User talk:Tox

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump, or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

  • You can introduce yourself on the new user log.
  • You can find lots more information, including open tasks and daily tips, at the community portal.
  • You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: ~~~. If you use four, you can add a datestamp as well.
  • Before saving a page, it's a good idea to use the Show preview button to review your edits. Also, consider writing a summary for each edit.

Again, welcome! Chris Roy 06:51, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)


Salut Tox,

j'ai remis la version ancienne sur la page "Temps hexadécimal"
sur la page de discussion, j'explique pourquoi. --Charles Lemaire 18:18, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Language

Tox, did you read the discussion page for Language before making your radical changes? You describe a language as a system of symbols and rules. It seems to me that this is only a description of an intellectualized, formalized language—as I believe I have said on Talk:Language. But what I think is not so important; can you cite a recognized scholar who defines language as you do? David Pierce 08:33, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Responded with a personal note at User talk:David Pierce and a discussion at Talk:Language. --Tox 13:48, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Special characters

Please be careful when editing pages. Your edit to the ISO 8859-1 article today accidentally replaced many non-ASCII characters in the article. I fixed it. If you are in the habit of copy-pasting article text into an editor and then copy-pasting it back into your browser, please be sure your editor is fully Unicode-capable. Thanks — mjb 05:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that, usually I catch it when that happens, but it hasn't happened in a while. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what's causing the problem. I'm not using a text editor, I'm editing directly in my browser. I'm running OS X and using Safari, both of which are usually quite good with Unicode. The special characters seem to be garbled only on random occasions, though when it does happen it seems to occur only after previewing an edit. To fix them, I usually go back to the first editing page (before I previewed the edit) and save the page again. Any ideas? —Tox 06:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re Mega Society

Hi Tox. Regarding this Mega Society brouhaha, if references, citations, etc. can be found I will not oppose the article being kept. It was the CTMU fiasco which led me there, but I do believe that as it stands the article isn't really meritworthy anyway (if it was, it wouldn't have been AfD'ed). And as far as Asmodeus' editing on the article goes, I'm not so sure he will be an ally: someone mentioned vandalism having happened on the page...I suggest you look at the article's history and see just what contributions Asmodeus made there. It seems there is some nasty feud between Mega Society/Mega Foundation, which I am sorry to have now become involved in, but that Asmodeus' edits to the Mega Society page reflect just which side of the feud he is on. Anyway, find references, and I'll be quite happy! Byrgenwulf 09:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Responded with a note at Byrgenwulf. —Tox 10:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mega Society AfD

Pozdrav! Hvala na obavijesti! GregorB 17:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I have requested that the Mega Society deletion be overturned here. --Michael C. Price talk 16:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

As you may have heard the Mega Society article was deleted awhile ago, at the end of an acrimonious AfD/DRV process. There is a wide divergence between deletion policy (as defined by various policy guideline documents) and deletion practice, as implemented by admins (who claim to be following the "spirit" of the law). Consequently there are lessons to be learnt from the experience, which will not be obvious from reading the guidelines. Here are some tips for future conduct:

  • Single purpose users are frowned upon and were a frequent bone of contention during the AfD and DRV processes. So I urge you all to "establish" yourself as Wikipedians: create, edit and even ... delete articles! There are plenty of articles that need attention.
  • It is a very good idea to put something on your user page, (it doesn't matter what) to avoid showing up as redlinked users -- being redlinked will count against you in any debate.
  • When voting, include brief reasons which are grounded in policy (votes not backed by reasoning may be discounted; too much reasoning will be ignored).

Given the bias against soliciting (see judgement) I may not be able to contact you again, so I suggest you put the Mega Society in your watchlists.

The closing admin's comments on the Mega Society:

Within the argumentation of the debate, the most significant point raised by those who supported the article was that a new draft was available. The article is not protected, so this may be posted at any time and (assuming it is not substantially similiar to the older version) it will be judged anew on its merits. This is good news for you.
The bad news for you is that it is well-established practice within Wikipedia to ignore completely floods of newer, obviously "single-issue POV", contributors at all our deletion fora. I'm among the most "process-wonkish" of Wikipedians, believe me, and even process-wonks accept that these sorts of voters are completely discountable. Wikipedia is not a pure democracy; though consensus matters, the opinion of newcomers unfamiliar with policy is given very little weight. Your vote, that of Tim Shell, and that wjhonson were not discounted. The others supporting your view were. I promise you that it is almost always true that, within Wikipedia, any argument supported by a flood of new users will lose, no matter how many of the new users make their voices known. In the digital age, where sockpuppeting and meatpuppeting are as easy as posting to any message board, this is as it should be for the sake of encyclopedic integrity. It is a firm practice within Wikipedia, and it is what every policy and guideline mean to imply, however vaguely they may be worded. (I do agree that our policies, written by laypeople mostly, could do with a once-over from an attorney such as myself; however, most laypeople hate lawyers, so efforts to tighten wording are typically met with dissent.)
If your supporters were more familiar with Wikipedia, they would realize that, invariably, the most effective way to establish an article after it has been deleted in a close AfD is to rewrite it: make it "faster, better, stronger." This is, in fact, what you claim to have done with your draft. Good show. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So the outcome was not entirely negative, although I was disappointed by the admin's rather cavalier approach evidenced by the response to my enquiry:

.... why did you discount the votes of, say, User:GregorB or User:Canon? They are not new users, nor did I solicit them. I presume by Tim Shell you mean Tim Smith? ...... --Michael C. Price talk 16:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

to which I received this rather off-hand reply:

User:GregorB offered a very brief comment not supported by policy. User:Canon did take the time to offer analysis at DRV, but he had been among the first voters at the AfD to offer a mere "Keep" without explanation; therefore, I assumed he had been solicited by someone. Best wishes, Xoloz 15:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

which didn't fill me with confidence about Wiki-"due process".

Anyway, my grumpiness aside, the Mega Society article, is presently under userfied open-development at User:MichaelCPrice/mega, and will reappear at some point, when (hopefully) some of the ill-feeling evidenced during the debate has cooled. I am very heartened by the article's continued development, and by the development of associated articles. Thanks for everyone's help!

--Michael C. Price talk 14:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Tox, thanks for trying to alert me that the Mega Society page was up for deletion. Sorry I was rather busy for a few months and didn't check in. The "discussion" on its deletion was disheartening to read. I'll try to contribute towards getting it back & better. Pmcculler 03:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hillman/Dig

Hi, Tox, I don't think we know each other at all at WP, but I think we have both been involved in actions related to CTMU mentioned by Michael just above. You might be interested in this MfD, which is a consequence of threats by User:DrL and User:Tim Smith to have me blocked for alleged privacy violations in my documentation at User:Hillman/Dig/Langan. ---CH 23:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] language discussion

Tox, would you be so kind as to share your opinion concerning my question placed on the talk:language page? jVirus 08:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)