User talk:Daniel Quinlan/Archive1

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[edit] Original welcome message

Hello Daniel, welcome to Wikipedia!

There are lots of resources around to help guide you. try:

Also check out

If you need any help try

Don't be afraid of making the odd mistake, there are any number of others eagerly waiting for a chance to correct it!

Also note that this is an international site, so you need to give the nationality of say Molly Ringwald, jimfbleak 11:03 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Daniel C. Boyer

Hi Daniel. Re: Daniel C. Boyer's articles, it's certainly a fine line. Advertising is not welcome on Wikipedia, and linking his works from the "[year] in film" was a little much. However, his works have been exhibited/performed publically, and people have heard of him, and thus these articles shouldn't be excluded simply because they are about the projects of a Wikipedian. If Linus Torvalds dropped by, we'd probably let him write about his software project. :) Basically, I look at it this way. If a Wikipedian has a personal project that has actually produced something, and people who are not his family or friends know about it, an article is appropriate. If you have produced software that other people (besides yourself and a cousin) use, you should feel free to write about it in a neutral manner.

Keep in mind that all of this is my own opinion; others may disagree. :-) -- Stephen Gilbert 14:38 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, it's clear to me that my opinion about the practice is in the minority although I'm somewhat perplexed as to why this is the case. I suppose freedom is more important than accuracy
Could you please precis what, if any, information, you think is inaccurate? It is difficult to know how to proceed from general statements of this type to specific edits in Wikipedia. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:24 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)
(I think omission or inclusion of information is often a form of bias). I have a similar concern about how many pages on Wikipedia insist on including crackpot conspiracy theories (which somtimes are a substantial portion of the article) because some Wikipedian has repeatedly insisted on adding them until the standard compromise "Some people believe ..." is inserted, somehow justifying crackpot theories and wild assertions. Some articles cannot even go for one paragraph before a crackpot theory is included.
Going back to self-promotion, my perspective is that if it became rampant on Wikipedia that the system would begin to break down. It's therefore better to draw the line a bit more conservatively. Specifically, people should not really be creating content about themselves or their own works. I actually have edited pages about projects I'm involved in (I'm co-founder and chairperson of the Free Standards Group, for example). I think that's okay. Also, Linus Torvalds doesn't need to create any pages for himself or Linux, they're all already there. At least there seemed to be some agreement about removing spurious links from existing articles (although Daniel C. Boyer has already added some of them back). I'm tempted to suggest their deletion, but I've had enough for now, so I'll leave it (maybe) to someone else. --Daniel Quinlan Mon Jul 14 11:05:33 PDT 2003
Please specify what links are spurious and why you find them so. --Daniel C. Boyer 00:17, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I guess it comes down to a disagreement on where to draw the line. What do you think about User:Sheldon Rampton's contribution of PR Watch? (He also contributed his own biography at Sheldon Rampton, which could use a little work). As to "freedom is more important than accuracy", I have to say that is not my personal motivation for supporting the inclusion of Boyer's works. m:Wiki is not paper is the basic principle I try to follow. Information that doesn't make the cut in Britannica and Encarta is still valuable to people.

Assuming his self-referring contributions are factually correct, Sheldon Rampton's contributions seem to be a less severe example. Bear in mind that I think self-referrential articles should be severely frowned upon, but there are only 6 articles (not counting talk and such) that link back to Sheldon Rampton. On the other hand, there are 17 redirect
These redirect articles only exist as they are either alternative forms of my name people have made (or Dan Boyer, my signature), or misspellings or typos of my name. They are in no way intended to reflect my relative importance or lack thereof. I think there are practical problems with your idea that the number of articles that reference someone or something should reflect his or its relative significance or lack of significance; I don't know how we'd implement this: on the merits themselves, this person or subject merits an article, but we shouldn't include such an article because having another article linking to, or which is linked to by, something else will give readers an exaggerated idea of the importance of that something? I know this is a possibility but I think there is no way to judge whether an article on something should be included other than by the merits and nature of that something, not also by a supplemental system of an infinitely delicate weighing of significances. If you have any specific problems with specific redirects you should make comments on the relevant talk page or nominate the redirect for deletion; it could certainly be true that some of these redirects do not serve a useful purpose. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:29 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I think you're really missing my point. While it is true that the Daniel C. Boyer article is not important enough to merit 17 redirects, my primary assertion is that you personally had no business cluttering the directory by adding 17 redirects to your own article. If all those redirects are needed, surely someone else will add them, although I really really doubt it. In comparision to the 17 name redirects for Daniel C. Boyer, George W. Bush, one of the (actually well-known) people with the most redirects I could find, only has 11 redirects for his name (some of them are a bit pejorative and some are due to people mistakenly looking for George Bush, Jr. and such) and he's the current US President. John F. Kennedy has 4, C. S. Lewis has 3, Lyndon B. Johnson has 3, Iain Banks has 3, Harry S. Truman has 3, Dan Quayle has 2, F. Scott Fitzgerald has 1, etc. I also don't think we need to have an infinitely delicate system to weigh importance. We just need to curb the ego of several Wikipedia authors who create new content about themselves. --Daniel Quinlan 16:50 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
And you're missing my point. I think you should focus on the lack of merit of specific articles, as as a practical matter one cannot make modifications to 17 redirects in general, without actually editing or deleting a specific redirect. If any or all of the redirects to my article are not useful, argue the point on the respective talk page, or list the specific redirect for deletion; this could very well be justified. However, arguing about redirects in general is not useful. You are also missing the obvious point that it is not necessarily the importance of an individual which would define the number of redirects; those whose name is well known only in a particular form, a form that tends not to be misspelled, need few redirects. People known F. Scott Fitzgerald almost exclusively as "F. Scott Fitzgerald," so what would be the point of many redirects? Once again, arguments can only focus on a specific article, as specific articles are the only thing that can be modified or deleted. --Daniel C. Boyer 13:48 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
and 27 articles that link to Daniel C. Boyer. There's almost an order of magnitude difference in ego size. The redirect articles alone overwhelm any search for the last name of Boyer (try it). --Daniel Quinlan Wed Jul 16 15:27:46 PDT 2003
It should be noted that the search now only returns the article on the last name. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
As to m:Wiki is not paper, I accept and agree with the concept, but relative balance is very important. If someone can't find the information they want, because there's tons of unimportant (or self-important) material in the way of the user's search for information, then Wikipedia is rendered less useful. Imagine how quickly a user will be turned off to Wikipedia if every search for information on Surrealism leads to Daniel C. Boyer, if every search for fabric leads to a discussion of fetishism, or if every search for information on government-related material includes yet another "some people believe" POV diatribe. A large portion of Wikipedia is already at this point.

