User talk:Wik/Archive September 2003

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Thanks for all the info on Albania. I only have one minor quibble and that is that it would be great if you would mention something in the Summary as to what the edit was. I found it annoying myself, but it helps in keeping track of things. See for example: Summary field --Dori 22:57, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. It's annoying but useful. I'll try to remember. --Wik 00:29, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wik ar eyou shore the presenter of ESC 1957 is spelt "Anaid Iplikjan"? most sites i have seen spell it: Plikjan? the 1956 is more spread out equal so possibly just another way of spelling it. - fonzy

Yes, quite. And no, the 1956 is not "another way of spelling it." Fihpello is definitely wrong (looks like an OCR error). --Wik 20:00, Sep 3, 2003 (UTC)

ok, but could u tell me why you know the 1957 one is spelt Iplikjan and not Plikjan? - fonzy

Because all Plikjan references obviously derive from the same erroneous source. Just exclude the word "Sendesaal" in the Google search and Iplikjan will be ahead. This narrative is also convincing. --Wik 20:33, Sep 3, 2003 (UTC)

Wik that doesn't really answer my question. How do you know that it is correct? u could say all Iplikjan sources all derive form the same errounous source. I do want to know the correct one. Do you know who the person is? -fonzy

No you can't say that. The Iplikjan sources are varied. The Plikjan sources almost all have this Sendesaal info, suggesting they're just copied from each other. --Wik 08:29, Sep 4, 2003 (UTC)

Dear Wik: Instead of putting diacritics in the Partido Nuevo Progresista page, you should go to Rafael Hernandez Colon, Luis A. Ferre, etc etc and remnme those pages with the diacritics, since my computer cannot do that. I am writing with an American computer because I live in the United States, so I can not do that myself. But you seem to be able to. Im a Puerto Rican and I had to write about those people with the equipment I have, because I want the whole world to be able to know about Puerto Ricans who have made an impact. By putting the diacritics in the PNP page instead of renaming the proper, biographical pages with the correct writing, you might lead other people into believing that these Puerto Ricans have no article, which they do.

Thanks, and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Puerto Rican power Martin

I can't do all at once. That's no reason for you to revert. And your computer most certainly can do it. If you don't have those characters directly accessible on your keyboard, you can still use ALT combinations (e.g. ALT-164 -> ñ) or just cut and paste. --Wik 10:52, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)
Good work! While I understand you can't do it all at once, I had to revert because I didnt want people to go through the work of writing about these people when we already had, in fact, an article about the person. I hope you understand that.

I guess Ill try using the ALT combi's. Thanks and God bless!

Sincerely yours, Antonio all but one screw gone Martin

Contents

[edit] Daniel C. Boyer

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts at Talk:Daniel C. Boyer/move to user:. Thanks! -- Oliver P. 01:43, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Wik. I've just put together a register of Wikipedia developers, including phone numbers, email addresses, etc., which Wikipedians can use to contact developers in case of server failure. On the basis of your copious contributions, you have been selected to be one of about 20 people to receive this list. The only problem is that you don't have an email address registered which I can send it to. Could you please email me at t!starling#physics!unimelb!edu!au (or something like that, I can never remember the right punctuation) -- Tim Starling 03:16, Sep 13, 2003 (UTC)

Re: Presidents of Ecuador, this is largely based on my not knowing very much about Ecuadorian history, and thus not knowing what the people are normally called. I could easily put the metronyms in, if that's the best option, but I don't know enough to take out obscure middle names, so that'd have to be up to you. john 22:54, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Why, most lists will have the common names rather than the full names. See for example [1]. I think listing full names without indicating what the essential parts are and what the obscure is more misleading than useful. --Wik 23:17, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)
Rulers.org does not list the most common names. it takes off any part of the name that follows an "y", but doesn't remove extra last name that doesn't follow an "y". I agree that shorter names is probably better, which is why I probably shouldn't have made a list of Ecuadorian presidents, but I just hate those red links (especially on the lists of incumbents page - people shouldn't create links there unless they're either in the process of creating a list, or a list already exists.) john 23:48, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I don't see that about the "y". The site has "Sixto Durán Ballén" (without Cordovez, although it doesn't have a "y"), and it does list "Antonio Borrero y Cortazár". I don't know if it's really the most common name in each case, but it seems like a good basis. Otherwise just use this Ecuadorian site: [2]. --Wik 00:26, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Please explain reversion of the link to George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen!? Mintguy 18:22, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I I see my mistake now. I read his entry too quickly. It was referring to his grandson. Sorry. Mintguy 18:29, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

