who agree with me on VfD, it doesn't seem that I'm alone in this position. With regards to spelling errors, I probably will take it up at the pump at some point, as it is pretty clear to me that I do disagree with stated policy on that point. Thanks for reminding me --Improv 20:16, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

moved from Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Occupied Palestinian Territories (look there for the context)[edit]

Yes, let's all just surrender to the implacable Israeli propaganda. What's the harm, after all? Why not just call it "Ziopedia"? Alberuni 04:06, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it's propoganda to say "contested". That word seems quite accurate -- there are parties in both governments that claim control over the territories.. well, actually, we might also say that some of said territories also may be claimed by adjacent nations that lost them during the war. Contested is clearly truthful from all points of view. As for occupied, that's clearly contentious -- it indicates that one party is indeed the rightful owner, and someone else is stomping on them. A position on rightful ownership DOES NOT BELONG in an encyclopedia. We might, for example, imagine Zionist propoganda calling same territories "Foreign-Infested areas of Israel", or something similar. That would be POV too, and unacceptable. As far as I know, I'm not part of Israeli propoganda, and would not take part in such things. Please don't see conspiracies that aren't there. --Improv 04:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Please follow Jayjg's antics (and others) inserting a pro-Israeli POV across the Mideast-related pages and tell me there is no concerted effort to bias the presentation of this history. Also, read the links I provided for in-depth explanation of the significance of the semantics to this issue and why it is so important to Zionists that references to the Israeli occupation be censored. They are propagandizing for Israel, not promoting Wikipedia NPOV. Alberuni 04:44, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You know, Alberuni, you're right, but you're also wrong. I dug through Jayjg's edit history, and I do think that he's been protecting a bit of a pro-Israel bias. It's not as strong as it might be, but it's unfortunate. However, you've been doing some of the same thing, so I can't call either of your hands clean here. Neither bias should be welcome here, and I feel, regardless of your beef with Jayjg, that this article should be deleted. It would be great if we could find a way to help you two agree on this contentious topic. Hopefully that can be done more easily than dealing with the unfortunately also contentious topic of the history/doings in that part of the world itself. --Improv 05:07, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks Pontius Pilate.Alberuni 05:24, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Poll[edit]

I have created a preliminary version of Wikipedia:VfD decisions not backed by current policies/poll. Your comments would be much appreciated. - SimonP 17:09, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Revisionism in the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Zionist Revisionism and Israeli-Palestinian history denial[edit]

To purge your page to see what others have added, click here

What we have here is a very complicated situation. There appears to have been a copy and paste move done between Zionist Revisionism and Revisionism in the Israel-Palestine Conflict. I am quite happy to merge the two and setup a redirect, however because Zionist Revisionism is on VfD at the moment I don't want to do anything like this right at this moment. Also, it is further complicated by the fact that there is another article called Israeli-Palestinian history denial, that's almost exactly the same as the other two. I'm sending a message to all participants so far, requesting their comments on what they think we should do. My own preference is to merge into a more appropriately named article, something like Historical perspectives of Israelis and Palestinians (as that's what this is all about), but I'm flexible. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:16, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Hi Ta bu shi da yu, Zionist Revisionism was the original article. I had moved it to Revisionism in the Israel-Palestine Conflict in an attempt to NPOV it, but Alberuni undid the changes and the move, without redirecting the other article. I have since redirected the 2nd article to another page.--Josiah 19:35, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Good idea, or you could just merge all three into Revisionism in the Israel-Palestine Conflict. As long as you merge information rather than deleting it, as some have a habit of doing. Don't worry about the VfD entry for Zionist Revisionism; it is invalid. Josiah has, yet again, failed to provide valid reasons for the listing. --style 13:01, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)
    • Yet again? You obviously don't watch anything I actually do, as 1) That was the first page I had ever put up for deletion - the fact that I had done it wrong should be proof of that, and 2) I and others listed perfectly good reason on the VfD page.--Josiah 19:35, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I would avoid POV titles that are bound to be challenged. As for the VfD entry, it is perfectly valid to list the article for VfD, and the entry will be dealt with via the usual VfD process. Jayjg 15:18, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I would suggest not to use the word "revisionism" in the title at all. It it nothing but an allusion to historical revisionism (a.k.a. Holocaust denial). Since none of the holders of these views on either side consider their views "revisionism", it would be better if the title did not contain this word. Finally, the potential for confusion with te unrelated Revisionist Zionism is enormous. More seriously, I also cannot see how any such page would contain anything but POV fights. Is that really what we need? Does it make sense to keep a list of historical points were Alberuni disagrees with Jayjg? Is that encyclopedic? Gadykozma 03:14, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • You have neatly summarized exactly what is wrong with the word "Revisionism", thank you. Jayjg 03:21, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Encyclopedic[edit]

