User talk:Oliver Pereira/Archive 3

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Don't like the word octothorpe? That's okay. I didn't like it much either. ;) Phil Bordelon 05:20 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I hadn't even heard of it until I read it in the Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago! -- Oliver P. 05:23 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
There's a band by the name, and my Python teacher used it all the freaking time, much to everyone's consternation. My use of it was more inside joke than anything. I changed 'hash sign' to just 'hash', since Unicode likes it more, and it's in more common usage (at least here in Louisiana). No chance you play Tanbo, or did you just pick it as a good page to Extreme Wiki on? ;) Phil Bordelon 05:26 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Oh, okay. I call it a "hash sign", but I don't really know if that's standard anywhere in particular. As for playing Tanbo, sorry, but no, I just picked a new page from "Recent changes" at random to pointlessly fiddle with, as a way of avoiding what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe I should have taken up Tanbo as a way of avoiding what I'm supposed to be doing, but that would have taken longer... ;) -- Oliver P. 05:37 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

We in Ireland call it a hash sign too, hash being something one smokes, not presses. BTW Oliver, I put some more info on Sinead O'Connor on her talk page. You might enjoy it! :-) User:Jtdirl

Yep, I've just read it. Nice story. :) -- Oliver P. 05:52 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Oh, hell, may as well call it a 'number sign' and be done with it. Fixing. ;) Phil Bordelon 05:55 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Oh, but I chose not to call it a number sign because that's... American, isn't it? Clearly the correct way to show a number is with "No.". ;) -- Oliver P. 06:13 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I propose a new, non-national name for the symbol #: the 'ambiguous.' While its name may be, its title is not. No more "What do you call that damn thing?" Nay, the world will rally around such an obvious renaming, to be sure. Phil Bordelon 06:30 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the active Wikipedians links - I was going to do so... but then you'd already done it. Which was nice :) Martin

No problem. :) -- Oliver P. 18:07 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I finished my symphony!Pizza Puzzle


Symphony? What symphony? -- Oliver P. 18:19 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Image:Battle of babylon.mid <---Click me

Thank you for your note on copyright images, but I don't understand your concern or your authority? The images I uploaded, contained no copyright declaration. Note however, that I followed the exact requirements to enable me to place a photo into Wikipedia that are built into the software to protect Wikipedia from liability copyright infringement in accordance with the DMCA. I note there are hundreds and hundreds of others who did not add the extra voluntary note when uploading photos, so why did you not question each of them but have chosen to question mine? That is in fact an act of discrimination, an act which can have real legal ramifications for Wikipedia, not photo copyright violations for which Wikipedia has absolutely no liability of any kind. Discriminate against me or anyone and you place this open site in jeopardy. I suggest you start looking through the hundreds of other photos placed here prior to mine before you choose to discriminate against me. Second, as you seem to be unaware of certain parts of the law, but I recognize that being a lawyer is not a requirement of uploading photos to Wikipedia, images of public figures already on the internet etc. fall under the fair use provisions unless identified with copyright and owner source. Wikipedia wants photos, because they created the software to allow it, and created the required tick box for legal protection and their insurers. Photos add value to articles. No photo placed here by me had any copyright claim of any nature. And, I am not required by law, nor is Wikipedia by the DMCA, to check out if a photo not labeled as "copyright" should be. That borders on the absurd. And, in all circumstances, FIA and others, are very appreciative when an encyclopedia uses these photos in quality biographies - it is called free advertising for them and promotes their sport. Just, please do quality biographies from scratch like mine. Margaret Smith Court - Maureen Connolly - with photos. Want more? Joe Canuck 14:47 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