When I write M'Arthur I mean M'Arthur. Dr Adam Carr 10:50, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't think it's a question of how he himself spelled his name. This M' is just an old way of writing Mc in general, sort of like the old "long s". Both were gradually given up, but that doesn't mean individual people changed the spelling of their names. Different newspapers at different times changed from M' to Mc and from the long s to the standard s. And we wouldn't mention it in an article either that a person once had a long s in his name, we just write it with the standard s. --Wik 15:54, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Wik, I've been very favorably impressed with your contributions. Keep up the great work! I hope we can take care of our differing views of what belongs in the Yucatan article, if we havn't already. In my opinion, it's better to add more information on history than to take it out! Cheers, -- Infrogmation 22:14, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sure. I just thought the original version was rather misleading in simply saying "Yucatán was an independent republic" when this was never recognized. I see you have much improved it now. --Wik 00:22, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)

Wik: I know Korean names are spelled on inverse. But look at all the websites and news places, and his name is written exactly how I wrote it. A couple of them did write it on inverse, but since most of them had it the way I put it, I dont wanna say Im right or wrong about how the name is written, but anmybody would think my way is the right way to write it!

Antonio Yes and No Martin

I can't believe you're still missing the point. Yes, the whole name is correctly Lee Kyang Hae. And that means that Lee is the surname and Kyang Hae the given name. You, however,

  • referred to him in the second instance as "Kyang Hae" as if this was the surname, instead of "Lee",
  • alphabetized him under H in the list of famous suicides, instead of under L.
  • and listed him as "Hae, Lee Kyang" in the list of people, instead of "Lee Kyang Hae".

Get it? --Wik 06:34, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)

Your page has exceeded 32k, please archive it. Re: Coca-Cola: if the company says there has never been any cocaine in their product; then it would be inappropriate for us to say that, with absolute certainty, that there is, although, Im not sure how Coca-Cola can make that denial... Pizza Puzzle

Read the paragraph again. The company does not deny that there was ever cocaine in it, they just weasel around it by saying it was never used as an "added ingredient" (meaning it was just a byproduct of the coca leaves). --Wik 23:24, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Blanking articles

Hello, Wik. If you'd like an article to be deleted, please list it on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, and add the Vfd warning (which you can find e.g. at Wikipedia:Boilerplate text) to the top of the article to alert others to the fact that the article has been nominated for deletion. Blanking a page will not get it deleted, unless of course someone happens to notice your edit summary when you are blanking it. But really you shouldn't expect other people to be watching out for your messages and doing the work for you. The blanking is in any case not helpful, as it hides the content of the article, which is the very thing that people need to be able to see in order to come to a decision on whether or not it should be deleted. Thanks for your attention. -- Oliver P. 02:53, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I really can't be bothered to place patent nonsense on VfD. I find that admins usually notice my edit summary and then delete it. --Wik 03:13, Sep 22, 2003 (UTC)
The article I was talking about was Iain McCallum, which wasn't "patent nonsense" under the definition to be found at Wikipedia:Patent nonsense. That only covers stuff which doesn't make sense. (Logically enough!) The page didn't fit into any of the categories for which speedy deletion is an option (for which see Wikipedia:Deletion policy), and so it should not have been deleted without being listed on Vfd for a week first. So really it would be better if you would list similar pages there in future.
In any case, even if a page is patent nonsense, by blanking it you hide that fact, and force the would-be deleter to look into the page's history to check what was there before. So really you are only making extra work for people. If you think that a genuine piece of patent nonsense has been missed by a sysop, and you wish to draw attention to it, it would be better to add a note to the page (saying "please delete this" or whatever) than to remove the offending content. That way the content would be left in view for any sysops to see and make a judgement on. -- Oliver P. 03:26, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
For me, this was patent nonsense, and I find the idea that such should be listed for a week on VfD ridiculous. So if others believe some nonsense is not obvious enough to be immediately deleted, I let them list it on VfD. And I'm blanking nonsense precisely so that it is not immediately visible. Sysops check the edit history in any case before deleting a page. Adding a note instead of blanking would make no difference there. But in case they miss it entirely, then at least the page is blank, which is second best to a deletion. --Wik 03:38, Sep 22, 2003 (UTC)
The term "patent nonsense" has an agreed meaning on the Wikipedia, as described at Wikipedia:Patent nonsense. If you would would like to get that definition changed, please feel free to discuss it on the relevant talk page. Until such a time as it is changed, it would be helpful if you would use the term in the same way as everyone else, to avoid misunderstandings. (Personally, I think it makes perfect sense to restrict the use of the term "patent nonsense" to content which doesn't actually make sense; any extension of the term would be counterintuitive.) In the meantime, please list pages that you want to be deleted on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion as usual. As you point out above, deletion is preferable to blanking. Thanks. -- Oliver P. 00:43, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ah, Laming Worthington-Evans! I knew "Lamar" was wrong, but couldn't recall what it actually was, so guessed "Lamer", a rather unfortunate choice. john 05:32, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Why do you have an agenda against me? Theres always someone who tries to make life impossible when one is doing a good job. Thats all I have to say to you so dont even bother anwering cause I am not listening to you anymore.

