User talk:Freederick

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[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Flameviper

I think that you hadn't seen this example. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Please read my comment at [1]. Thanks. --Poeticbent  talk  18:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for your Poland-related contributions

Hello Freederick! Thank you for your contributions related to Poland. You may be interested in visiting Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board, joining our discussions and sharing your creations with us.

Appleseed (Talk) 21:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article

Would you care to proofread Niedzica Castle for an ice breaker? Thanks. --Poeticbent  talk  22:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Your invaluable contribution to Niedzica Castle is much appreciated. I’m in the process of searching for additional reference in both, Polish and English. The new findings are quite intriguing actually. For example, Google automatic translation from Spanish of the biography of Micaela Bastidas, wife of Tupac Amaru II states: “Of the union three children were born: Hipólito, Mariano and Fernando…” (Source: Bolivariano Congress [2]) This would indicate that whether his daughter (wife of Sebastián Berzeviczy) was illegitimate, or she might have been his niece. Apparently, some women from Amaru family were exiled at the time of his gruesome execution by the Spaniards, after the failed assault on Cuzco. Here’s a quote from the paper by Claire Brewster [3]: “Bastidas, Túpac Amaru and their sons were captured. Spaniards condemned Bastidas to death... Cecilia Túpac Amaru [his sister] died in prison before her sentence was carried out, and several other women were exiled. ¹¹ (Source quoted: Querejazu, Chuquisaca, pp.401-404)” The wife of Sebastián Berzeviczy might have been one of those exiled women. It is fair to assume that under such circumstances providing further European sources is the only alternative. --Poeticbent  talk  20:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Please read my final comments at Talk:Niedzica Castle. Thank you again. --Poeticbent  talk  20:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kriging

I've originally visited the kriging page several months ago, looking for useful information (Specifically, I wanted to implement kriging in a Fortran program to interpolate unordered elevation data). The page struck me as being chaotic and going off at a tangent; little specific information on the kriging technique was provided, but there was a lot of vituperative wrangling against geostatistics.

I complained on the talk page and waited a long time for the article to improve. I revisited the article periodically, read the talk page and related user talk pages closely (JanWMerks and Merksmatrix in particular), and came to the conclusion that the reason the article is so wretched is because it is under continuous attack by a father-and-son team of cranks, who disrupt any constructive work with their own unsubstantiated agenda.

In order to give bona-fide editors like you more breathing space, I recommend that this matter be given due process under Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Specifically, I propose that a request for help be filed under AMA Requests for Assistance, as a first step. Perhaps the Advocate will be able to guide us in the steps that need to be taken to stop the disruptive behavior. My ultimate goal is Article probation. I am fed up with the cranks. Aren't you?

Please let me know what you think.

I sent this message to Hike395, Michael Hardy, Vsmith, SCmurky, Antro5, Nvj and Berland, as these names appear a number of times in the discussions. Freederick 16:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't think I've ever edited this one - although have removed some OR and self promo links from the geostatistics page. No expertise in the field, so I've not done much - but agree that there has been much crankism going on. Vsmith 16:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Ive been pretty active with the geostats article, not so much lately however. The geostats article is constantly being revised by these guys, but the issues they raise are repeated over and over. Kriging is an aspect of geostats which is simply a type of interpolation, the only difference from the distance-weighted algorithm is in the presence of statistical measures for standard deviation (standard distance), variance, and potential error; variance is presented as semi-variance due to the geographical aspects of spatial information. My view is that this argument is dead, no further attention needs to be paid to the issues that JanWMerks raises, as this logic may be applied to all statistics, in that they may be abused. We do not need dispute resolution, I've already spent loads of time attempting to find consensus... Instead, I propose you do what I've done with the geostats article, and add so much relevant material, that the controversy section provided by Jan is relegated to an insignificant portion of the end of the article. I still need to do lots of work on the geostats article though... SCmurky 02:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

“I've already spent loads of time attempting to find consensus...” That's my point exactly: you're wasting time in futile discussion and reverting, rather than doing constructive edits. In view of this statement (and many others in similar vein), further discussion is IMHO pointless. That's why I'm pushing towards Article probation, so that constructive work may be done instead. But in order to obtain article probation for the Merkses, due process must be followed, as I suggested above.

“I propose you do what I've done with the geostats article, and add so much relevant material...” I cannot, for the simple reason that I know very little about kriging. As a matter of fact, I was hoping to learn the basics of kriging from this very article, which is why this sordid stalemate infuriates me so much. Freederick 08:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heim Theory Page

Hi Frederick. Thanks for the idea about Heim Theory. You are right about including more on the propulsion topic, as the link to Tajmar last year promises possibly major developments in propulsion and fundamental physics. So all this will have to be in there before considering the article for an award of any sort. I am a bit busy at the moment, so probably cannot do this myself soon - maybe around Easter would be the soonest. So if others want to try before then, well and good. --hughey 09:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pilotbob must be bored on Christmas vacation

Rod of Seven Parts is up for AFD again! BOZ (talk) 15:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ongoing RPG notability/AfD situation