From the OED: "Of, pertaining to, or resembling an encyclopædia (see ENCYCLOPÆDIA 1); that aims at embracing all branches of learning; universal in knowledge, very full of information, comprehensive."

Seems like information about schools would be covered by a truly encyclopedic source. I see nothing about notability (which I imagine is a consideration that encyclopedists use due to space limitations). Posiduck 12:34, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dictionaries are designed to provide the basic gist of a term, not to provide the boundaries used for any kind of procedural action. As stated before, I feel that encyclopedic, for our purposes, means both that the article is in the right form, and that the article is on a suitable topic. --Improv 17:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to separate those two reasons for a moment. To say that we require both "right form" and "suitable topic" means that we should have no article which fails on either of the two criteria. As logically follows from that, if we have an article of the "right form," on an unsuitable topic, it ought to, according to you, be deleted. I am, out of force of habit, going to structure this as a formal argument.
  1. An article is encyclopedic if and only if it has 1) the quality "right form" and 2) the quality of suitable topic. (Your assertion)
  2. Moanalua_High_School has right form. (I base this on looking at the article, feel free to dispute this claim)
  3. Either Moanalua High School is on a suitable topic OR Moanalua High School is not on a suitable topic. (logical truth P or ~P)
  4. If Moanalua is on a suitable topic, then all relevantly similar schools also meet the "suitable topic" critera. (Permissable assertion)
  5. If Moanalua is not on a suitable topic, then it is not encyclopedic. (From definition of encyclopedic).
  6. If Moanalua is not encyclopedic, then it does not belong in Wikipedia, and should be deleted (based on "encyclopedic" as criteria for inclusion)
  7. Either all schools as notable as Moanalua meet the "suitable topic" criteria, or Moanalua does not belong in Wikipedia, and should be deleted. (follows from 3,4,5,6)
  8. But, Moanalua should not be deleted (assume based on lack of being nominated on VfD)
  9. Therefore, all schools as notable as Moanalua meet the "suitable topic" criteria. (follows from 7,8)

So, what we have here is an argument against deletion of high schools on the grounds of non-notability. You could easily object to Premise 2, then Moanalua should be deleted. If you object to Premise 8, I recommend you propose it for deletion, (but I can almost guarantee it will be kept, if that's done). So now, the only way that you can nominate a relevantly similar school for deletion is failure to meet the "right form" criteria. I, however, think that objecting to the form of an article is 1) less productive than helping make the article have the right form and 2) contrary to the wiki process.

Allow me to expand on the second claim. There are two ways that articles can develop through the wiki process (well, maybe more than two, but these two seem most relevant). Either one editor can do most of the work, and the article is cleaned slightly by the community, or the article is actually written by the community, bit by bit. Wikipedia requires both of these ways of development to work. Without the latter, we could only add to wikipedia when an individual editor has near encyclopedic knowledge of any article they add to. To object to schools on the grounds that the article is a stub is to deny the wiki process the chance to work.

So, in summary, it seems to me like you can either stick to your guns on notability, and then we'd have to get rid of articles like moanalua, or you can be a stickler for stubs, and the result of wikipedia policy being consistently against stubs would be crippling to the development of wikipedia.