As for crackpot theories, I'm quite sympathetic to your position. I think that we should have articles on every crazy belief or idea that has any sort of a following (other than one or two people with a collection of web pages), describing what these people believe and why most people think it's nuts. However, I am against including such ideas in every article on topics the beliefs touch upon. There's no excuse to write in the Earth article, "Most people believe the Earth is roughly spherical in shape, and that it orbits the Sun. However, a few people believe that it is flat and stationary. See Flat Earth." If you could point out some examples of articles that include crackpot theories, I'd be grateful. -- Stephen Gilbert 15:20 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've only really just started contributing more often to Wikipedia, but perhaps I should work on a list -- I usually find it more expedient to just go ahead and make edits directly. Complete crackpot theories of the sort you describe (flat earth and such) are not really all that common, but conspiracy theories aren't too hard to find if you look for stuff related to contemporary US politics (there seems to be a somewhat consistent bias against the current US government). Almost more common is "fringe" or off-topic content (like the majority of the Lycra article talks about Lycra fetishism). Also common is unbalanced political opinion (like the long POV treatment given to the PATRIOT Act on the Police state page when contemporary real live police states like North Korea aren't even mentioned). --Daniel Quinlan Wed Jul 16 15:27:46 PDT 2003
So add info about North Korea! But I think the treatment of the PATRIOT Act is appropriate; sure it would be too long for a proportion of the finished article, but it still says it's a stub, which could be the reason for the imbalance. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:36 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Presidential Succession

Actually, Article II says that nobody shall be "eligible to the office of President" unless they are natural born. This leaves uncertain whether an acting President (which is all the "line of succession" folks can be) is in the "office of President" or just acting as the President. It is therefore necessary for the statute to disambiguate, and of course, the statute does it the only way it could, to avoid precipitating a needless constitutional crisis. Note that the Presidential Succession Clause in Article II provides the statuted is to declare "what Officer shall act as President" (emphasis mine). By contrast, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and the interpretation of the Succession Clause of Article II, since the first use when Harrison died (and VP Tyler succeeded), the Vice President assumes not merely the powers and duties, and does not merely act as President, but becomes President. The same is not true should, say, the Speaker of the House succeed. He would merely act as President. This whole thing has been a Constitutional mess from the beginning, actually, requiring two amendments to finally nail down the details sufficiently--and even then, it's only nailed down because the statute excludes from the order of succession those who are not "eligible to the office".

There are some proposals (reinvigorated after 9/11 and the near-attack on Washington D.C.) to amend the US Constitution again to fix the succession issues (I really hope they remove/lower the President Pro Tempore of the Senate too), hopefully such an amendment would fix this problem as well. --Daniel Quinlan 08:45 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I can provide references if you'd like. Accordingly, I've reverted the change, but made the explanation a little more full. --Tb 08:24 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Not necessary. I reread that section of the Constitution and clearly you're right. (A lot of meaning in a few words, although I think it's better than the EU version of constitutional clarity). I also agree that it should probably be clarified a bit in the article. --Daniel Quinlan 08:45 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Check it out now and let me know what you think. "Be bold!" Even though I think your correction may have been wrong, it prompted me to go back and get some sources, with the result that there is now better history in the article and I cleaned up some other stuff too. So it was all for the good of the wikipedia! :) As for the EU constitution, I reacted much as you did: "this is clear?! eek!" It turns out, though, that it's mostly existing language in existing treaties and documents, and the EU constitution is very conservative. it really changes very little (unless the majority voting thing passes), and just gathers all the stuff together. Of course, it also has a huge symbolic role too. --Tb 08:49 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oh, "Hi Thomas", I didn't realize Tb was you (although I had a hunch just before I checked your user page). I liked your changes. I made a few minor revisions which I think also improve the article (a few are unrelated). Small world... --Daniel Quinlan 09:10 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Irish

Hi Dan, that's some Irish name you have! Let me guess, could there possibly be an Irish connection there somewhere? :-) lol FearÉIREANN 05:43 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yep, one in the past. It would be hard for me to claim (both in fact and feeling) that I'm anything other than wholly American, though. Both of my parents were born in the United States and my mother's family has been in the US for quite a long time (so, little or no Irish there). Some years ago, I was playing around (as in, I didn't get very far and have forgotten everything) with learning Irish Gaelic and I hope to make a more serious effort (as in, take a real class) in the future. Some of the result of my interest is the [Enya - Translations and Lyrics] page (which is all too frequently copied without attribution or permission). Nowadays, my musical tendencies are moreso Celtic (Irish and Scottish) traditional music. Enya was one of my first exposures to anything particularly Irish (other than knowing I was Irish, I suppose) when I was in college and Clannad was the gateway to a lot of the music I enjoy today. I think it's mostly (not all, surely) just that I like Irish traditional music... (I don't particularly like U2, for example.)

