User talk:Mjb

[edit] Archives

• September 2002 – June 2006

[edit] Apizza!

Mike, if you're ever in the Connecticut area, hit me up. I'll show you some examples of great a-BEETz first hand. Jsderwin 09:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apology

mjb-- I am very sorry about inadvertently removing your edits. I thought I was simply deleting what looked like an irrelevant external link. I'm not sure I understand how removing your edits happened because all I did was remove one line of text. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kjmt (talk • contribs).

Thanks for getting back to me. You must have loaded an old revision of the article before you edited it. Either you clicked on a date in the history, or you are seeing cached, not-up-to-date pages somehow, perhaps through a 'web accelerator' or other HTTP proxy. I'm glad it wasn't intentional, but you should figure out what happened, lest it happen again. —mjb 18:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedian Rollergirls

I removed the roller derby article from that category, which is just for Wikipedia users who are rollergirls. We could make it a 'See also', though. If you do that, put a colon in front of it, like this: * [[:Category:Wikipedian RollerGirls]]. That will cause it to link to the category rather than making the article be in the category. —mjb 00:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll think about how I want to approach this a while, and either leave it out or move it elsewhere. -- Marumari 01:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

One thing I haven't gotten around to is linking to the various derby related Y! Groups, other than bankedtracknews… do you want to do that? —mjb 01:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. There's probably around 200 different groups. If we're just talking *big* groups than the only other really big group is roller_girls, which has over 2000 members (but generally rollergirls only.)

200!?! Jeez! Well, the way I see it, the only ones that are worth linking to are the ones that are of 'for further research' interest. We don't want to set a precedent of linking to groups that are just for certain leagues or whatever, since then everyone would want to have a link. So, I'd do roller_girls, plus whatever ones would be of interest to people researching the topic of roller derby in general. That's why I linked to bankedtracknews; AFAIK it's the only one that's populated by old-timers. —mjb 01:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

One thing I haven't gotten around to is linking to the various derby related Y! Groups, other than bankedtracknews… do you want to do that? Also, I'm working with Cat O'Ninetails on the DMOZ links. You wouldn't happen to have an editor account on there, would you? We could use some help… before we ask about the right way to set up a regional hierarchy, we need to get the descriptions of each league site updated to indicate what kind of content is on that site. There are a lot of sites to check; I added a ton of them somewhat blindly, just making sure they loaded but not reviewing their content. —mjb 01:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have an editor account there. Sorry. AFAIK, bankedtracknews and roller_girls are the only two important Yahoo groups that have information and posts that the actual public can read. Most of the other groups are closed to the general public. If you're going to set up a regional hierarchy, I'd use the same hierarchy as in List of roller derby leagues, or go by state, or even better, choose one of the regions in List of regions of the United States. Another possibility is sorting them by WFTDA status - ranks I/II/III and non-WFTDA. I don't like the "Professional"/"Amateur" division, though or go by. I mean, some of those Amateur leagues pull in 5000 fans at a bout, and all of the Professional leagues are long gone. -- Marumari 13:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I like "Census Bureau-designated areas" best. Time zones is a good second choice.

If there are groups worth linking to, then I think it'd be OK on Wikipedia to link to Y! Groups that require membership, as long as we mention that requirement in the link.

Re: regional divisions, I didn't think of using Census regions/divisions. I do kind of like that. I (of course) also like the way I did it on the List of roller derby leagues here, since it's splits them up into groups of fairly equal size, but in any case on DMOZ what I have to do is run it by the senior editors in the Sports category. They're pretty fussy about keeping regional divisions the same as in other parts of the site, but might give me some leeway. Running it by editors means drawing attention to what I've already done, though, so I need to make sure that I've first beefed up all the descriptions; they won't like seeing nearly identical descriptions for each site because it indicates that I didn't give them the full review that's required. I too, don't like the professional/amateur division, but I really don't feel it's fair to lump the 'pro' leagues, with their completely different way of doing things, shady management, infrequent bouts, etc., in with the amateurs. A couple of those leagues are now trying to capitalize on the all-female DIY success, marketing their teams as if they were same kind of thing, but basically still being 95% hype. So that's why I keep them separate. In Wikipedia it's a little easier because I have more freedom to say "these leagues tend to misrepresent their size and level of activity" and write gobs of prose to counter reader assumptions about what it means to be 'pro' or 'am' (strictly speaking, the distinction is only about whether athletes are paid to play). In DMOZ I can only list the links and describe the site content; no prose other than a category description which most people don't even get to see.