Posiduck 19:56, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • So much verbosity, so little gain. If you really want me to play the formal logic (*yawn*) game, I will. I object to the premise that Moanalua should not be deleted. That should be obvious based on my comment. You think that simply because something has not yet been nominated means it should not. That's silly. You also attempt to make it an imperative that I VfD everything I think should be deleted. I don't always do so immediately -- sometimes I wait until I have the time to watch the VfD process, and sometimes I feel I should wait (to give proper amounts of time between VfD processes for article, as I have been convinced that a lot of people want that). Sometimes I'm lazy, or forget. I don't lose any ability to claim that, categorically, being a school does not establish notability simply by not always VfDing on sight every high school that I feel should be wiped. If you felt it's a good thing to help the poor, and volunteered on saturdays at a shelter, it wouldn't obligate you to say that the poor suck simply because you're not there 24/7. Be careful -- phrasing arguments in the form that you do really doesn't get you anything, and the perils of applying formal logic outside of mathematics are great. --Improv 20:05, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I know Posiduck in real life, and can assure you that he didn't use logic just to play a game. He's verbose in actual conversation too. More seriously, it's clear that the Moanalua article should not be deleted in the opinion of the general Wikipedia community. Perhaps that should be a new premise for the argument? Factitious 20:26, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry if my verbosity made my point unclear. I was not suggesting that since you haven't nominated it for deletion, you must accept 8, I was suggesting that you had to, in order to be consistent, take the following stance: "articles like Moanalua, even when filled with useful, NPOV, verifiable information, do not belong in wikipedia." And you can hold that position consistently. Now, certainly you aren't obligated to nominate everything that fails your criteria for deletion. My point was meant to be this: I don't think most wikipedians would support deleting Moanalua. I don't think that even most deletionists would support deleting Moanalua. Most of them seem to use reasoning along the lines of "almost no school stub will turn into a moanalua-like article" and then also cite non-notability as a reason to delete school stubs. But, in order for school deletionists to be consistent, they have to (as you do) oppose (in principle) Moanalua-like articles as well as two line stubs, or abandon using the notability rationale. Posiduck 20:28, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • That's fair. It would be accurate of my stance all along that even the best-written article, like Moanalua, is on a topic that's not notable, and therefore is, according to my perspective, worth deleting. You may have seen other people apply the argument you describe, but as you note, that's not me. I do find it a shame that so much effort go into something we can't use, but to me, that's life, and ideally such content can be moved elsewhere where it better belongs. Some people have noted some Mediawiki wikis that specifically aim to take school information. I think they could do a good job, and I'd love to see it. I might even contribute information about the schools I attended there. --Improv 20:48, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

WP:VFD/HS[edit]

Just letting you know that I thought you might be interested in taking a look at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/High schools, as well as what I wrote on Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 05:43, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

Libertarian capitalism[edit]

I'm not really sure what to do with that at the moment, although I think your solution is probably the best. Libertarianism seems to have different meanings outside the US. If there's a consensus we should do it, of course. But it seems like discussion is ongoing still. —siroχo 03:25, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Village Pump proposal[edit]

Improv, I would like your input on my proposal (or some variant of my proposal) on the village pump. Thank you. Posiduck 23:12, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Further to this, thanks very much for your constructive approach to the page protection policy "dispute". Deb 12:55, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Merging histories--how?[edit]

No, I didn't know that it was possible to merge histories in any simple way. Indeed, there have been enough assertions that you cannot do a GFDL-compliant merge-and-delete, but only a merge-and-redirect, that I thought it was not possible. And no obvious options on any obvious screen lept out at me. How is this done? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:13, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Merging histories--how?[edit]

No, I didn't know that it was possible to merge histories in any simple way. Indeed, there have been enough assertions that you cannot do a GFDL-compliant merge-and-delete, but only a merge-and-redirect, that I thought it was not possible. And no obvious options on any obvious screen lept out at me. How is this done? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:15, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Opposition to Castro[edit]

Could you have another look at Opposition to Castro? I'm not sure what it was like when you looked at it (I gather is started out very POV), but at this point it looks to me like the nucleus of a good article. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:13, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

