User talk:MaxEnt

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[edit] Superlative excess

I just noticed an anon user with a persistent practice of adding superlatives, mostly to articles concerning the Sopranos. The user has not so far been notified that these edits are inappropriate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/24.107.62.120

I handle small vandalisms myself, but this one I would like to pass on to someone better equiped to offer the appropriate instructional comments, and root out the damage, if anyone cares enough about fancruft to do so. Is there a noticeboard where this kind of thing can be passed along? MaxEnt 08:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

First off: Yours is a justified concern. As of right now, the IP editing flurry seems to have ended. The simple argument against that kind of edits (and also the content of according warnings, should this continue) is one of "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources". However, the superlative problem is not one limited to Sopranos articles, it frequently surfaces e.g. on sportspeople biographical articles (as in "X is said to be the best/one of the best tennis/football/etc players of all time").
The second problem is that people often are not truthfully quoting their sources. WP:NPOV) gives the useful advice to "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves". Some people appear not to be able to differantiate between fan enthusiasm and professional enthusiasm. They just don't understand that that kind of POV/OR exaggerations is actually worsening the representation of their favourite subject. Compare this edit of mine.
In case you notice this kind of behaviour to continue, particularly if it's from the same or a very similar IP address, you may warn against continuing that behaviour via the applicable warning template on the IP's talk page, starting with {{subst:uw-unsor1}} and escalating from there if necessary. If you notice the behaviour to continue without any reaction to a first warning, you may eventually issue a final warning, in the case of these unsourced additions I'd go with {{subst:uw-generic4}}. If it still goes on then, you can issue a report to WP:AIV, just make sure to keep it very concise, like e.g. "IP 123.456.789.000 continues to add unsourced OR/POV material to articles [[X]], [[Y]] and [[Z]], after final warning. ~~~~". An admin will then take a look and possibly issue a block of the IP in question. It's a last resort however, and our admins' workload is considerable as is, so we shouldn't lightly report to AIV without established necessity and ideally trying to come to terms with the user in question via sensible talk page discussion. Best regards, — Dorftrottel⁠ 12:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Just noticed that you have been here for quite some time (longer than me) and probably know all of the above already. — Dorftrottel⁠ 13:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
With popups installed, you can check that user's/IP's contrib history, and hovering the cursor over diff will follow the link and display what was being removed/added. But I know what you're talking about wrt to article contrib histories (which is necessary to isolate an edit and allocate it to a user), that's a really tedious job. That's also why constant monitoring of recent changes is still absolutely imperative if we want to avoid loads of vandalism being "buried" under more recent, useful edits. I believe that if one's concern is limited to a certain set of articles and a certain edit is not easily traceable and some time has already passed, it's probably the easiest way to just edit it back to an acceptable state, and then see if someone re-introduces the errors. — Dorftrottel⁠ 14:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
However, all that may improve a lot once flagged revisions are enabled. — Dorftrottel⁠ 14:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Niki Lauda

{{Blpdispute}} is for cases of potential libel. The "last rites" assertion was indeed unsourced, but it doesn't constitute that kind of libel. However, that website was clearly inacceptable as a reference, simply because it cites the Wikipedia article as its only source. I removed it and it was replaced with another source, a book which I can't immediately judge since it's not online (but it's probably safe to assume that it makes for a far better source than the website). The article is for now appropriately tagged with {{refimprove}} and {{inline}}. Personally, I don't think there are many (or any) really controversial assertions in the article. Nevertheless, ideally everything should be attributable to a reliable source, so your concerns were indeed justified. Btw, I'm not an admin. |dorf|trottel| |mess|age| 14:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok. You're welcome. |dorf|trottel| |mess|age| 15:12, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No problem!

Thanks for reaching it out to him and trying to explain. It seems to be helping. Natalie 03:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Randy Gardner

Interesting. I just removed references to Soini because I couldn't find any source except a old newspaper that names him as a record holder. And the fact that Gardner supposedly never appeared in the Book required the removal of its mention except for one sentence stating this fact. You could word the first sentence however you wish. I found it a little awkward but couldn't think of anything to write instead. And I doubt there is an established record for longest time spent without sleeping. ۝ ۞ ░ 06:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My steward election

Thank you for supporting my steward election having passed with 72-1-4-99%.Jusjih 01:55, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disemvoweling

That looks like a good compromise, although I doubt it will fly. Some time ago, I spent months trying to negotiate a settlement in a nasty edit war over this article, basically one or two people with a personal grudge against people who frequent Making Light but were nevertheless trying to be NPOV and source everything properly.