I do seem to be reading a fair amount of stuff related to Ireland on Wikipedia, though. Maybe I'm just another person trying to connect with my past on a subconscious level. All that aside, I think my last name is great. *grin* --Daniel Quinlan 06:30 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Aeroplane

I wrote that stuff ages ago, but FWIW...

Re: "aeroplane" (233,000) vs "airplane" (1,940,000) etc.. All that proves is that there are a lot of fans of Jefferson Airplane and the movie Airplane! and that California has more websites selling aircraft related products than India. The word 'Airplane' didn't exist until World War I when the US armed forces dramatically increased the number of aircraft in use and then sold them all off at the end of the war. Someone, somehow, somewhen misheard or misread the word aeroplane and the word airplane came into common usage. It was essentially born out of ignorance. The Wright brothers used the words "flying machine" and aeroplane. Mintguy 11:31 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)
"aeroplane" may have been first, but your claim of "ignorance" is absurd and smacks of anti-Americanism. Even if it was born in ignorance, "airplane" is now the globally more common term. I realize some Britons may resent the influence of America on the English language (or that we don't seem to mind changing the spelling of chiefly British words), but English was designed to be an evolving language, I think it's made better when it is allowed to evolve rather than held back by any kind of pedant. --Daniel Quinlan 11:17 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'm not going to get into a petty argument that "smacks of anti-Americanism". I was simply giving you a history lesson about the origin of the word which cannot be denied. But FWIW you haven't grasped the fact that just becuse the word shows up on the web more often doesn't mean that it is more common [1] [2], Internationally (when you take out the references to the movie Airplane! and Jeffesson Airplane etc..) the word aeroplane (and not just countries of the former British Empire) is more common. At this point the discussion ends. Mintguy 11:48 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I never tried to deny that "aeroplane" came first. Asserting that "airplane" was born out of ignorance seems to indicate a clear anti-American (or anti-North American) bias. There's no evidence to support a claim of ignorance. Altering spelling is not a sign of ignorance (Noah Webster). Incidentally, "airplane" is also the primary word used in Canadian English. My use of the web was to try to measure actual use of the word. There must be cultural references where only "Aeroplane" is used that would balance out a movie and a music group? If not, why shouldn't those cultural references be part of any evaluation? Daniel Quinlan 08:31 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There are 341 million first language speakers of English, 210 million of those are in the United States (228 million in North America). There are 508 million including second language speakers, and 240 million of those are in the United States (260 million in North America). Yet, some Wikipedia editors feel obliged to move pages and alter spelling on the basis that Commonwealth English is not only more correct, but is also more common than either American English or North American English. (My United States figures are a bit low since they date from 1984 and most of the other figures are from the late 1990s) Daniel Quinlan 08:31 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] VfD

The main reason I moved your summary out of VFD is because it seemed to be a bit off-topic. Especially the bit about the lists he added himself to. Also it was pretty long for a summary. We try to keep pages under 32 KB but I'm starting to think it's a lost cause with VFD these days. When I move content out of VFD, I often leave an NPOV summary behind, essentially listing the users for and against deletion, and giving the main arguments on each side. You can write something like that if you want to.

It's unfortunate that moving a discussion from one place to another often seems to kill it. Maybe you should move your summary out of the quoted section and into the main flow of the talk page. -- Tim Starling 05:48 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Pizza Puzzle edit history

Can you edit your perl script to not list pages that weren't edited by PP? Those pages prove nothing, of course... Evercat 02:25, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, I take it back. Since we have a complete list, it shows that most pages edited by multiple Lir aliases were also edited by PP.Evercat 02:36, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] New Imperialism

You should reconsider your vote on New Imperialism.

A temp page with an uncertain future that is not a communally edited text but a rival to the main article by one single user should not be advertised as a rival on the main page. PP's temp page was not created not as a communal new edition of an article but as a rival to a communally drafted text.


It is bad policy to effectively present a reader with two alternative rival pages. It gives the impression we are offering them two POVs where in fact we are in the business of one NPOV. Right now, the talk page where the temp maximum visibility. The article will be split soon once this dispute is put to rest and there's no reason cut out relevant information. This would set a very bad precedent. Jtdirl, a professional encyclopedist, has repeatedly stated that this goes against every principle of encyclopedic design.