  • I have send you 2 Emails in response to your postings you have not

responded back in any case here is the content of those emails

Hi I am SilentSource in wikipedia and I am very happy you are helping me keep NPOV. I think I understand the NPOV principle but as I explained before for me is very hard to keep Neutral. Some time is just habit. Please forgive me for this. I know my spelling and grammar are not the best but I am trying like you to help so we all get something from it. I think that is what this is all about. Thanks again for keeping my rants NPOV. Please keep helping here! your effort may bring something better for all of us in the future. Regards SilentVoice 22:29, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC).


  • Mr Gunn, I am sorry if I miss led you. I have no political intentions

like you claim on your posting. I can listen to reasons. I have stated in the past that I may not be most Neutral person to write the article and that I need help. Please keep helping us. I think you have done very good edits on this other new piece. I admit from my experience with Cuba that I do not like Communism but I do not think that should exclude me totally from helping on this article. Regards SilentVoice 22:29, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Undeletion of American World University[edit]

At the undeletion page, you state: "People doing a rewrite would ideally send messages to voters, letting them know that the article has changed, if they want to save an article. If they fail to sway enough voters, then articles should follow whatever verdict occurs."

I did send such a message to voters, but I was given no time to change their opinions. The article was deleted only a few minutes after I made my changes, voted to keep, and indicated on the vote page that I had done a major rewrite. Because the admins gave no time for consensus to redevelop after these changes (no votes, except for mine, were after the rewrite), I feel that my work was not given a fair chance, which is why I contest the vfd in this case. --L33tminion | (talk) 21:59, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

ANSI (graphics) (moved from user page)[edit]

Because it is a system to display information on a text terminal, so calling it graphics is kinda "huh?" and it's not called ANSI either (that's the American National Standards Institute). If some folks refer to the standard by a colloquialism, you could put a DAB message on ANSI I suppose.

Kim Bruning 14:56, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Um, I put this on your user page? Oops! sorry about that. Kim Bruning 14:02, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Help on Import from ine.pt[edit]

Hi, Pat. It's very nice of you to offer. What I would like to do is for each political subdivision of Portugal, I would like to see articles similar to those created for the U.S. by Rambot. They would include info. on area and population. I would also like if possible to list subordinate units (for example, each concelho would contain a list of the freguesias, with wikilinks to the freguesia page. Nelson Ricardo 23:56, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

  • Oh, neat. Are there any copyright issues with use of this data? It's important we know that before we get started. It would also be a good idea to talk to the policy folks just to give them a heads up, before I even start working on a bot. First though, the copyright... --Improv 23:58, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I believe the doctrine that facts are uncopyrightable is international. Nelson Ricardo 00:22, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
      • This page: http://www.ine.pt/prodserv/censos_definit/censos_definit.asp seems to be a great source for raw data. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have an English equivalent. I have already downloaded two csv files loaded with data. Nelson Ricardo 00:30, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
        • Hmm. I guess I could work on finding a way to import it into the Portugese wikipedia, but I suspect that that'd be a lot tougher for me because I can't rely on my name on en (or even rely on being able to talk to the policy people on that site). What do you suggest we do? I don't think we can really import any fields that have Portugese in them into the english site. --Improv 00:53, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
          • The guy who seems to have created the articles in on pt wiki, [[3]], seems to be inactive. I can translate the header lines in the raw data files into English if that helps. Nelson Ricardo 01:08, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
            • Could you email the CSVs to my gmail account? It'd help a lot if I knew exactly what we're talking about importing. Translations would be good. pgunn01@gmail.com . Thanks. --Improv 01:30, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
              • Please let me know if you did not get my e-mail. If you want to try out a bot on something in English, please look at my comments at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cities#Request_for_help_on_List_of_towns_in_New_York. Thanks! Nelson Ricardo 06:41, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
                • That looks pretty good -- is there any chance we can get more tabular data though? I'm guessing the "family nuclei" part is not going to be useful unless we can get a better definition. I would guess it's referring to "nuclear families" though. Any idea what an institutional family is? Could it be an estate? The next thing to do, I think, is to find a good fill-in-the-blank-form to transform the raw data into articles. That definately involves knowing the meaning of all these fields. Let's take a stab at it here. Feel free to edit that page. --Improv 16:01, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
                  • I will see if I can find some better files. I made a slight change tio the template. We may want to get rid of some of the more esoteric categorys. (I think institutional families may refer to convents/monasteries, but this is a guess; I would have to investigate.) Nelson Ricardo 18:22, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Terry Smiljanich[edit]