Besides WFTDA membership not being something I want to keep track of, I'm inclined to avoid inflating WFTDA's de facto authority by mentioning WFTDA status either here or in DMOZ. There's already a pretty widespread feeling that WFTDA membership is a necessary seal of approval that legitimizes a league, even though non-members are obviously very successful and can (for now) have interleague bouts without involving WFTDA. (This may change though, as there's a rumor that WFTDA is moving to prevent its members from having non-WFTDA interleague bouts; I have it on authority from one of the B.A.D. Girls that they were already threatened and voted as a league to cancel their bout with the Renegades in order to stay in the good graces of certain WFTDA members.) On the WFTDA article, I recently mentioned how the division structure is changing, anyway. Also, my gf's league is facing an uphill battle to get into WFTDA, since it formed from a WFTDA member league's split. Hard feelings remain, and it's looking like WFTDA is out to punish and exclude nonmembers (only) and no one can afford to say how they really feel…I'm sure either of us could tell you more about it; use the 'E-mail this user' link and we can take that discussion offline. :) —mjb 19:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Electronic dance music

Did you move Electronic dance to Electronic dance music by copy/pasting the contents ? That's generally NOT a good idea, as the entire page history is lost in this process. GFDL requires that all contributers are listed... I have put a request Wikipedia:Requested_moves#24_August_2006 for an administrator to undo your move, and the REDO it again, by usting the normal "move" method keeping the history intact ;-) Regards --LimoWreck 10:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your note

Hi Mike, it's very good, but I think perhaps a little short, and the definition of terms is a bit legalistic. The editors on WP:ATT seem pretty happy with the current version, so I don't think anyone will go with a rewrite. You could try to help out making things more succinct, or do the same at WP:ATTFAQ, which is starting to suffer from severe bloat. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, the point that says "Every Wikipedia article should cite the reliable sources to which its content is attributable; material without cited reliable sources is considered unsourced and may be challenged or removed," isn't quite right: claims challenged or likely to be challenged should be cited, and quotations, but not everything has to be — although it has to be attributable i.e. there must be a source out there for it, even if not actually cited. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:35, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, not citing is getting to be a dangerous practice. I am always arguing with Septentrionalis about whether math articles on undergraduate-level (or below) topics should bother to pick a couple of decent textbooks for the explanations and cite those in a references section, since the community of editors is well-qualified to evaluate the proofs and explanations. Those are the sort of articles where inline citations would be, I think, silly.

I understand but dislike the use of "normatively", because it is one of those words that a lot of people don't understand. A more organic organization is also likely to be accessible to more people than a formalistic organization, and the rules of formal construction are also not well understood by most Wikipedians. Robert A.West (Talk) 17:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, "normatively" is a term I'm familiar with because of its ubiquity in Internet technology specs; it's not going to be well understood by most readers. One of the main aims of my rewrite of WP:ATT is to be very clear about (and formally delineate) which statements constitute the Attribution Policy, which statements are supplementary explanations to help people better understand and apply the policy, and what the policy's canonical definition of its key terms is (or where such defs can be found; I would like there to be no conflicting definitions or scope creep). As long as that is achieved, I'm not concerned about whether it uses the words "normative" and "informative".

Regarding overciting (e.g. in lower math articles), both WP:ATT and my interpretation/rewrite of it encourage citations but don't require them (except for WP:BLP). The degree to which an article "should" have citations will vary from subject area to subject area, and will generally be reflected in the actual demand that arises. I prefer my version (of course), where I say "No part of this policy should be applied to cause disruption by prematurely removing or demanding citations for material for which reliable sources can reasonably be found, except in the case of controversial material about a living person." This is almost identical to what is on WP:ATT, but I've added the "or demanding citations for" part. —mjb 22:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think that lower-math articles should have a bibliography as a service to our readers, pointing them where to go for the next level, irrespective of the need to verify. As such, I am not sure about making demanding citations equivalent to saying, "I don't believe this." I have often demanded citations for statements that I felt were probably correct, but wanted to check further, and the article is nearly always better off for it. In one instance, I had to threaten an AFD before the editor including material found a non-classified source for certain assertions about the Army of the United States. He sounded reasonable, and my gut reaction was, "probably true," but I felt it was the sort of material that should be sourced, since some of it bore superficial resemblance to certain tax-protester type claims. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fairly worthless awards?