It's also unfair to all the other contributors who have worked on this article. It's also irresponsible to link such a page to an article that has attracted the kind of peer editing that we've seen on prominent articles, such as WWI and WWII. This is not solely my article, as PP claims. Others have been doing substantial work. 172 07:16, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Daniel C. Boyer again

I agree with you totally on Daniel C Boyer, and all related redirect. He hasn't doen anything significantly famous. It is very common for an artist to have one's work published, even if said artist is not famous. To say that because he is published he is famous, and therefore warrents are article is ridiculous. MB 21:30, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

While it is fruitless, overly subjective and inappropriate for me to argue about how famous I am or am not, I think there is an obvious problem with this argument. It is not the main activity of a visual artist to publish books or to have writings included in anthologies or periodicals. It tends to be the main activity of a visual artist to display works in exhibitions. --Daniel C. Boyer 00:31, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I don't know if you noticed or not, but this message was to Daniel Quinlan, not Daniel C. Boyer. I know your opinion about yourself and the article about yourself that you yourself contributed most to. MB 00:47, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
Do you (Daniel C. Boyer) see any obvious problem with people adding articles about themselves or their own works? It seems overly subjective and inappropriate for people to advertize their own works (e.g., The Octopus Frets), themselves (e.g., Daniel C. Boyer and adding Daniel C. Boyer to numerous pages), or subjects directly related to either (e.g., "chocolate coulage"). I do. For you to continually alude to your own objectivity and appropriateness is amazing to me. I would feel genuine shame if I added articles about myself and got caught. Daniel Quinlan 00:51, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
I have never once alluded to my objectivity or appropriateness. This is a bald-faced lie. Chocolate coulage is not an article and it never has been and for you to say that the mention of chocolate coulage directly relates to me is a bit of a stretch. Whatever the validity of your complaints about my contributions, it has been diluted to some degree by your inaccuracies and your extremely POV (directed against me) definitions of "advertizing" [sic], definitions that include content in which the product is never mentioned and the brand name is, at least, very difficult to determine. There is no question of my "getting caught" as I have not attempted to conceal the authorship of my contributions, so this is a total straw man. I would say that I would feel genuine shame if I shaded from a laudatory concern for the objectivity and integrity of Wikipedia into extremely far-fetched complaints, wild exaggerations and untruths because of an animus towards a particular user. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:44, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
A little off subject, but you are using straw man to mean something it does not mean here. Please read the definition. But don't worry too much, a lot of people don't know the real meaning ;). MB 18:17, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Votes for Deletion

"Continually moving the discussion to the Talk page never results in a completed vote"

There are ways around that. First you've got to write a summary for VFD, I told you that before. If you're worried about a stagnating discussion, you can organise a vote, like on Talk:AKFD/redirect. It might be a good idea to decide on the voting rules first, not like what I did.

I think I've made my position pretty clear on the deletion of Daniel C. Boyer. I was the one who removed the redirect entries last time: see [3], so you can probably guess what I think of that. I will make a comment on VFD soon, though.

I understand the problems with Connecticut, etc. I've made several comments to that effect, the most recent of which was on User talk:Daniel C. Boyer. I've also helped clean up the Boyer references, see for example [4].

-- Tim Starling 02:17, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Oh ok. I was just going by the date more than anything -- it seemed like a beefy issue, that substantial editing had taken place, and that it had all been on VFd for more than a week, and that the consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of condensing the material, which it seemed was done. I know youre the one who put it all up for vfd in the first place -- so forgive me if I take your stand on the issue with a grain of salt. ;) VFD is for a specific purpose -- it does appear that the issue has passed the VFD test, judging by the compliance of the original author and the antipathy of the community toward outright removal. Best -戴&#30505sv 19:15, Aug 8, 2003 (UTC) (comment copied to Wikipedia:VFD:RST theory)

[edit] NPOV cleanup

Good job cleaning up the trash left by that neo-fascist crackpot with the shifting IP address. I'll keep an eye on him too. 172 19:35, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Binary

Actually, the four examples in binary numeral system were not originally intended to be the same (I think a later editor changed a couple to match). The numerical value of each kind of depends on how you interpret the symbols. Is "+" equivalent to "1", or "Y" equivalent to "0"...? I think it may be better for them all to be different, with no mention of their numerical value (if any), since the emphasis is on any mechanism capable of showing two exclusive states. -- Wapcaplet 02:09, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV again

What exactly are you referring to as bias on that site -- at a glance, the top stories seem about as fair and balanced as any. If you object to certain terms, like "anti-Saudi smear campaign", and "occupied jerusalem" these are subjective to their respective audiences. Noone is NPOV -- but I dont see the normal flags on that site that I would on indymedia for example -- or the socialist, pro-american, conservative, left wing, Zionist, anti-Zionist, etc. sites. If this bias is just an undercurrent, then the same critique can be made of any POV. As long as its not the only source - POv sources can be good sources. Again, to eliminate any POV--rather than frame it as POV-- would mean to eliminate any source that had an adjective in it. May as well turn of the lights at that point. -戴&#30505sv 03:42, Aug 20, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Saddam Hussein

Rather than entering into an edit war on User:Saddam Hussein and reverting a user's own namespace, which itself is against Wikipedia:Wikiquette , I think you should look at Wikipedia:No offensive usernames and raise the issue in the appropriate forum, i.e. Wikipedia:Village pump. Users with offensive user names have in the past had their name forcibly changed and all edits in the database under that name changed to reflect a new name. Mintguy 22:45, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I brought it up on the mailing list and it's been ignored. What's the point of going anywhere else, especially with mav on the warpath to make sure I don't post things in more than one place? RickK 02:24, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Do you have anything else better to do other than objecting to my name? SH

Yes, most of the time I do have better things to do. Just the same, while your username is only one of many blemishes on the face of Wikipedia, I still think it is time well-spent. If you were not interested in offending people, I would think that you would be content with another name. Daniel Quinlan 03:45, Aug 26, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Freud

Hello Daniel -

I see that you are interested in Sigmund Freud, as am I. Perhaps you could consider your recent reversions to this article. As you know, Wiki says that "In general a revert is the advised action to deal with vandalism." If work does not meet your approval, yet is not vandalism, you might want to consider editing it to improve it. I'm certainly looking forward to any improvements you may make. NuclearWinner

[edit] Lir

Why are you removing links to words such as technology and organization? Lir (posted as Pizza Puzzle).