  • Just wanted to let you know that additional evidence of notability has been provided in this article. Hope you will reconsider your vote. anthony 警告 12:47, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Thanks for looking into this. I appreciate it. anthony 警告 15:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Tamil Nadu[edit]

I appreciate you for the improvements you did to Tamil Nadu. -- Sundar 05:52, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Co-signing[edit]

See note in Talk. (Wait about sixty seconds, I'm still writing it...) Thanks for your courtesy but it's really not necessary, I was serious if ungracious. Just fix up the article any way you want it. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 14:31, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

User:Siroxo removing listings from VfD[edit]

I can only describe myself as flabbergasted by the self-assurance demonstrated by User:Sixoxo and User:Anthony DiPierro who seem utterly confident in their personal ability to determine objectively what VfD listings "did not comply with deletion policy" and therefore should be removed... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 03:15, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup[edit]

I saw your listing of Swords of chaos on cleanup. Please note that the cleanup tag should be located at the top of the document. Thank you! [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 09:01, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

My Eyes! The Goggles! They do nothing![edit]

Pat (can I call you that? Oh never mind), could you fix the color scheme on your Blog? The main text should be in a combination of background and foreground that makes for easy reading. Please? Cool user page, by the way. --Minority Report (entropy rim riot) 06:05, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

RedWordSmith[edit]

RedWordSmith's account is older than I initially thought it to be (Curse the program I used!). He has edits dating back to June 21. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 11:37, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

I was given permission to use any images from that site. Everyking 22:35, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Curly quotes[edit]

Hey, thanks for trying to fixup Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004/Candidate statements, however you brought it back to its original broken state. The English Wikipedia is in the ISO-8859-1 character encoding (alas). Curly quotes, emdashes and such are not legal characters (you can ofcourse insert them as HTML entities). See Help:Special characters for more info. (Oh, and just for pedantries sake, I didn't insert the windows codepage stuff, I (or my browser, to be precise) replaced the illegal characters with ?'s (not the most elegant solution, admittedly, but you can hardly expect my browser to know it's CP-1252 when the server's claiming it's ISO-8859-1)). --fvw* 00:49, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

Are you sure those wern't normal apostrophes? They showed up as such on my system, and I'm on Linux, so I'm reasonably sure there arn't any windows-codepage things involved. --Improv 00:53, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Positive. All modern browsers render it correctly, even under linux. My browser (opera) renders correctly too, but in good engineering tradition is more strict in what it sends than in what it receives. What is odd is that a non-microsoft browser would actually generate CP-1252 characters instead of proper ISO-8859-1. Or did you do a partial revert? --fvw* 00:57, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)
I did start with a partial revert, and re-incorporated your changes. Would you mind doing the honors and sticking the apostrophes in? --Improv 01:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Way ahead of you :-). --fvw* 01:05, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

Copyvio[edit]

Hi, A month ago you put copyvio notice on Vasili IV of Russia and it was subsequently happily deleted. It seems like Russian tsars are not popular lately :-)

In the future before doing so please check the history of the page and revert to the previous nonviolating version rather than blank the page. Thank you. Mikkalai 18:47, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Oops, sorry about that! My bad. --Improv 19:00, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chuck's activity[edit]

