User talk:MrErku

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[edit] Natori, Miyagi

Regarding the sister city, http://www.napavalleyonline.com/directory/wssistercities.html says it has a sister city with Iwanuma, not Natori. Good catch in deleting it. Neier 08:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Jaredmellis 07:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC) Completed Natori Translation for you

[edit] Miso

[edit] Sendai

There are a couple of others who live in Miyagi that I know of (one downtown; another up north in Kesenuma), but neither of them has been very active lately. I don't go downtown as much as I used to in my younger days; but, we should meet up somehow. Are you a soccer fan? Neier 10:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Not particularly, to be honest, but I'm not against it either. I have enjoyed watching some games :) Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 12:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Hrm. How often do you come to the big city? :-) (traffic lights?) Neier 12:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Ehm, probably once a week or more depending on work. Natori is, after all, only about 15 minutes away, and the shopping here is not very great. (obscure Monty python reference) Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 12:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I forgot all about that song. Spam, fish slapping, and lumberjacks I remember; but stop lights.... Must be getting old. I'm going to send you a mail (presuming the link on the left is set up correctly). Neier 09:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
It's fairly obscure, on a record they made if i recall correctly. Most of the song consists of "I like traffic lights." Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 09:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I sent you a mail. Neier 09:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation

Hi Erk,

Thanks for joining Wikipedia. I'm glad you found about Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan. Here are some additional resources related to Japan:

Best regards,

Fg2 04:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Webcomics

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:MrErku&action=edit&section=5 Editing User talk:MrErku (section) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (bold mine). You certainly seem to recognise your personal bias even on your own. It seems to me you should not really be working with webcomic articles, as you appear to have some kind of agenda with them. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 13:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I have no bias against webcomics in general. I stated that I do not like them, but I never stated that I dislike them, or have any sort of vendetta or bias against them. You seem to be mistaking my disinterested, sterile treatment of the subject strictly along guidelines of source reliability and encyclopedic standards as some sort of dislike or hatred. Persons who do not have a like for a specific subject still should edit articles related to that subject; editors of a subject should not be limited to fans or those who have a positive attitude towards it.
To like [1] something is to enjoy or be in favor of it. Not liking something in no way implies animosity, hatred, disdain, or malice. Not liking something merely indicates the absence of feelings of enjoyment or favor. NetOracle 04:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, you said you consider webcomics to have a "lack of notability and worth in general" and that Superosity "may be one of the few notable webcomics". You didn't say anything about liking them, and I didn't say anything about you disliking them. I dislike natto, but that hasn't stopped me from working in the article. The difference is that (1) I don't work in articles I know nothing about, and (2) I don't make sweeping generalisations about the notability of entire topics, which have been referred to by important professional journalists as a major part of modern culture. You, on the other hand, wrote only four days ago: "I couldn't have named a single webcomic as of yesterday, and only began to care about these things yesterday"(source). You are self-professed to have five days of experience in this topic, and to be indifferent towards it, yet you are vigilantly pursuing multiple webcomic topics on AfD, and casting negative votes in every topic I can see on your contributions frontpage (which almost entirely seems to consist of webcomic AfD topics). That is much akin to me hunting down random articles about korean cuisine (a subject I know nothing about) and throwing them on AfD because nobody has listed citations to cookbooks. Yes, numerous webcomic articles are full of fancruft and lack sources. That is why there are awesome tags like {{unsourced}}, and why it is possible for you to edit topics just like any of us. Last I checked, deletion was supposed to be a last-resort kind of thing, not the first line of defense.
I'm trying to use AGF: I think you really are trying to improve wikipedia, but IMO you should think critically about this. Of course webcomics are not going to seem notable to you: you haven't any experience with them. However, your arguments regularly seem to disregard or cast aside important authorities on webcomics, because they are non-notable to you... just as someone with no knowledge of genetics might not see any importance to something Reiji Okazaki said about replication bubbles.
Cheers. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 06:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for assuming good faith. I really am trying to clean up things which fail to meet policies, so that the integrity of notable subjects may be preserved. When I refer to webcomics as, in general, not notable subjects, that is more a commentary on individual instances rather than the genre as a whole. I would never try to go after recognition of the genre, as it certainly is notable. However, as with anything which can be cheaply self-published, the number of non-notable instances far outweigh the number of notable instances. A webcomic selected at random is likely to be non-notable. I do take exception to the idea that I should be familiar with a subject before I can judge it on its notability; this is contrary to what an assertion of notability should be about. Wikipedia requires articles to assert notability and contain references to multiple non-trivial published sources, so that any reader unfamiliar with the subject can assess its importance when learning about it. If I, as a reader unfamiliar with the specific subject matter, cannot determine its notability, then the article itself has failed. While I cannot comment as an expert on the genre and the material in question, I can comment on the sourcing used to assert notability of the material in question. The policies on this are very clear.
One of my day-to-day jobs involves promotion of websites and companies through SEO and various forms of new media. I am an expert at recognizing various forms of self-promotion, fan promotion, meme promotion, etc - mainly, because I work with it on an almost daily basis, and foster exposure on behalf of clients. When "buzz" becomes disproportionately skewed towards the personal/social web, it is generally indicative that the subject possesses entertainment and/or discussion value, but not notability. Discussion is easy to create, either organically or artificially, and should not be considered a reliable assessment of notability.
Because the amount of "published" pages on the Internet is so large, it is easy to find many mentions of just about anything, especially if the author has done something so simple as maintain a personal blog linked by rings/exchanges to other blogs, or post a link on a couple of chat rooms or forums that he or she frequents. Word on the Internet spreads quickly, and because conversations and discussion get archived in text format, anything said at one point or another is likely to turn up in a search.
Typically, recognition flows downhill - meaning, people as a whole become aware of a subject once it has been covered by significant publishers, whether online or offline. If CNET or The Register, for example, put together a piece covering something judged by them (and having passed their QC department) to be important, notable, innovative, funny, novel, etc., then it gains wider recognition as a whole due to the large numbers of people reading that primary source. Since the advent of cheap/free webhosting, personal publishing (blogs, OSS CMS, etc) and turnkey discussion (Usenet, vBulletin, phpbb, UBB, etc), recognition has begun to flow uphill. Non-trivial news sources have begun covering things which a lot of people have already discussed and experienced. Such a mention also conveys notability, if the article in question focuses on the subject in question, or spotlights it and asserts its notability. What needs to be avoided, however, is the notion that just because there are many mentions of a subject, that it is notable. When a widely discussed subject doesn't show up in non-trivial published sources, chances are it simply isn't notable. Staff writers see quite a lot, and it is very unlikely that a subject being widely discussed in the social web is notable, but just not recognized by "mainstream" sources. I have seen too many editors make a mistake in assuming that notability is present when a large number of people know what something is, and talk about it.
Part of the problem in accurately assessing notability comes when a notable and non-trivial published source makes mention of a subject whose notability is questioned. All publishers, not just large ones, frequently mention items (by name or hyperlink) which the reader is encouraged to explore. Such a tangential mention does not assert notability, however. The sheer amount of "interesting" items mentioned to readers (or viewers, in the case of a program such as The Screen Savers) invalidates the specific worth of any one mention. Large web portals frequently publish a constant stream of interesting links, which are intended for exploration, but not for journalistic or encyclopedic documentation. Most people who visit these linked pages will read them, gain a bit of insight or enjoyment, and not return. The value and intent of these pages is in filling the reader's time, not in turning the reader on to something entirely new, noteworthy, and exceptionally unique. These are no more notable because of their tangential mention than is the subject of some human interest story on the local nightly news.
There are literally tens of thousands of webcomics, yet very few have been highlighted by independent published sources. These are the ones which have had a noticeable effect on society, culture, and media. The rest are merely instances of entertainment, and are really known only to their fans. In contrast, one does not have to be a fan of sitcoms to recognize the importance and influence of something like Seinfeld. We, as editors, must be careful in selecting the few notable webcomics out of the tens of thousands which possess nothing more than entertainment value of a limited appeal to a very specific audience.
Part of the problem can be found in the amount of bloc voting and meatpuppetry required to keep the non-notable comics around. (although this does not, by any means, imply that everyone supporting any specific article is engaged in or condones such practices) Many of the webcomic articles exist solely because the fan community has established and preserved them - this is the fancruft that I speak of. When supporters come out of the woodwork and accuse anyone voting delete or questioning notability of waging a war on webcomics as a whole, they are essentially employing a straw man tactic to preserve things that they like by hiding behind the notability of the genre and the notable webcomics present. I have a strong belief that cruft and non-notable articles would not be a problem if the primary driving force behind the documenting of webcomics were disinterested editors working from an encyclopedic standpoint. There is a huge problem with a "me too" philosophy - many of the supporters of non-notable webcomics establish articles for things they like, based on similarity to other webcomics which already have articles. Systemic bias on Wikipedia is a known problem, and due to the very nature of Wikipedia, is difficult to eliminate. When a noncommercial and limited webcomic receives an article containing more depth than most major motion pictures, or television series, this is, at very least, fancruft. Any self-published entertainment on the Internet tends to attract some sort of community following, and this quickly makes its way to Wikipedia in the form of a clique whose aim is to pay respect to something they like by writing about it from a fans's perspective, and with a fan's depth. This fails our policies of notability, verifiability, encyclopedic standards, and NPOV.
I would like to see the community as a whole, and not just those whose hobbies include reading and exploring webcomics, develop a set of standards on which the notability, influence, and importance of webcomics can be uniformly judged. There should probably be an RFC here, because too many of the dedicated fans don't seem to believe that the same standards of verifiability, reliable sources, and encyclopedic standards apply to their articles. These AfD debates have wasted a lot of time, because new policies are trying to be made in the midst of a heated debate. Every argument seems to be the same argument all over again, and we could save a lot of time by adopting a uniform set of criteria which only need to be evaluated and mentioned in each AfD debate. If the subject meets those criteria, then it should be included, and any issues brought by those pushing for a delete must first be raised concerning the criteria as a whole. Conversely, if a subject fails to meet those criteria, then we won't waste a lot of time proposing and countering specific stabs at notability made to try and halt a proposed deletion.
Whatever does happen, we do need to respect those who are here for academic and encyclopedic reasons, by not trivializing their contributions by allowing Wikipedia to become one large entertainment and pop-culture fan site. Wikis are easy to create, and Wikipedia risks losing insightful editors by allowing itself to become filled with entertainment for the sake of entertainment, rather than for the sake of how such entertainment influences the world as a whole. NetOracle 08:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for your comments. Steve block Talk 20:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Explicitly stated in the comic