Which article again? Some articles have links which are superfluous and clutter things up, especially when many links are given in succession. Anyway, I made the change for aesthetic/readability reasons. Daniel Quinlan 00:01, Sep 27, 2003 (UTC)

There is no reason to have incorrect quotes, when we can have the actual quote. Lirath Q. Pynnor

If you are striving for correctness, then why did you keep removing the full second quote and removing the context of when and why it was said?
 Daniel Quinlan 04:57, Oct 2, 2003 (UTC)

In the context of the article, it doesnt matter why Bush wants to remove freedoms -- it only matters that he does. The page is a criticism of Bush, not about Bush's criticism of gwbush.com Lirath Q. Pynnor

That's exactly the problem with what you're trying to do. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be neutral. Just because a page is about criticism, does not mean it should be anything except neutral. Daniel Quinlan 06:01, Oct 2, 2003 (UTC)

Something tells me that you haven't even listend to the quote: [5] -- Note how he doesn't even use the word prostitution. Also, wiki articles may be neutral -- but they do include POVs -- and on the page in question, the article includes the POV of anti-Bush people. Lirath Q. Pynnor

"Pornography", not "prostitution". That quote was from another article about the site, not the audio clip. Including POV doesn't include freedom to take quotes out of context to present people you don't like in a bad light.

If you want to criticize this as "taking the quote out of context" -- then do so at the bottom of the page where all the other criticism is. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Daniel,

Lir/Adam/Pizza Puzzle/etc. was banned previously, he has been reinstated. Check the WikiEN-l archives. --Dante Alighieri 01:20, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the update. Daniel Quinlan 01:26, Oct 5, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Pacifism

Daniel

meant to write earlier - thanks for fixing my hasty and inaccurate edit of Pacifism, and graciously too. Results great IMO. Andrewa 04:27, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright violation

Smart-ass comments posted on the images for deletion page have no place here. If you READ ALL of the provisions of Fair Use and copyright and then still have valid statements to make, please do so. Otherwise, statements that have no merit or value are not helpful. NightCrawler 21:45, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Smart-ass? Grow up. Photographs are copyright. There is no provision for fair use that says a particularly frequently used image may be used by virtue of it being frequently used. If you would like to provide a credible reference to back up your view, I would be happy to be enlightened and I will apologize for my error. Daniel Quinlan 00:41, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
To elaborate, fair use is a multi-part test and I think several other aspects of fair use warranted getting permission. Daniel Quinlan 02:37, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Rock climbing

Woot, rock clombing rocks! Any chance you're located in Western Mass? ;) Good luck with that copyright/fair use fun (above). That water's too murky for me so I just use my own or copyright free only. --zandperl 17:53, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Civil War

Daniel, I have some problems on your view re: boiling it down to slavery. I would prefer that we not do any "boiling down". I'll make some comments on the talk page when I have the free moment to do so on why the issue cannot be boiled down and still paint an accurate picture, and why the original text is better.Ark30inf 21:00, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I was not boiling down, that was perhaps a poor choice of words in my summary (although really you're just misrepresenting what I said, I said "boiled down" meaning there was a root issue). I actually retained much of the text from the addition about states' rights. However, the states' rights issue was entirely about slavery. Implying that states' rights or preserving the Union was a root problem is disingenious. Daniel Quinlan 21:35, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] more on VfD

Daniel, I'm curious to know a bit more about your argument on VfD that the existence of certain lists is intrinsically non-NPOV. My gut feeling is that NPOV in this context should mean "have your say and let others have theirs", rather than "establish an objective neutral POV that declares which attributes are worth categorising on and which are not, and follow it". Have I misunderstood your position?

If we had a serious database of metadata for biographies, then clearly "queer+composer" would be a perfectly valid query into that database (for some meaningful value of "queer"), and we certainly wouldn't want the software to block it on grounds of NPOV. As I see it, the "lists of lists" explosion is a (necessarily half-assed) attempt to do by hand something which can only be done properly by automation. The only objective criterion I can think of for which hand-compiled lists are worthwhile is "does this list reflect (one of) the individual's primary reason(s) for being notable?". Is this roughly in line with your view? Onebyone 10:24, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Tables vs. lists

Hey there,

Thanks for modifing my table in sort algorithm, however, apparently in the discussion page they were debating about tables. Someone decided it's no good, and put the table in the discussion page along with the note. I stated that I think a table is better, and briefly why. Do you want to add your input to that page?

Thanks,
-Shawn P. 'Indefual' Conroy

[edit] IRC /ignore

Hi. There seems to be some trouble on the #wikipedia IRC channel. I think you may have unintentially instructed your irc client to disregard all messages sent by me. I hope this issue will be resolved and I wish you the best. Sorry for the trouble. Alexandros 01:44, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Historic US political families

DQ, Please check Historic US political families -- I got an edit conflict after making extensive changes to this (previously) overwrought article. I don't think I've overridden anything you'd object to, but go for it now if I have...I'll keep hands off for a while. -- User:Someone else 04:44, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)~

In my opinion, it WAS fixed, and my note to you was meant to be a courtesy rather than a shirking of duty. Putting things in alphabetical rather than chronological order seems odd to me, as does the deletion of the Adamses. -- Someone else 05:12, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect lists

I hope you don't mind but the first link (A-M) was pointing to the second list, so I fixed it. I haven't been able to spot any I can actually help with yet, but with any lick this will make it easier for someone else to. Phil 08:24, Nov 6, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution

Your line was great: A lot of horrible articles are rewritten regularly and removed from VfD because there's pressure to delete them. That's good just like having polar bears eat cute baby seals is good. :) Fuzheado

[edit] Reverting Vandalism?