note: I've copied this to Joe Canuck's talk page, to keep everything together. I won't delete it because I know you don't approve of my cut&pasting activities... ;-) Martin 20:49 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sorry Oliver but you are wrong re-Zoe, as is explained on the Votes for D page by myself and Tim. You are talking about the normal course of events. Zoe was dealing with an extreme case and in such a case many sysops do what she does. The behaviour of some vandals in some cases simply don't give the option of waiting a week. In some cases, rarely but they do happen, sysops have to immediately. I would have acted in a different manner (using a different power first) but Zoe's behaviour is perfectly understandable in the circumstancs she was dealing with, and it is grossly unfair to attack her for doing her job when her doing her job cuts down on the risk of wiki being closed down because of copyright breaches and so avoids your work (and mine and everyone elses) being summarily deleted with wiki's forced closure. If she didn't respond then all the work of all the contributors could be for nothing if one company who found their text had been placed on wiki went to court and got an immediate close down ordered, or one was ordered by Jimbo to protect his company. And saying that we were supposed to put it on a discussion page so people could chat about it for one week would be no defence. They would want to know what it was not removed immediately. This particular user continuously reinstated text that was 100% breach of copyright. In that situation Bomis and wiki would have been fucked in the event of any court case. Zoe correctly treated the situation as an emergency that needed immediate action. And she like many sysops did in that situation what sysops do in emergencies, react immediately by deletion. It can later be reinstated and undeleted, but at that moment she judged that to cover wiki it had to be deleted. And I would certainly defend her right to to what she would, as would many sysops. FearÉIREANN 06:32 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I can't see how there would be any legal problems. If someone actually made a complaint, we would remove the material as and when the complaint was made. I can't see any court ruling that the Wikipedia would have to be closed down after that. -- Oliver P. 06:43 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Nod. We're protected by having a wikipedia:designated agent which, IIRC, gives us 15 days to make an informed decision before taking material down. (but IANAL) Martin

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Don't tell me off, but I've done the disambiguation wrong again (cutting and pasting instead of moving) with Nicholas Ridley. I'll try and remember next time. Deb 23:08 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Let's put it this way -- I've no objection to it being re-done, but I don't even want to think about doing my own dirty work. Cheers. Deb 17:15 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Don't worry, I've done it. :) -- Oliver P. 00:44 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oops, you're right about Wikimedia not being a new page; I did check its history, but I just kind of saw those first two edits having "19" for the date, blanked on the fact that they said "March" in front of that, and figured it was in sequence with the "20"s above, and was close enough to a new article. Maybe I was a little overzealous in wanting some mention of it in that area, but didn't think it warranted going in the "In the news" category. -- John Owens 19:57 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for explaining. Yep, I don't think Wikipedia is famous enough for a change in its organisation to make the news. Not just yet, anyway. ;) -- Oliver P. 00:44 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If pages weren't deleted so quickly, I could do more; although apparently User:Eloquence has taken some offense to my editing; arguing that I "edit too much."

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Pizza Puzzle

Thanks for rescuing that page, Mr. Puzzle. -- Oliver P. 00:44 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I saw that you put the Gujarat map I provide on the fr:wikipedia. Cool ! but I am in the process of relooking all the indian states and I put some new maps, ans they are much better... So, use them 8^)