Antonio Last Word Martin

[edit] Do it yourself

Wik, why not become a sysop? Then you can block vandals yourself. --Uncle Ed 22:39, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if that's a good idea. I'm sure some people would complain that some of the "vandals" I blocked weren't really vandals or that some patent nonsense I deleted wasn't really patent nonsense. --Wik 14:02, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Why did you change the dates of reign of Qianlong Emperor of China? These dates do not match those of the table of Qing Dynasty. According to my source (The Rise of Modern China by Immanuel C.Y. Hsu), the dates of his reign are 1736 to 1795. olivier 23:20, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Does your source have exact dates? According to my source the reign is 18 Oct 1735 - 9 Feb 1796 ([3]). --Wik 23:30, Sep 25, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. Let's move the discussion to Talk:Qianlong Emperor of China. olivier 00:06, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wik, check the recent discussion on the WikiEn (Wiki English) discussion group. Also contact Jimbo Wales. EntmootOfTrolls has a history of vandalism and making death threats, in order to push his anarchist-anti-Semitic-anti-capitalist-pseudo-leftist views. He is an extreme looney, and we are considering contacting the FBI. This is no joke. RK 14:24, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi there, Wik. I'm curious why you reverted my change of Decagon so as to include the gratuituous reference to Horace Donisthorpe by User:80.225.79.69? I see that you asked for the page to be deleted completely before. Now the main thing you find if you go to Decagon is a strange digression: decagon => the shape of pedicels => ants have pedicels => pedicels can differentiate certain ant species => according to British Ants..." => written by Horace Donisthorpe who was an expert on ants... Thanks, Bcorr 23:37, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I asked for the page to be deleted when it only contained nonsense: "monoxide Child Owns you". Then someone replaced this with a stub. As to the Donisthorpe reference, it was User:Wiwaxia who reinstated it. I agree it is not very relevant. --Wik 23:46, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Sorry about that -- I got a little confused -- I'll bring it up with User:Wiwaxia Bcorr 00:23, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Re Antonio Martin: I understand that you're upset, and there was a day when I would have been, too, in the same situation. Frankly though, I don't think either one of you is really in the wrong here, it's probably just a misunderstanding due to miscommunication.

I don't think the de-adminning page is the place for this discussion, because there was no abuse of admin privileges involved. After all, I'm half expecting the person who created the "three-eared bat" article to come in there at any moment demanding my hide and that of whoever deleted it.  :)

Since this is a user dispute, could we forget for a moment that he's an admin and take it to wherever it would have gone if he weren't an admin? I think it would be more appropriate in this particular case. - Hephaestos 04:48, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hardly a misunderstanding. He seems to take it as an attack on himself if his errors are corrected.

It wouldn't have gone anywhere if he weren't an admin. Such behaviour has to be accepted from ordinary users. I'm less bothered by his behaviour as such than by the fact that such people are admins. --Wik 05:04, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The thing is, though, that Wikipedia isn't really like your generic "online community" in the way it selects admins. We need a lot, and more every day, because of the notoriety we've gotten. So people tend to be selected on the basis of "they've done good editing and haven't majorly screwed anything up yet." In other words if you think Antonio's being unreasonable (and he may well be today) you should see some of the others. ;) I can get that way myself sometimes, depends on my mood.