Hi, Freederick. Was wondering if you wouldn't mind reading my take on this situation around here of late, with all the AfD stuff going on in the RPG sector. My user page article is here. Thanks in advance. Compsword01 (talk) 22:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD argument

In your edit summaries at Martin Tajmar you asked for no edits to be done while the AfD discussion was going on. However, you also posted AfD notices to various users that included the phrase: "You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it". How do you explain this discrepancy? ScienceApologist (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I asked that no major blanking be done while the AfD is in progress, not any edits. I did not object to your tagging, and as a matter of fact I did a minor edit myself. The issue I had was with PouponOnToast repeatedly blanking major portions of the article that were relevant to the AfD discussion, which is what I said on the talk page. The edit summaries must of necessity be succinct; but even so, I consistently said "large portions of page" in these summaries, not "any edits". Freederick (talk) 14:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Too late did I see your notice about the AfD campaign. Glad to see the result was 'keep': Tajmar might deserve an entry even without he possibly revolutionary gravito-magnetic work. --hughey (talk) 18:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Mediation?

Hello - you participated in Gavin.collins' Request for Comment, so I am alerting you that we are preparing a Request for Mediation regarding him. BOZ (talk) 03:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I am alerting you that we are now considering a Request for Arbitration regarding him as an alternative to mediation, and would like your opinion on the matter. BOZ (talk) 13:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello! I would like to keep the number of participants limited in the mediation case, to help keep the discussion focused and workable. Is there someone already involved in the mediation that you feel represents your interests and point of view? Vassyana (talk) 18:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand and apologize for barging in like that--I wasn't sure what the procedure was. Typically in the wiki namespace, the actual page is for official stuff, and the discussion page is a free-for-all. Apparently in a mediation procedure it ain't so, which is confusing, but I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for setting me straight. Freederick (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey Freedrick, thanks for your thoughts (most of it sounded about right on target to me), but Vassyana makes an excellent point - we could easily have a dozen people or more in there making a ton of comments, and the case could easily become unmanageable. BOZ (talk) 14:30, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's the text you are referring to--I transplanted it here after it was (justifiably) nuked from the RfM, for reference's sake. Freederick (talk) 21:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure whether it is appropriate to include my statement here, as I am not included in the list of participants. Please feel free to remove this response if it is out of line. I would like to be included as a participant, if possible; what stopped me is that I was not involved at all in the Kender article or its discussion. My involvement with the current dispute and Gavin took place in other articles, such as Rod of Seven Parts, Magocracy, Slaad and others, mostly on their AfD pages. I also took part in the RfC discussion about Gavin. Having said that, here's my angle:

1. What Wikipedia principles are absolutely essential to you?

• The principles that I respect the most are Verifiability and No Original Research. These are what make Wikipedia a source of useful encyclopedic information, rather than a forum for personal opinions. I am less respectful of Notability, for the following reason: as the coverage of Wikipedia expands, we are bound to see the notability guideline gradually relax as progressively less notable information is included. In other words, Wikipedia is not paper; it can afford a broader coverage than classical encyclopedias with their limited capacity. Still, to preserve its utility, Wikipedia must remain restricted to reliable, i.e. verifiable information. Thus Verifiability and NOR are, and shall remain, essential; while Notability is relative.

2. Why are you interested in this topic area?

• I have been a RPG player and gamemaster in the past. While at present semi-retired in this capacity, I still follow the field with interest, and Wikipedia has been a valuable encyclopedic resource to me in that regard. I became involved in the current dispute when I noticed that some of the articles I consulted were subject to heated discussion and machine-gun AfD onslaught. I investigated, found that some editors names were constantly resurfacing in the context of this dispute, and became involved myself.

3. What areas of this dispute are you most willing to compromise on?

• I am willing to accept mergers of the shorter and less-important RPG articles into lists and larger parent articles. I am willing and eager to see cruft cleaned up, with an axe if need be. I am not willing to put up with gun-to-the-head tactics of Gavin, especially in view of the fact that he is not doing any improvement work himself. Improving these articles takes time and loving effort from many conscientious editors. It should not be done under this sort of aggressive pressure.

4. What are some good things about the people you disagree with in this case?

• Gavin is sincere in his efforts, objective in his complaints, and remains civil under pressure. On the other hand, he is unremittingly antagonistic, and his numerous assembly-line-style contributions are restricted to tagging and criticism, often ill-informed to boot. If he starts doing constructive work on improving these articles, rather than just shooting them down wholesale, I'll be honored to work with him.

5. In terms of content, what has been the greatest difficulty for you in this area?

• As I am a RPG player myself, I find it difficult to disentangle in-universe content from an external view.

6. In general terms, what is the best way to handle the content in this topic area?

• The most pressing need in handling these articles is to develop an RPG-specific ruleset on which topics warrant standalone articles, and which ones do not. At present there are some unsourced stubs that would be best included as a section or mention in broader articles; on the other hand some topics deserve to be more developed. The editors are frequently enthusiasts who write on idiosyncratically chosen topics. It would help their effort if there were project guidelines on when to write a separate article, when to make a list, and when to merge.

My best regards to Gavin and everyone else involved. Freederick (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)