see Goujerat

Nataraja

Okay, I'll be sure to use your new maps on the English-language Wikipedia in future, assuming I ever get round to adding them... Well done for making them. :) -- Oliver P. 00:44 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure that was a good idea, Oliver. The main page change has been discussed at length on Talk:Main Page/Temp, and many people have said that they like the coloured version better. It was only switched over when it seemed a consensus had finally been reached. -- Tim Starling 01:28 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to Talk:Main Page/Temp. But of course that page is for discussion of Main Page/Temp (a proposed new design for the Main Page), rather than for discussion of the Main Page itself. Once a consensus is reached on what a proposed new design should look like, whether or not that new design should actually replace the old one is another question altogether. Now that I've looked for it, I've found a comment by Eloquence dated 18:22 2 Jul 2003 (UTC) on Talk:Main Page (see here) announcing the forthcoming change. In the nine hours or so between that announcement and the change itself being made, no reply was made on that page. There was clearly not enough time for a discussion. Not that Eloquence was even inviting one: it's interesting that he announced that it "will soon be merged", rather than asking whether or not it was what people actually wanted. -- Oliver P. 00:44 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What the heck did you do on the main page, Oliver? The overwhelmingly view is that people much prefer the colour version. It is a bit . . . em . . . odd for you to unilaterally change the page when the clear majority indicated they far preferred the colour version to the old one. I have reverted the change back to what going by a headcount of comments is clearly by far the more popular version. (BTW I might as well declare an interest. I think the new version is 100 times better than what I have long thought was a poorly designed, underwhelming front page. My first reaction on seeing your change was "bloody hell! Is that hideous thing back again?" I checked on all the pages the new page has been discussed on and not merely the majority but the overwhelming majority prefer the new page to the old, hence the reversion.) FearÉIREANN 05:02 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ah, you did make me laugh when you accused me of unilateralism in your edit summary, James. :) I was, as you know, only restoring the Main Page back to its usual - and arguably more tasteful - state, which was of course no more "unilateral" an action than Eloquence's change was in the first place. We are, of course, all free to edit pages as we see fit, within the usual policy guidelines, and so if someone makes an edit we disagree with, we are perfectly within our rights to change things back. This is the nature of a wiki. And you do rather exaggerate your support in these sorts of disagreements, don't you? The coloured version was certainly not "by far the more popular version", by any stretch of the imagination. I did read the part of Talk:Main Page (see this version) from Fantasy's comment onwards. I made it:
In favour: Fantasy, Whkoh, JasonM, Eloquence, mav, FearÉIREANN
Against: James F., Usedbook, TomK32, stewacide
Which is only 6:4 in your favour. With my vote added, it's 6:5. Technically that's a majority, but not a significant one (let alone "overwhelming"), and I felt perfectly within my rights to change something which didn't have the support of any consensus.
By the way, I was annoyed (though not surprised) to find the colours back again when I signed in tonight. My first reaction on seeing the change was, "Bloody hell! Is that hideous thing back again?" :P -- Oliver P. 00:44 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The change has been debated for weeks on a temp page and a consensus reached. Putting together the debate there and on the main talk page the clear majority is in favour of it. Eloquence's insertion of the new page was not unilateral, it was long long debated, the colour scheme discussed in detail over weeks, variations suggestions, mock ups produced, alternative suggestions explored, etc. All that happened was that a long discussed, long planned and long analysed and agreed new page went 'live'. You then unilaterally overruled that debate and decided because you didn't want it, you were going to put in the version you wanted in, in the process overruling everyone else. In doing that you showed gross disrespect to the many people who took part in the debate, who put hours of work in, who sought opinions, who tweaked the temp page draft to suit observations. (BTW I was not a participant in that debate, merely an observer.) You and The Cunctator decided that you possessed a veto over everyone else's weeks of work. That was grossly unfair, though to be fair I presume (given that you normally don't act like this) that the problem was simply that you were unaware that wiki is currently undergoing a redesign and that what happened was not unilateral action by Eloquence but simply the going live of a redesign that had long been planned, worked on and agreed. (In The Cunctator's case it was simply he doing his usual 'I'll do what I want irrespective of anyone else' stunt.) FearÉIREANN 01:05 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

See my above reply to Tim Starling. The discussion page attached to the temp page is a discussion of the temp page, not of the Main Page. My understanding was that Main Page/Temp was just one proposal for a replacement Main Page. (Main Page/Temp2 is another, newer proposal - far more tasteful in my opinion, though still less so than the original.) I never commented on Talk:Main Page/Temp because I had nothing to say about the construction of Main Page/Temp itself. I just thought it was something that people were playing with, to see how it would go, and to be honest I thought the idea had been dropped, since I hadn't noticed it being discussed for a while. I wasn't aware that we were under any obligation to accept any such proposals as soon as someone decided to implement them; otherwise, I would have said something sooner. -- Oliver P. 01:26 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wait until you see my pages go live in full colour!!! :-b (joke!!!) FearÉIREANN 01:15 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, my old flower! Just letting people who expressed an opinion know that a mysterious vote has appeared from nowhere and they might want to formally register their vote there. But then as they have already clearly expressed their view, that counts as a de facto vote anyway.