On the other hand, if you had instead gone onto the page and nominated yourself to be an admin, I'd back you, although of course I can't speak for everybody else. I think you have the best interests of the 'pedia at heart (and I think Antonio does too). But online communication mucks up the process sometimes.

As far as admins go, though, we need as many as we can get, because the workload is going up exponentially with all the publicity the site's gotten. So they're really not going to get rid of even one on account of something like this, it would have to be admin abuse to do that. - Hephaestos 05:16, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

So you are the umlautmeister, are you? Thanks for that Adam 06:19, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] AntonioMartin desysop discussion

Moved from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

[edit] AntonioMartin

AntonioMartin is not behaving like a responsible sysop. I merely told him about an error he persistently made but he responded as if he didn't understand and then went so far as to accuse me of "having an agenda" against him:

Why do you have an agenda against me? Theres always someone who tries to make life impossible when one is doing a good job. Thats all I have to say to you so dont even bother anwering cause I am not listening to you anymore.

Maybe he would listen to a de-adminship. --Wik 09:35, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)

I don't really see what the issue is here. There seems to be some disagreement over naming conventions and perhaps Antonio's message wasn't exactly friendly but there is no abuse of admin power. Trying to remove someone's adminship isn't going to get them to listen to you. Perhaps you were looking for the Problem users page, but I'd say even that is unwarranted. Angela 13:34, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)
No, there was no abuse of a specific admin power. I just think admins should be reasonable people. It wasn't about a naming convention; he made a definite error repeatedly, and I tried to tell him about it so that he wouldn't repeat it. And then he reacted in this bizarre way, accusing me of having an agenda against him and making his life impossible, and refused further communication. --Wik 14:47, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)
You really can't read can you? does that read like he merely told me? Its not what people say, its the way they are said. And he said that to me before I told him I wouldnt listen to him anymore. This is so childish!! --Antonio say it like it is, please! Martin
That was after I told him the fourth time. I should add that he has now launched further attacks on User talk:Angela:
Wik seems to have a war against me for whatever reason. If you look at the articles Ive written, one minute later Wik has found something wrong about it. I dont oppose editing as long as they are good edits, of course, but Wik seems to be obsessed. If I knew him in person Im afraid Id already had to tell him to stop harassing!
So if I edit his articles, I'm having a war against him! I challenge him to show how any of my edits wasn't correct. He seems to have a problem admitting errors. This is unacceptable for a sysop. --Wik 03:58, Sep 27, 2003 (UTC)

I'd have to see an actual abuse of sysop powers before I'd support de-sysoping him (or anyone, really). Lots of our sysops act unreasonably, communicate poorly, and have problems admitting when we're wrong. We're human beings, after all. -- Cyan 04:21, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, at the top of this page it says: "Current Wikipedia policy is to grant administrator status to anyone who ... is generally a known and trusted member of the community." And indeed, in the nominations part such qualities are typically praised, see for example Fuzheado, "well acquainted with the community rules and etiquette", "a true gentleman". The qualification "won't abuse sysop power" doesn't seem to be all that matters. And I think that principle should work both ways, i.e. if someone is no longer trusted, he should lose the status. I just want to place it on the record that I for one can't trust this sysop. In case he deals with others the same way, they may add their vote and then maybe some decision will be taken. --Wik 04:38, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hmm. Maybe we should have some guidelines about the de-sysoping process. I think you certainly in principle have the right to bring a sysop who was behaving inappropriately to the attention of other wikipedians. However, since there hasn't been much support for your view of the problems you cite, it seems this is not a case of the community of wikipedians not trusting Antonio, but a case of you personally getting into a pique over something you had a hand in creating yourself. I frankly suggest that often it is the sysops who get too impatient when things are not formatted as they like, and should give some slack to those who don't know our standards. In this case it seems to be a role reversal. A de-sysoping threat is not the right way to get people to capitalize words properly, add context to the beginning of the sentence, bold titles, italicize titles of works of art or write names and lastnames in the right order. These things are not trivial, for they are the mortar that makes wikipedia a cohesive whole, but please get a little bit of perspective here... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 12:56, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The de-sysoping request is not about formatting standards but about his irrational and offensive behaviour. --Wik 15:51, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
If being irrational and offensive were all it took to de-sysop someone, I'd have to ask for the de-sysoping of about half the sysops I know, starting with myself. In my opinion, "doesn't abuse sysop power" is the only criterion that matters, because being a sysop is more of a responsibility than a privilege. But before a user is made into a sysop, the best way of being sure that they won't abuse their sysop powers is to grant them only to users who have a good record. -- Cyan 22:59, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This is the second message I told Wik: Good work! While I understand you can't do it all at once, I had to revert because I didnt want people to go through the work of writing about these people when we already had, in fact, an article about the person. I hope you understand that.