    • Chuck F is the problem here. He comes back every day or so to revert a set of 6-7 articles including Libertarian capitalism and Libertarian socialism without any discussion. If you block him, he evades the blocks using open HTTP proxies. 203.112.19.195 is a confirmed IP address of Chuck's (not a proxy). 195.92.67.65 is not Chuck. I think it's important for you, I, Radicalsubversiv, and anyone else to revert Chuck in order to stress the consensus that his edits aren't helpful. Rhobite 20:11, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
      • To keep it above board, and to make it easier to manage in some respects, should a RfA be (re)opened on Chuck F? I'd prefer not to worry about accusations about breaking the three-revert rule, and the most officiality possible here would probably spare us a headache. And.. who knows, perhaps Chuck F will decide to talk to us. --Improv 20:17, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A Message to my Fellow Candidate[edit]

Friend,
The Arbitration Committee elections are almost here. I humbly ask for your vote in this election cycle. I have been a user of Wikipedia for over a year. I was here before the Community Portal, categories, or <tt>{{stub}}</tt>. I know how Wikipedia operates, and I am prepared to do my part to deal with problematic accounts. I wish to cut out the bureaucracy that makes our website stagnate. We need solutions to our problems now. If you want an arbitrator who believes in action, frankness, honesty, and fairness in every case, I am your arbitrator. Thank you for your time. You are under no obligation to answer this message.

--Paid for by Mero. for ArbCom

Libertarian capitalism[edit]

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with the idea of removing the redirect from libertarian capitalism. It's true that the libertarianism page has been disputed lately, but I don't see how it improves the situation to have a separate page for another term for the same thing (I mean the same thing as what the page libertarianism defines itself as). The material should be on one page, whatever its location. - Nat Krause 10:22, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD[edit]

Hola, amigo. You added votes at Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD. However, voting hasn't yet begun; the page is in development and discussion. So, I suppose you could leave your votes there, but be aware that the proposals on which you voted are subject to change. Your comments/votes might be better suited on the talk page at current. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 15:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chuck F[edit]

Thanks for your efforts in dealing with Chuck -- I'm about to add some comments to your proposed RFC. However, I think the first step to dealing with him needs to be a strong demonstration that policy, particularly the three-revert rule, isn't just a set of polite recommendations, but binding rules. Having gotten as far as he has seems to have convinced him that it's a joke. Just since his temporary injunction was lifted, he's broken the three-revert rule on Libertarian socialism (4 reverts) and Libertarianism (5 reverts), each of which should be the basis for a 24-hour block under Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement. RadicalSubversiv E 18:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A more wiki way of deleting[edit]

Heya, seeing as you're one of the editors who's been active trying to improve our deletion system, I wonder if you could have a look at my proposal. It still needs some fleshing out, so I'm not quite moving it into Wikipedia: or announcing it officially yet (it's hard enough to get people to eyeball these proposals once, I'd rather they do so when it's done), but I would like to get some comments from other people working with the current deletion system. Feel free to edit to your hearts content, as long as you leave the general idea behind it intact. Thanks in advance! --fvw* 20:16, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Libertarianism[edit]

Well, I doubt I added much, but contributing a little at least lets you know that your efforts are appreciated. The libertarian socialism page is currently linked to from the main page (features Chomsky). Of course, there will most likely never be any compromise possible on this page, because where Sam Spade has been, and Chuck F, someone else will follow tomorrow with the same old same old. Dr Zen 05:31, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

· Improv, I completely understand your point in crossing out my comments and I am totally fine with it. I had read the note on the top of the page but went forward anyway because this is a topic which I'm personally interested and have some knowledge about. In fact, I did create my account right after reading the whole discussion from the start just to post in it. However, I'll refrain from adding more stuff *for now*. The full scope of the term "libertarian" is most certainly not being analysed completely and it is sad that a few narrow minded people want to create a big thing out of it and define it in very specific and personal terms. I'll keep following the process and hope to be able to contribute in the near future. Keep up the good work! Rauh 04:15, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry about that last unsigned, mis-marked edit on the RFC draft. I need to remember to avoid editing anything on WP unless I'm sober. <: taion 08:06, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Archiving soon[edit]

I will be archiving this soon. It takes too long to edit my talk page right now.

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