Hello, your edits here and there suggest that you might know what is worth knowing about web awards (as opposed to all the puffery that isn't). I recently discovered some oddities about one Sacha Dean Biyan (no, I'd never heard of him either). We're now reminded that his site is praised here. (It's "legendary", but the legend goes unidentified.) I wondered about the site that said this, but most of the damn site requires Flash, to which I refuse to subject myself. So I then went to Favourite Website Awards, where the stench of promotion almost knocked me off my chair. I note that the major contributor is User:Treecity, and that "FWA is a project originally developed by 'treecity'". Uh-huh. Google has lots of hits for it, but a quick look suggests that many of these are self-promotion, promotion, mutual congratulation, keyword seeding, etc.: I don't have the appetite (or time) to investigate. Is this AfD material, or is there something to it? (Please reply here rather than in my talk page, if it's all the same to you.) -- Hoary 06:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IDM

www.pandora.com lists IDM influences as a musical attribute- I had no idea what it was until I started building my radio station.

Thanks for the list.

166.70.17.61 03:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)Rian

[edit] a user conduct RFC

Hi. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/BZ(Bruno Zollinger) involves a user who exchanged words with you on Talk:Damon Runyon, in case you might want to add any comments; the RFC deals with a number of similar conflicts. It looks like you made a very good effort to work with this editor back in May, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to have made much difference. ←Hob 06:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Soul and ABC

Please visit the talk section of ZTT entry. At the end of the day it matters very little, but please consider the impact of labelling a band for only their earliest years. Also, ABC's first album diverges significantly from the New Romanitc bands in style, and the name itself came from Northern Soul admiration of Motown and the Jackson 5 record in particular. Sincere Thanks for all the effort you contribute to the Wiki and your obvious desire to keep things right! Cheers Mate, --Tednor 01:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trafford publications

I removed the prod. I appreciate your comment, but that might not have been taken into account--if you're not an author removing the tag is the way, possibly sending it to AfD as well. Works for me. (Smile)DGG 06:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Apologies--I didnt notice the date of you advice to them.DGG 06:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Join us in the "Terminator" Article discussion page...please...

If you are still a member of Wikipedia, please join user:TomTheHand and myself in a discussion of which terms should apply to the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Infiltration Unit in its various forms.

To be as neutral as possible, I will relate the views of TomTheHand as well as my own, as accurately as posible:

Tom believes that the term "Android" should apply to all of the incarnations of the Model 101, from Endoskeleton all the way up to the gestalts of flesh-and-blood and the combat chassis played by Arnold in the movies. He furthermore believes that the term "cyborg" does not apply to any of the Terminator's forms.

Thanos777 -myself -thinks that the Terminator is worthy of multiple appelations depending on which configuration (read: Type/Series) the Model 101 is configured as.

That is to say, I believe that the "Base" Model 101, just the endoskeleton with no cosmetic enhancements, is best defined as either a Humanoid Robot, Anthropomorphic Robot, or simply a Robot.

When the Model 101 is outfitted as a Type/Series 600, the endoskeleton covered by rubber skin, I believe that the Terminator is then most correctly classified as an "android."

And finally, when the Model 101 is equipped as a Type/Series 800/850, the endoskeleton with the living flesh-and-blood covering, I believe that the most correct term for the creatre is "cyborg."

Again, I respectfully ask you to come back to the "Terminator" Article and lend your input; those of us who are there in the Article's discussion page are engaging in a lot of back-and-forth regarding the different terms and the disagreements as to when they should be used.

Hope to "see" you there soon!!!

[edit] Thanks

I've deleted my question about record labels. I wasn't thinking about the context I was writing. And thanks for the link. I'll check it out.McTavidge 03:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Uniform Resource Identifier

I am glad of granting you this Barnstar because of your +4 years improving Uniform Resource Identifier. =)

Rjgodoy 22:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)