User talk:Manors

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S E M I - R E T I R E D

This user no longer contributes to Wikipedia Articles, and will now only contributes to Wikipedia's Support Articles



This page was last wiped on 21st April 2008. Old Messgaes can be found here.

Contents

[edit] Bye

Bye SimpsonsFan08 talk contribs 15:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, thats nice of you to say. ::Manors:: talk to me 22:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Being helpful

Do you really think you should be helping people when you have failed at figuring out how to work within the system here? - UtherSRG (talk) 17:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Especially when there hasn't been any acknowledgement by Manors of his responsibility for previous abuses, but rather dismissive contempt of policies violated by him and for the admins who sanctioned him for those violations. Let's not forget an unretracted (simply removed) promise to continue editing by sockpuppetry regardless of any sanctions...
I support a previously problematic user deciding to be helpful, and welcome any forthcoming discussion about this with Manors, but I also question the reliability of his newly proclaimed magnanimity, a magnanimity in sharp distinction to Manors' previous activities and especially his recently expressed "loathing" of Wikipedia. --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων (talk) 18:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The Help desk is an excellent place for a fresh start on Wikipedia, because there's hardly anything to argue about. The answers to almost all the questions are somewhere in writing (see for example the Editor's index), so volunteering on the Help desk mostly means pointing questioners to the relevant help, guideline, or policy pages. Maintaining neutrality is easy for Help desk volunteers because we usually have no vested interest in whatever Joe Random User is asking about. In short, the Help desk is pretty close to being algorithmic - most questions have definitive answers, and Help desk volunteers are simply solving a puzzle. This is completely different than the type of Wikipedia article editing that spawns conflicts, namely: approaching a topic with strong personal views, and then trying to game Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to serve that agenda. Also, on the Help desk there are dozens of volunteers simultaneously monitoring and answering questions, with generally strong agreement among all the established volunteers, again with everything pointing straight back to Wikipedia's written instructions, so it's unlikely that any mavericks can do much damage even if they wanted to. But why would they want to? The Help desk is a generally positive environment, and people who help out get immediate gratification. If every Wikipedia user spent substantial time answering questions on the Help desk, thereby learning how to apply Wikipedia's rules to a wide variety of real situations, I suspect the level of content disputes would decline substantially. If everyone on Wikipedia understood the rules as well as the experienced Help desk volunteers do, I don't think there would be many arguments here, because the rules are designed to eliminate arguments. --Teratornis (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
One of the rules is assume good faith, which I interpret to mean that when a user wants to make a fresh start and be constructive, we should forget the user's history and judge him or her according to how helpful he or she is going forward. Wikipedia, after all, even rehabilitates a number of outright vandals, turning them into constructive contributors. We should not repeat the mistake of the western allies after World War I when they imposed the punitive Treaty of Versailles on Germany, setting the stage for the rise of Adolf Hitler. Instead, Wikipedia will prosper with its own equivalent of the Marshall Plan, in which we help former enemies rebuild. --Teratornis (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
AGF does not mean wipe the slate clean. It's one thing for a turn around to occur over time, but it's another thing for a recurring returner who has every time been a problem without any remorse or admission of guilt, and who has expressed the intent of continuing and escalating his tactics, to immediately be reformed and become a positive contributor. AGF means looking at each act as innocent, but it does not mean that the collection of past acts should be ignored, especially when there is a significant history of being a recalcitrant neerdowell. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
AGF explicitly states: "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary." - UtherSRG (talk) 20:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both for writing, and Teratornis I thoroughly appreciate you writing all that. Yes I admitted I would undertake Sock Puppetry on a spur of the moment thing - I'm sure you can see I would have been ticked off if virtually every picture I uploaded was struck off in one go. If I was doing it wrong a little notice after the first picture would have been nice; when building a new house the foreman reports a fault when he sees it and has it fixed, he doesn't wait for the house to be built. I have taken the message off display but by no means deleted it. All I can say however is either accept and refresh or hold a grudge. It's your life and I can't change this. Thank you, Adam (Manors) 21:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Manors has chosen to stop editing articles and focus on the Help desk. Assuming Manors adheres to that, that concession looks like a gesture of good faith to me, at least compared to some users who respond to dust-ups by vowing endless revenge on Wikipedia. Time will tell, of course, but the Help desk is a great place to rehabilitate parolees. Sainthood is not a pre-requisite for helping on the Help desk; all that matters is knowing how to answer some of the questions. Since editing on the Help desk was my suggestion for rehabilitation/recovery, I will accept the blame if it doesn't work. I've been wrong before, but I think it will work. --Teratornis (talk) 21:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More links for Help desk volunteers

I use these links frequently when I answer questions on the Help desk; you may find them useful:

  • Wikipedia:Help desk/How to answer
  • Editor's index
  • {{Google wikipedia}} - generally better search results than Wikipedia's native search feature
  • {{Google custom}} - the template documentation shows example searches on specific parts of Wikipedia, and other Web sites, which I purposely added because they are often helpful for answering Help desk questions
  • {{Google help desk}} - search the Help desk and its archive pages - many Help desk questions are repetitive, and the answers are already there

--Teratornis (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I really like the Editor's Index, I should have used that before! You are right that Google is a better search, but I know I'll probably generally use the Wiki search, unless something is seriously getting on wick. Many thanks, Adam (Manors) 21:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minor suggestion

This might seem a mere quibble, and feel free to ignore it, but I suggest changing this:

to this:

Reason: to be more specific, and because the Help desk and Reference Desk are as much a part of Wikipedia as any other part of it. I.e., when you contribute to the Help desk and so on, you contribute to Wikipedia, and arguably your contribution is at least as important as a direct contribution to articles. Helping one person on the Help desk might lead them to go on to improve dozens of articles, so that is potentially a huge contribution. If we had no Help desk, lots of users would probably get frustrated and leave. --Teratornis (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Teratornis, that's good - I like it and will happily use it, very much appreciated. I was trying to say that actually in the message with something like "..the Wikipedia Encyclopedia" and so on but I couldn't get it right and took it out! Adam (Manors) 21:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to nitpick again, but the latest change isn't quite right; we would not say "support articles" but "support pages." See Wikipedia:What is an article?. Every article is a page, but not every page is an article. I had been editing for more than a year here before someone pointed that out to me. --Teratornis (talk) 23:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Task suggestion

Hello Manors, if you are looking for a useful project page task, check out the Editor's index to Wikipedia. I've been adding {{shortcut}} links to the index. See my diff on the letter T. I'm going away from my computer for a few hours. If you would like, you could add shortcuts to the entries for the letters U through Z (actually X as that is the last entry). There isn't much left to do, but you might be interested in how the shortcuts work. I would like to do something similar for all the WP:FAQ entries. Having shortcuts on reference information like the Editor's index and the Wikipedia FAQ makes it easy to link to stuff on the Help desk. Often the answer to a question is a link to the index or FAQ. So this is part of tool-building to make the Help desk more efficient. --Teratornis (talk) 23:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I finished adding shortcuts to the WP:EIW#Editor's index. However, the WP:FAQ could still use per-topic shortcuts. Let me know if you are interested in helping with that, and I will tell you how to proceed. --Teratornis (talk) 06:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
See my reply to your reply on my talk page: User talk:Teratornis#Shortcuts (diff). --Teratornis (talk) 22:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Redirect from shortcut

I forgot to tell you that when we make a redirect page, we should add the {{R from shortcut}} template to it. I did this for two of your new shortcuts:

Please add {{R from shortcut}} to your other shortcuts. That will categorize them in Category:Redirects from shortcut and reduce the chances of someone deleting them for not knowing why we made them. Thanks. --Teratornis (talk) 04:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Manual of Style shortcuts

The last time I looked at the Manual of Style, it had many subpages, with some but not all having shortcuts. And I think most of the individual sections did not have shortcuts, even on subpages with shortcuts. See:

Manual of Style shortcuts begin with the MOS: prefix. It looks like there are more Manual of Style pages than shortcuts. So, after you get done with the FAQ shortcuts, you could fill in the missing MOS: shortcuts. Also compare the list of MOS shortcuts in the table here:

The list appears to be incomplete, so it needs someone to add more entries to the table. Since there are so many Manual of Style pages and subpages, I would suggest adding a subsection to break out the MOS pages into their own table. I will ask about that on the Wikipedia talk:List of shortcuts page and see if anyone objects. --Teratornis (talk) 04:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm at school now and not supposed to be on Wikipedia. I will make a start on this when I get home. Adam (Manors) 10:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no deadline. Wikipedia will still have lots of problems for you to fix whenever you are ready. It's better to go slowly and think carefully about things anyway. Good luck in school. --Teratornis (talk) 05:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I would advise finishing the WP:FAQ shortcuts before tackling shortcuts on the Manual of Style. The MOS pages look a bit messier. I might have to go take a look at them. From what I did see, it looks like a lot of different people have used inconsistent shortcut styles on the fraction of MOS pages that do have shortcuts. We don't have to change anything which is already there, just add shortcuts to the MOS pages that have none right now. --Teratornis (talk) 05:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello Teratornis. Not much happend at school, I did nothing in I-media when I typed the above message so I could have done something really. However I'm home and ready now - I'll finish off the FAQ before I make a start of MOS. Adam (Manors) 15:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Thank you :) I was at the logon screen and inspiration just struck! It was quite a humbling experience. Mr Beans Backside (talk) 11:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I would hate to think what your inspiration was had you had some! Adam (Manors) 22:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Britannia 1.jpg}

Thank you for uploading Image:Britannia 1.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this image under "fair use" may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the image description page and add or clarify the reason why the image qualifies for fair use. In particular, for each page the image is used on, the image must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Can you please check:

  • That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's escription page for each article the image is used in.
  • That every article it is used on is linked to from its description page.

Please be aware that a fair use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for images used under the fair use policy require both a copyright tag and a fair use rationale.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it might be deleted by adminstrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 15:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Britannia logo.jpg}

Thank you for uploading Image:Britannia logo.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this image under "fair use" may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the image description page and add or clarify the reason why the image qualifies for fair use. In particular, for each page the image is used on, the image must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Can you please check:

  • That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's escription page for each article the image is used in.
  • That every article it is used on is linked to from its description page.

Please be aware that a fair use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for images used under the fair use policy require both a copyright tag and a fair use rationale.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it might be deleted by adminstrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 15:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help page patrol

Hi Manors. As you're listed listed on Wikipedia:Help Page Patrol, I thought you might be interested in a discussion regarding the use of the {{resolved}} template. Editors have argued that it slows the loading time down through the use of graphics in particular, and also it is sometimes incorrectly placed, leaving some editors with an incomplete or incorrect response. Please express your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:Help desk#Recent constant use of the resolved template. Thanks, and keep up the good work. PeterSymonds (talk) 17:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FAQ shortcuts

Nice work on adding the per-section shortcuts to these FAQ pages:

These FAQ pages still need per-section shortcuts:

Are you still interested in finishing these? I was going to give you a barnstar when you finished. I may add shortcuts to WP:EFAQ because I want to add another entry to it (to answer the frequent question of how to edit text on a page that is above the first heading, i.e., how to edit the lead section). --Teratornis (talk) 20:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I added shortcuts to WP:EFAQ. --Teratornis (talk) 20:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)