I read erfworld, and I know this. However, there is no evidence that this is actually all that important to the plot. Throwaway jokes are often cited as major plot points in wikipedia articles, and without evidence one way or the other, the article is better by encyclopedic standards having bare, dry summaries. Merely being true is a bad measure for what should be in a summary, much as one wouldn't include statements about how the sky in the erfworld comic is orange in a given panel. I have not reverted your change at this time, but I thought I would indicate the problem to you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ikanreed (talk • contribs) 08:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] "it is irrelevant ..."

You wrote on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards (2nd nomination) that "it is irrelevant if a major webcomic blogger like Straub on Halfpixel likes the award." I think this comment may be in response to somethign I wrote, but I could be wrong, and I really can't make heads or tails out of it. It seems like a complete non sequitur. Am I missing something? -- Dragonfiend 11:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

replied to your user:talk page. My mistake on that, sorry! Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 11:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, Let me see if I can explain myself, because our wires still seem a bit crossed. Someone made an unsourced claim that this topic is highly admired, so I provided a source which shows that even the people running the thing don't have much admiration for it. There appears to be so little admiration for this topic that you confused my source with a similar one. So, I'm not the one who suggested notability equals likability; I merely pointed out that likability isn't as prevalent as some have claimed. I'm also pointing out that without more reputable sources, we can't write a NPOV article. That is, writing an article that makes it look like this is a highly admired award isn't neutral, but including criticism from blogs, no matter how wide spread, runs far afoul of policies as well, as blogs are largely not acceptable as sources, except in articles about themselves. Does that make sense? -- Dragonfiend 11:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] That edit to your user page

That was me. Sorry. I couldn't help sticking a Python reference in somewhere. "I like traffic lights..." etc. I'm actually suprised you weren't incredibly enraged.

No hard feelings?

--MangoFlush 22:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Erk, I don't think I Like Traffic Lights is all that obscure. In general, the Contractual Obligation Album is underrated, although "I Like Traffic Lights" never did much for me. From your previously unsmiling original poster, Newyorkbrad 16:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nearly Headless Nick RfA > RfC

[edit] Americanization

You might want to take a look at WP:OWN again sometime. There's no good reason to care either way what spelling the article uses. i kan reed 14:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but check WP:MOS: it's not usually kosher to change an article's nationalisation. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 22:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Japan taskforces

In order to encourage more participation, and to help people find a specific area in which they are more able to help out, we have organized taskforces at WikiProject Japan. Please visit the Participants page and update the list with the taskforces in which you wish to participate. Links to all the taskforces are found at the top of the list of participants.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for helping out! ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 08:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)