Thanks for reverting. There are more user 68.19.46.85 has vandalised. My problem is that I have not figured out how to revert. Could you give a hint. I'll take it from there Andrew

answered on User talk:Vanderesch

[edit] VfD and problem users

VfD is also about when to delete. Five days is too little time for a newbie to get through the initial learning hurdles, particularly when changes of problematic behavior are needed. Which means I'll almost always vote against deleting those things, because it's too soon to give up on the article. If they learn or change, it's worth keeping, if they don't, it isn't. Unless someone else chooses to work on it and make it worth keeping during the VfD time, in which case the answer is keep. It's a pretty lousy set of choices compared to waiting two weeks and giving them time to learn or definitively hang themselves. But if people choose to list new articles from newbies on VfD instead of making a note to check later, that's the lousy choice we have to make. IMO, quick deletes and VfD listings involving newbies who aren't obvious pure vandals is one of the most aggressive ways possible to bite newbies and serve to significantly decrease the chance that they will be productive and increase the chance that the gopod ones will decide this is a lost cause and walk away. I almost decided to do so myself, based on the rough handling being given to newbies. On JeLuF, I'm heading over to apologize for giving the impression I didn't intend to give once I'm done saving this. JamesDay 10:15, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It still sounds like you're confusing articles with users. Articles that are deleted are often inappropriate by virtue of the title alone. Otherwise, they usually get turned into stubs rather quickly (we've all done it). If you think new users are getting the wrong treatment due to deletion, I suggest writing some boilerplate for user pages and start adding it to user pages when you feel it is necessary. I personally found Wikipedia to be exceptionally welcoming, but I also didn't claim to be the King of England and start editing articles to that effect. Anyhow, regarding your concern, which I think is partially valid, that VfD could scare of some small segment of new users, perhaps the solution is to improve the boilerplate VfD text — I'll take a look at that right now. Daniel Quinlan 10:28, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

Not really that confusion. Rather, I often think that whether the article will be improved enough to be worth keeping depends on whether the newbie will stick around and improve it or not. Titles don't usually bother me because they can be moved to something suitable easily enough. I think that the chance of the king staying around and being productive is less than 30%, likely lower than that - but I also think that we should do what we can to avoid treating him roughly, to maximize the chance of the positive outcome. Thanks for looking over the VfD text. JamesDay 10:47, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Khranus

You may not have noticed he has a section on Problem Users just a few down from the one you added. Not sure which one to merge into. He has quite a history - look at his comment on talk:cold fusion for example. -- Pakaran 02:54, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, I just noticed that myself and merged my (now updated) comments into the later section. Daniel Quinlan 03:00, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Greeting message

Hey Daniel, I just thought that you might want to know that the boilerplate text you are using for greeting messages has the following link "ask me on [[User_talk:Angela|my talk page]]" :) Dori 05:42, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

Doh, that evil Angela tricked me! Fixed and thanks. :-) Daniel Quinlan 05:48, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Merci

Thank you for your transaltion of Talk:Number in the world. If english wikipedians are agree I'd like to create 1 other page of this type to show a sample of words. I may need your help to translate 1 more time :o) The 2nd page is http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_bonjour_dans_le_monde. Aoineko

You're welcome. I mostly used Babelfish to do the translation with a lot of editing. I don't actually know French although I can read a tiny fraction (since English has a lot of French words and also due to a few years of Spanish classes many years ago). I'm sure anyone could have done it (and it might need some corrections, especially for the transliterations). Daniel Quinlan 07:48, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] 80X

I appreciate the welcome. However, I do the editing from a semi-public machine which changes IPs in irregular intervals and I do not have access to it every day. - 81.197.14.230 12:01, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'll consider it. My time with this machine is ending for a time, however, so I have to sign off for now. Take care of you and yours. - 81.197.14.230 12:10, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings from NightCrawler

YOU SAID: I would appreciate it if you would not make personal attacks, particularly towards me. That's the second time you've done that. Daniel Quinlan 02:57, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC) - I made no such attack on you, I omly stated facts. You, in fact, without the knowlewdge and reasoning, repeatedly attack other users who post photos and you continue to ignore the established policy, legalities, and Wikipedia guidelines and refuse to read them while attacking others with unfounded statements. Your behavior is ignorant and unacceptable, symbolic of a child wanting attention and an incompetent wanting power. Put an end to it and make some real contributions for a change. NightCrawler 13:18, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think someone forgot the smiley. Daniel Quinlan 15:05, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Anonymous IP edit survey

Hi. IIRC there were about 30 to 40 interlanguage link edits. I chose not to factor them in hesitantly - I still think we should have one wikimedia log-in for all the languages, wikidictionary, wikiquote, etc. That would save a lot of hassle. Unfortunately I didn't note down the source data, only the results. (Too lazy). It is true that there are many interresting correlations that one could look for in such data. Maybe some time when I've got half a day I can spend on the wikipedia I'll collect the sourcedata aswell. --snoyes 23:48, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry about the misattribution

Sorry, you're right I did. Thanks for changing the attribution to the correct Andre Engles. JamesDay 18:41, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Editorializing

Sorry, I should have kept it to myself. I just get so tired some times...

