Talk:Soc.history.what-if

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For the May 2005 deletion debate on this article, see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Soc.history.what-if

[edit] alt

Some mention should be made of the ancestral alt. history.what-if that preceeded the creation of the soc. group IIRC. -- Infrogmation 15:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BernardZ edits

Some of these so-called esteemed contributors, like Carlos Yu universally detested as his main contribution to the group is causing bad will and conflict is very strange. I left him in but I was really tempted to get rid of his entry.

I won't get into your dislike of Carlos or your strange belief that Chet Arthur is his pseudonym, but this stuff about John Freck "changing the character of the group" is, um, highly at odds with the newsgroup as I remember it. I'm removing these until you can source the puffery. Shimgray | talk | 13:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't dislike Coyu nor do I like him. I never talk to him and never read his stuff. That he uses sockets is a fact. One of these sockets was President Chester A. Arthur. Furthermore I cannot remember in all the years that I have been in the group of him producing one decent POD. How he ever got to be in this section is extremely strange!

As far as the influence of John Freck, that POD did cause a major increase in the historical knowledge required to support a POD. It was certainly very interesting. Possibly one of the most highly commented POD ever produced in the group. If only for that POD, he deserves a place there.

Now as I have put in no reference to Coyu sockets here. If you write out John Freck or BernardZ, both who are probably some of the oldest and most successful POD writers in this forum, then I think I will have no alternative but to go a dispute. If you want to edit what I have written, I can be quite reasonable. See how you go.

Also I think Phil Mcgregor deserves more notice. The problem with Phil is he rarely writes interesting PODs, his comments are a combination of extremely good, pig headness (he never changes his mind) and being rude.

Dispute away, troll boy. Johnny Pez 11:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You have your wish! Note I don't see you deserving notice so I took it out too.

Petty revenge for a petty mind. And I'll thank you not to rewrite my comments. Johnny Pez 02:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Put back the line about novelty, an issue which is probably more important then plausibility. Something that I really have to think about. Also took out *Esteemed contributions* after checking it out I have decided its not working. I checked a few of these so-called Esteemed PODs. Several has only a few entries and I can see no record of them again. They came and disappeared. What I think is happening now is that people are writing themselves into the page. Before we can put back such write a section, we need some objective standards. One would insist that such an esteemed contribution would have at least fifty entries from different people attached to that POD and some follow up PODs.

The only person "writing themself in" to this page seems to be you. Isn't it funny that the edits earlier today which told us how wonderful and groundbreaking BernardZ was ([1], [2]) came from the IP address 220.237.189.110, which co-incidentally matched the NNTP-Posting-Host line in BernardZ's posts to Usenet ([3], [4] a couple of hours earlier? Don't presume we're stupid.

As for this point about "novelty" or "interesting", please give us a reason to trust what you're writing - it is very hard to assume good faith after your recent attempts to self-promote. The concept has some merit to it, but it's very hard to read what you're writing or quite what you're getting at - and it certainly shouldn't be staying in that form, which is almost meaningless. Shimgray | talk | 23:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you know Shimgray? I have never heard of you and I have been in the group for many years. First explain why anyone show have to justify himself to someone who has not got a clue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BernardZ (talk • contribs).

I read the group from - if memory serves - late 2000 to mid 2003, then on-and-off until mid-2005, when I sort of fell off usenet. Google throws up ~750 posts or so ([5]), but I never claimed to be a significant contributor. But I had enough clue to identify today's spate of IP addresses as you, it seems.

Now, would you care to explain why you feel we should make these sweeping changes you keep pressing on us? Take your time. Shimgray | talk | 00:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think at present you need credibility. I have done a search on the group. No Shimgray has ever posted to the group. Do you want to tell me who you are to the group before you say us!

That would be the link I posted directly above (here, again). Which searches for the name which is on my user page. And gets 750 results.