Re the above, the temp page wasn't some theoretical 'what if' page, trying out mythical ideas for a new page. It was the planning of a new page. The plan was always, when there was agreement on a new page it would go live. There was agreement on a new page. It went live, as planned. As to the German page, as my flatmate said, "its so, em . . . so . . . german". By which he meant dull and conformist. (Wild for Germany is sending a 50 year old in a mullet hairstyle and leather trousers to look and sound like a 1980s Rip Van Winkle in the Eurovision Contest.) Actually I love germans - I've gone out with two, lived in Frankfurt and have an ex living there. My favourite 'German' experience was seeing five Germans, standing on O'Connell Street in Dublin at 4.30am. Not a car within a quarter-mile and still they stand waiting for the green man and the traffic lights and look with incredulity at the sight of three Irish people and one Brit crossing the totally empty street without getting the OK from the green man. They seemed devoted to order and structure (including in their clothes sense, where he four men - in their 40s - were all wearing leather trousers and polo-neck tops. Heck they each had two ex-wives!). By the end of the trip they had almost done my head in. Even worse when I visited them, all their friends wore leather trousers and polo necks, dared not cross a roadway without getting green-man permission, drank the same number of beers, went home at the same time, and all seemed to be in the middle of their latest divorce before marrying wife number 3! Freaky. (You'd never catch me in a polo-neck, through I do wear leather trousers occasionally!) FearÉIREANN 03:12 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Just as a point of conversation, do you really think of Alice as being pedantic? I think she is perhaps sometimes....err... over-resolutely concrete.... but I rather think that makes her like most small children, rather than like a scholar! -- Someone else 00:46 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Erm... I don't really know. The word was already in the article before I edited it, so I deny responsibility for it! Probably she was more the victim of the other characters' various bizarre forms of pedantry, now that I come to think of it. Feel free to change it; I'm sure you can express things better than I can... -- Oliver P. 00:57 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Oh, I don't know about that! I was prepared to reassess my dismissal of her pedantry if you thought otherwise<G>. I think you're right about Alice-as-victim-rather-than-perpetrator. -- Someone else 01:04 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)
If people have started taking my opinions seriously, then I think I must have inadvertently stepped into a strange mirror universe... ;) -- Oliver P. 01:12 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Start humbly... a small reality-warping bubble should do for most purposes<G>. -- Someone else 01:28 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If text immediately follows a tag, it appears as indented on the page. There needs to be a blank line between the end of the tag and the text. RickK 01:08 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation! -- Oliver P. 01:19 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for your guilt. I have taken your issue to the mailing list and propose that, as punishment, your user page be deleted and all contributions you have made should be rolled back, regardless of whether later editors have modified the text. Good day, and WikiLove to you! Pizza Puzzle

I was curious about whether my strategy is a valid one. I don't understand the copyright restrictions well enough. Is it acceptable to: 1) Use multiple sources for your information, 2) Paraphrase and rewrite so that it is worded different (and/or a combination of the multiple sources)? I have done that sort of thing before. I would get 3-4 sites and combine key points from each of them and reword it in a completely different way. What do you think? Randyc 04:23 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer. :) But what you're saying sounds perfectly fine, if it really is rewritten. The number of sources isn't really relevant, I don't think. Anything that's written in your own words is all right. As for how much you have to change something for it to be considered "your own words", well, that's the tricky part. I'm probably not the best person to ask. :) Maybe Wikipedia:Village pump would be the right place to ask, if you want other people's opinions. Do you have a specific example that you are worried about? -- Oliver P. 04:32 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oliver, I've noticed that you've been removing & posting for deletion a number of articles that are using material from the Open Directory. Reading the terms of use on that site, it appears to me that as long as the submitting individual gives proper credit to Open Directory, it can be used & modified in Wikipedia -- the same terms we use material from the out-of-copyright 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica articles. If proper attributions are added to these article, then we can use the material.