I did check out the matter in question:

So in the end, I agree with you. -- Cyan 19:10, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Near and dear to my heart

You may want to add your voice to: Wikipedia talk:Don't include copies of primary sources --mav 07:19, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Ice Cream

To be fair, the whole ice cream list started when I linked to the then-nonexistent page, from VFD, as a (extreme) example of the sort of list of users that I felt should not be in the wikipedia namespace, and should be moved to meta; and that by analogy the same should be done with Wikipedia:Wikipedians by Facial Hair, which was being discussed on VFD.

Then User:Calmypal went and created the ice cream article, which pretty much ran away with itself. So don't give all the blame to Calmypal. Pakaran 04:41, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sure. However, Calmypal does have a bit of a history of creating articles like this. I'm forgiving of the occasional troll article, actually, but that doesn't mean people should get carried away with creating them again and again. Maybe I should have just left a note on his user talk page. Daniel Quinlan 04:45, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Organic compounds

Organic compound tables were mentioned at Talk:Inorganic table information, and the situation remains pretty much the same. Unfortunately the spreadsheet/macro used to generate the tables is in a non-transparent format (Excel), and hence cannot be posted on Wikipedia. However I can send it to whoever wants it. I think someone put it up on FTP once -- can't remember where though. The address is probably in a talk page archive somewhere. Anyway, as I said... somewhere, I don't know much about organic chem so I thought I'd leave it to someone else to do the organic tables. -- Tim Starling 05:44, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate words for British

You might want to know Alternate words for British has been listed on VfD (at last) ;) Angela

[edit] RE: Skull & Bones

I've removed enough nonsense from Skull and Bones to endorse the removal of all "warning" "neutrality" and "Krankhouse" (or whatever) messages from it. Read it over and if you agree we can count that one Khrankanus-free.... -- Someone else 11:33, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)~

[edit] Legions

Dear Daniel, i was moving some Roman legions and i noticed that they were linked to your redirect page (impressive, by the way). I also noticed that you plan to move Legio XVIII to Legio XVII. Please dont do it! They are separate entities, despite the fact that they were both destroyed in the Teutoburg Forest. I'm writing the XVII one of these days. All the best, Muriel 12:07, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Oh, those are just redirects proposed by the program that generated them, but they're all reviewed by people before anything is done. Someone would have to actually create the redirect and I don't see any reason why someone would create that one. I went ahead and struck out those redirects since you were concerned. Daniel Quinlan 12:20, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
"redirects proposed by the program that generated them"?!!!... Thats way out of my league!! I thought that was some kind of a to-do list! Cheers, Muriel
Well, it is sort of a to-do list. Basically, the program looked for broken links that were named very similar to existing articles. Read User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects for more information. A bunch of people have been helping out. Thousands of broken links (one way or another) have been fixed by now. Daniel Quinlan 12:30, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] AKFD trolling?

Moved to user talk:MyRedDice

[edit] Province table

I disagree with you about removing the province tables. I find them intensely convenient for navigating between provinces and I think it's unwieldy to present them on a separate page only. I find your reason for removing it rather dogmatic. - Montréalais 06:31, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The information is not needed and the presentation is large and clunky. I don't think that's dogmatic at all. We don't need to clutter up every article with tables of links to related articles. Daniel Quinlan 12:16, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

Responded to you on my talk page. - Montréalais 16:40, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Excuse me, they're not for my navigation needs - I'm just saying I found the articles difficult to use without them. I think a user who wants to read about the Canadian provinces would find it useful to be able to click from province to province. If we were talking about fifty states, I could see what you mean, but really, there are thirteen of them disposed over four lines. I don't see how that's clunky, and I don't see how they're a blot on the article's escutcheon. - Montréalais 04:00, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] American Civil War

You did a very good job reorganizing the American Civil War article. Alexandros 13:34, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Daniel Quinlan 23:19, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Bohemian Grove

Why did you delete the "main attraction" paragraph from the Bohemian Grove article after I explained in talk that that is legit information? --mav 04:50, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I've been working on it for the last 10-15 minutes... I wanted to verify the information since it was an old version of the text so I spent some time checking the sources. The "coffin" doesn't appear consistently in all of the sources and I wanted to include some explanation of what the hell that ceremony is supposed to represent. Daniel Quinlan 04:59, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] VfD

"AIDS kills fags dead" and associated redirects were not deleted after being listed on VfD since 16 Nov: Martin decided to count votes only on Talk:AKFD/redirect. I'm assuming he will honour them there. If you still want to vote on the matter, you may want to make sure your votes are registered there. -- Someone else 19:31, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not only that, but I'll copy them there if I can figure out what you're saying in the various talk pages. Martin 19:34, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Egypt

Daniel, I have no idea where the existing History of Egypt comes from, nor do I much care since it is pretty inferior stuff anyway and needs to be rewritten. In the meantime the 1911 EB will have to do. I am going to do an edit on the Greek-Roman-Byzantine period, which I know fairly wel;, but someone else will need to tackle the Arab-Ottoman period. Adam 09:10, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hi Daniel, you listed Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles a while ago. It didn't look like the dispute was current so I removed it from the page but if you feel the disputed content remains, please re-list the article. You will find in it in this version. Angela 08:33, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Filibuster