The editors (possibly one editor and a sock, but I'm not certain about this) who made the recent edits and arguing in their favor were banned from Making Light (for sock puppetry) and possibly Boing Boing (for rudeness and sock puppetry) as the result of the same thread referenced in the edit. The same screen names were used there as here. That does seem like a conflict of interest, and the thread specifically contains the moderator's denial that the dissenting opinions were at issue. That said, somebody somewhere has probably used disemvoweling against a contrary opinion, and this is probably as close as I've seen to an example of that. It doesn't seem all that rude to me. As you rightly point out, though, it's all very subjective and OR, and extremely hard to source. It took months to come up with sufficient reliable sources to make this article work the first time around. And maybe it's combat fatigue from that experience, and my discouragement over all the photos disappearing daily from my watchlist articles, but I don't want to get into another protracted negotiation with someone who obviously has an axe to grind. Regards, Karen | Talk | contribs 05:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On swadesh lists.

I see what you mean, thanks for the advice. I have now cut it down, perhaps not enough? These new developments are relevant because the theory of swadesh lists is generally regarded as bunk by linguists, but as intriguing by outsiders. There are editors that like to add stuff about "new and improved" glottochronology, making it seem like it isn't bunk after all, but as you have found for yourself, the general view in linguistics hasn't changed. The general views of the rest of the scientific community isn't really relevant: the ones who do not engage in linguistic phylogenetic have only a street-man's opinion, and the ones who do engage in it are vastly outnumbered by the linguists that disagree with them. The "weakness in the study" was that it was not necessary for the researchers to define at the start which two homeland scenarios they tested for(since they have a singular input), they can have easily chosen their candidates after the fact (or after a pilot experiment), with no evidence of foul play to be found. As it is, their number sounds much more credible because of the "background story" of comparing two specific scenarios (as you yourself said, falsifiability adds merit), but what I meant was that the "falsifiability" arises out of their prose, not out of their method. And falsifiability at around 8000 years time depth isn't all that great. However, while that's clear as day to me, I don't have time to find sources to that fact, so it's original research and has been cut, also it's not that relevant.--AkselGerner (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a lot more interesting. It doesn't really make sense to me to use computers to boost the performance of analog methods (like swadeshs). Like that article suggests the real benefit of computerization is exactly it's immunity to meaning, or rather it's indifference to it. Of course it would be the trick to decide the input form for a similar analysis of languages since human-based annotation is always analog.
On the needfulness of the Gray Atkinson study, I think it's clear from their omissions that they didn't really care about the strict scientificness of their study, perhaps they wanted to generate publicity. If they wanted to make science they would have tested their method on documentable languages, like for example Romance languages and other ancient literate languages. Swadeshs method has always been wide open to the researchers "schooling" of the input to get a desired result, and it doesn't sound like G&A have done much to reduce that, in fact it sounds like they have done some very specific schooling in their chosing of "cognate sets".--AkselGerner (talk) 20:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Memestream and UV factor

Thanks for the support regarding those comments on my talk page. I've done quite a lot of editing, and most of what I ever wrote remains, which pleases me, so although I have changed as I've gone along and become more inclined to find cites I'm not about to start what I call 'cut and paste' editing. I believe in writing what I believe to be true and then of course supporting it wherever possible with citations. Sometimes I edit quickly in this way, keen to improve the article, knowing that while I like from my own knowledge there are others who like to spend their time validating and criticising. Together we do a good job in the end. Material that cannot be immediately supported but is true is better than cited material that is untrue in my view, and as you say Wikipedia is work in progress.

Regarding UV I remember being pleased when I found sources that enabled me to get to the truth of the matter and I thought I was careful to get the units right. I'll take a detailed look again later. Regards --Memestream (talk) 17:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Having looked at the page in question it seems to me that there has been no real change, as mW m-2 nm-1 is the same as mW/m2 nm (excuse me not using suffix notation - never worked out how to). I think the new form is clearer. The reference I used for those figures is clearly given in the inline citation. --Memestream (talk) 10:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)