I guess Ill try using the ALT combi's. Thanks and God bless - does that look like I shouldnt be trusted by him? I was trying to be friendly!!! But then he started getting more and more serious at me! This whole thing seems childish to me, and Im willing to drop it, as long as he does too.

I mean, lets face it, Wik is right, I should have written the Asian names in the inverse, but he should blame the press, television and all the other communications who actually make us think that Yao Ming's name, for example is Yao Ming. You never read Ming Yao anywhere but in Asia! By saying that I dont know how to read, he insulted my intelligence. For this and other reasons I said hes got something against me. Its not what you say, its the way you say it. He could have told me, hey, good article. I just needed to remind you that... but he goes on saying I can't read and that I dont seem to get it and this and that.

I think its childish and Im willing to drop it, lets see if he is too.

Antonio Maniatico Atico Martin

What you quote above was an earlier matter entirely, and at that time I did still trust you. It was only with the Korean name matter that you freaked out. And I'm shocked to see that you still can't read! Where have I ever asked you to write Asian names contrary to the practice of the press and television? I absolutely agree that Yao Ming should be called Yao Ming; even if he's a Chinese citizen he became famous in the U.S. and that's the name he uses there. And Lee Kyung Hae was a Korean in Korea and even the Western press referred to him in the Asian order - and so did you. The problem was that you didn't realize, no matter how often I told you, that Lee is the surname, which means for example that you can't put him in the list of people as "Hae, Lee Kyung". --Wik 15:51, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Wik, rather than simply accusing someone of freaking out, it may be more useful for you to provide links to edits you found problematic. I can't find any evidence of Antonio "freaking out". You need to present some evidence to highlight your concerns rather than making a string of personal attacks. Angela 15:59, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Read above. He has so far accused me of:

  • "having an agenda against him"
  • "making his life impossible"
  • "having a war against him"
  • "being obsessed"
  • "having insulted his intelligence"
  • "being childish"

All of this simply because I tried to make him realize an error he repeatedly made, so that he wouldn't make it again. --Wik 16:11, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Having read above, I can't see anything that warrents de-sysoping Antonio. Perhaps a period of calming down is in order. Why don'y you agree to stay away from a page Antonio has editied for say 1 week, and him do the same. This gives other people the change to make any corrections that need to be made. Theresa knott 14:46, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

After I sent him that message, Wik started telling me I dont know how to read, this and that. What I say is that he should have been like hey, I know its a common mistake, but this goes like this... that would have been fine. When I started here, I had a problem of being very Point of View, once they explained to me in a friendly way how that worked, I was fine, but Wik went right at bat to tell me I dont know how to read, I dont seem to get it, etc etc. As I said Im willing to let this go as long as he lets it go too, but when people keep it going, what am I supposed to do? Specially now that he put me in this page because I, thinking I was doing the adult thing here, told him not to keep talking to me like that, (I did it) so that the whole thing would just be over with. Im not willing to keep going back and forth with him. I had to defend myself when he kept saying that I dont know how to read (which he repeated again here), and basically trying to make me feel like Im a dumb writer. Im not the greatest writer and I admit, sometimes I lack the words to describe what Im talking about, but I do like and respect my work. I just want peace. Well, I hope you all judge the situation in a way that is fair both to Wik and to me.

Thanks and God bless!

Sincerely yours Antonio Terremoto Martin

As near as I can tell, Wik was being a little less than polite and calm about things and Antonio was being a bit paranoid. That being said, I think that taking the radical step of proposing that Antonio being de-opped is the biggest violation of wikilove in the current situation. I'm not saying that Wik doesn't have the RIGHT to list Antonio here, but that, perhaps, he's being a bit premature. I think having one disagreement and not being able to resolve it for a week is hardly grounds for getting this upset... but then, that's just my opinion
I support guidelines for de-opping... plus we should probably have a standardized abbreviation for it... ;)
--Dante Alighieri 19:46, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
We should have guidelines, yes. Whatever they are, Antonio won't fall within them- I've seen no reason to deop him. -- Jake 07:02, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
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