Nice list on the Cunctator thing, particularly the reference to wikipolitiks. Also, interesting commments regarding filibustering: this is obviously a threat in any deliberative democracy. (not got anything more profound to say than "interesting"... ;-)) Martin 23:12, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect we are largely reinventing the wheel, though. For example, I perhaps did the equivalent of a presenting a petition in response to the filibuster. Daniel Quinlan 23:18, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)
As a good anarchist, I should oppose such outbursts of formal government, yet I cannot always bring myself to do so. Perhaps therein lies the weakness of anarchy. Martin 00:27, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] David Hume

Did you just revert the changes I made to David Hume wholesale without reading what I'd done? I didn't JUST take out the Unicode, I made a couple of links and changed one POV sentence, and yet you deleted ALL of those. RickK 02:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No, I looked at your changes, but missed that (I wasn't really looking for other changes based on your edit summary of "delete Unicode"). Sorry for the error. Daniel Quinlan 04:03, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Spam Assassin

I'm Matt Cline. I use the handle Khym Chanur (or Khym) pretty much every where else (from C.J. Cherryh's Chanur Saga), but I use my real name in email.

[edit] Silesia

You've just unprotected Silesia. I don't think this is a good idea, since there still is a certain contributor who not accept to cooperate with others, and I fear he just will start a new edit war. Until a compromise is found, I think the page should stay protected. -- Nico 22:54, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't like having pages protected forever, it had been protected since November 17. Work on figuring out a compromise and maybe a new edit war can be averted. Daniel Quinlan 22:58, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] flamingantichimp

Thanks for the copy-edits you've made. I'll make sure to keep up with you and throw any new pages your way. Flamingantichimp 06:18, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm not much of a copyeditor, but you're welcome. Usually, stuff like this gets handled pretty quickly, but if it doesn't, you can always ask on IRC or one of the many pages devoted to page improvement. Daniel Quinlan 16:07, Dec 5, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Mother Teresa

Hi Daniel, thanks for commenting about Mother Teresa. The disputed tag was removed by User:Eloquence against the wishes of others. Trying to put it back seemed likely to provide Edit War XIII so it seemed safer to leave it off, even though it should be there. As for the pictures, I know, I know. But that is the article toned down from a complete hatchet job. Please feel free to contribute to the page. The more people not blinded by their own agendas the better. Eloquence unfortunately seems unably to realise job how heavily influenced his editing is by a one sided, almost clichéd perspective on catholicism in general and MT in particular. The more people from a wide range of perspectives try to explain to him just how biased he is the better; it might just open his eyes. He has a rather warped idea that his views as NPOV and everyone else is an MT-apologist and grovelling catholic working to "supress the truth." FearÉIREANN 23:33, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. I realize I'm liable to provoke another edit war, but the article is biased, so I really had to add the NPOV banner and begin to explain why — the pictures are perhaps the worst part of it now. The NPOV in the article itself is perhaps not as bad, but it's still a hatchet job, like many Wikipedia articles about political figures and institutions. By the way, I'm not Catholic, but that ideally shouldn't matter. Daniel Quinlan 00:26, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

I'm a lapsed catholic who has not set foot in a church in years, and who has been accused of being a "rabid anti-catholic" in newspaper articles I write. But according to Eloquence here I am a catholic apologist censoring the truth (his version of the truth!!!). Catholics have been driven away from the article, non-catholics driven away from the article, neutrals driven away from the article, but Erik's reversions, deletions and accusations of bias. The article badly needs the contribution of independent opinions. If I so much as dot an I, it is seen as part of some pro-MT conspiracy and Erik goes ballistic. Even Ed Poor got a savaging from Erik. As bad as the pictures are, originally they were 400px+ in size, and the tone of the article accuses MT of everything bar bringing Hitler to power and killing Kennedy! FearÉIREANN 00:39, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Silesia voting

Hi Daniel, the voting for the Silesia article is on Talk:Silesia; I just noticed, that you added your votes on Talk:Silesia/Voting1, and I made the same mistake before. Probably we should erase the content of that page, or delete it entirely. -- Baldhur 00:15, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Eloquence on Mother Teresa

Daniel,

apologies for the MT rudeness. Lately that article has been nothing but a source of frustration. Of course I still think you're wrong ;-). For some reason I became quite angry when I read just another comment which I felt added little to the discussion, especially as I got the impression that you hadn't read the article. Nevertheless, my tone was inappropriate. I'm quite open to suggestions for rewording or restructuring. I just don't like the idea of removing what I consider to be verifiable and relevant information, including pictures, pro- or anti-MT. —Eloquence 19:58, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Note

[6] :) Angela. 21:22, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Removing text

When removing large amounts of text, please move them to the talk page so others can comment on the removal.—Eloquence 00:29, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, of course. I don't often remove so much text, so sometimes I forget.

Daniel Quinlan 00:39, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Content disclaimer

There have been endless discussions about disclaimers before you arrived, both here and on the mailing lists. The bottom line is, most people don't like them and we try to do without them whenever we can. See Wikipedia:Content disclaimer for an example disclaimer which is still highly controversial.—Eloquence 03:06, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

I've been around for a year now, but I had forgotten about that disclaimed, so thanks. I think it's a mighty understatement for shock site, though. "some" people? I think "most" would be a pretty safe assertion. I'm not particularly squeamish, but those images are still disturbing. Of course, if they weren't disturbing, nobody would use them. Daniel Quinlan 03:16, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I'm not at all offended by bakla.net, but the rest are fairly gut wrenching. I think that a disclaimer is probably more justifiable here than elsewhere, but I don't like the current setup with big fat disclaimers all over the place.—Eloquence 03:20, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
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