But - wait a second! This is irrelevant! Because we're talking about you, and your charming attempts to rewrite history so you look good. Going to explain how that All Really Makes Sense any time soon, or will I just have to keep treating the removal of whole sections and random insertion of text praising you as vandalism? because, frankly, it's little more. This article is not your personal playpen to rewrite at will, nor is Wikipedia here to carry your puffery. If you can't contribute usefully and coherently, please leave. Shimgray | talk | 00:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

First you sabotage me so leading to these errors and now you claim that its my fault. Obviously you owe me an apology. As far as my reasoning is concerned on this section, you edited it out. Now you say I am doing vandalism? Get real!

...you wholesale removed a section here. I replaced. You kept removing it; I kept replacing it and removing your edits, leaving you messages to say so; these were ignored. I had to lock the page to get you to stop removing the section; this is not, by any means, "sabotaging you". There is absolutely no good reason to remove that section, and edits which persist in removing it are simply vandalism.

You have persistently tried to twist this article to your own ends. After this - finally - stopped, you stated off on another tangent, which is difficult for the reader to follow - edits like

Interesting is probably the highly prized concept in the community of SHWI. The concept of trying to find what were important changes and when in history continually fascinates the people involved is discovering what appears to being long term trends in history.

simply don't make sense. If you could explain clearly what you're trying to say - and there does seem to be something buried in there I'd be interested to see - I could work with you. If you're more interested in being put-upon and oppressed, then I can't help you and you are unlikely to find your time here productive. Shimgray | talk | 01:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If you refuse to discuss something sensibly then can I ask what are you doing here at all! If teh idea has merit surely you at worst leave it in with a note to request more information. As far as the contributor section what it needs before it can be added is an objective and/or agreed standard whereby people can or cannot be included. I think that the people I mentioned have probably as much if not more right to be there then many of the others that you mentioned. Lastly as far as Coyu and sockets are concerned, its been a frequent complaint by many not just me, in this group and not just in this group either but others taht he goes into. I think that a warning should be added to the text even if its in general terms in the troll section that some people here are belived to use sockets.

The idea "has some merit", but that's after my staring at it for some time to figure out what it is. An incomprehensible paragraph which might mean something if you meditate on it for half an hour is better out than in. Looking at the history, it seems to have got vaguely sensible towards the end, though. Hmm. "Interestingness" is perhaps the word you want for it. We shall see what you can come up with.

I'm going to lift the locking, since you appear to have been made aware of the problem now, but I would strongly urge you to discuss any inclusion or exclusion of specific contributors before you take it upon yourself to edit those sections - especially if you start inserting yourself, or throwing around accusations of sockpuppetry again, which are simply inappropriate behaviour. Shimgray | talk | 01:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

There are several points that should go into the page. 1) A definition of what is required to get into this contributor section what someone can or cannot be added. It should be objective if possible or at least some agreed standard whereby people can or cannot be included. I think that the people, I have mentioned have as much if not more right to be there then many of the others that you mentioned. Considering the influence that John Freck and Phil McGregor have had on this group to drop them is unbelievable. 2) Lastly as far as Coyu and sockets are concerned, its been a frequent complaint by many in the group not just me and not just in this group either but others groups where he goes too. I think that a warning should be added to the text even if its in general terms in the troll section that some people here are believed to use sockets and to be careful. 3) I don't like your word *interesting* is the word that is better. For example no one believed that Nazi Germany could develop an atomic bomb in early 1943. Did not stop it from being one of the best PODs we ever had as it showed some interesting consequences eg could nuclear power be balanced by chemical weapons, what period could a nuclear bomb make a difference. That is why it had that many comments by so many people.

I have made some changes. One issue we do need is some definition of contributors because to say that some of these are particular good is nonsense.

[edit] Top contributors

If someone can come up with a better way of determining the best discussion of the year please put it to the group.

I could write a website. People could nominate who they wanted and we could vote. My guess is very few would bother to vote so what is the point.

I know history.medieval did something like that years ago. BernardZ 14:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

We have had discussions on this issue and its the best we have come up with.