Then again, you may be following a decision made before I ever started contributing to Wikipedia. Is that the case, or did you miss this part of the OD License? -- llywrch 05:03 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

We might be able to use it, but it wouldn't be covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. It's not the same as with the Britannica articles: those are now public domain, which means that anyone can use them pretty much however they want. However, the Open Directory articles are licensed under the terms of the Open Directory License, which means that any works derived from them need to be released under the Open Directory License as well. That licence is viral in just the same way that the GFDL is. If we started to use this material, what with all the copying and pasting of bits of text from article to article, we'd end up with a large proportion of our material covered by the Open Directory License instead of by the GFDL. Come to think of it, we couldn't put it into our GFDLed articles at all, because that would mean releasing the whole modified article under the terms of the Open Directory License, which we couldn't do unless all the previous contributors of that article agreed to it: they've only agreed to release their content under the GFDL, you see, not the Open Directory License. We'd just end up in a horrible mess, with two distinct parts of the Wikipedia: a GFDL part and an Open Directory License part. -- Oliver P. 05:15 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

(Sorry for the delay in responding, Oliver: in part I've been thinking over your response, & mostly have been busy at the Open Source Convention here in Portland. Also, I didn't see the discussion on Village pump.)

It is very tempting to say that the ODL license easily subsumes the GFD License (much like the BSD license is subsumed by the GPL), & I somewhat lean towards this POV, but until we get a clear ruling on the matter, I agree with you that removing these articles is the best solution. It should be up to the contributor to prove this argument before we accept these articles. (And it might better help contributors who find their submissions removed if the reason were stated as a "license conflict" rather than "copyright violation".) -- llywrch 00:08 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I confess to having complete (and apparently blissful) ignorance of Jordan, but I've glanced at the article. Is this a woman or a soap opera!?<G>. I don't think there was much to change in terms of the description of the various diseases. It is mentioned that she is famous for the size of her breasts: am I correct in assuming this is because they are grotesquely large rather than vanishingly small? -- Someone else 04:09 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In that context, it can be capitalised or left in lowercase. Often when talking about someone being something, it is OK to have it lowercased. So one would write of Elizabeth II being queen. Mary McAleese being president of Ireland, Tony Blair being prime minister. But if one used the definite article in the sentence, capitalisation would be obligatory, hence Elizabeth II being the Queen, Mary McAleese being the President of Ireland, Tony Blair being the Prime Minister. If it was purely my choice I would still capitalise, but given the lowercase or death brigade, I thought it wiser and less troublesome to pick the lowercase option, not least because I had not linked it. But once linked as you did, I would go uppercase as a matter of style. Of course that would be heresy to the LoD fanatics. But then I find their lack of concern with proper english weird in the extreme. I came across a page lately where someone was advising me to "chill" over my demand for proper upper casing, they asking "what does it matter?" I was so tempted to leave a message saying "it may not matter to the illiterate, but to those concerned about producing a professional encyclopædia, it matters 100% about spelling, grammar, capitalisation, etc." (Translated - you illiterate berk!) But don't worry, I am not giving away one inch on proper capitalisation! (I'm sorry, BTW but everytime I will ever see Jordan from now on I will think of you! Hee Hee! All I hope that no-one ever remembers that tonight I defended Celia Larkin, the Alexis Carrington of Irish politics!!! FearÉIREANN 05:28 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Regarding pedantry: The links changed did not link to State. None of them. They were labeled so, but didn't link there. They linked to Bundesland, which is a disambiguation page. Changing links to a disambiguation page into links to the detailed articles is in fact called disambiguating.

Regarding your proposal to link to an article with a different name: I just changed 250 articles. Implementing your proposal would imply changing them again. Let's wait until there is need to do so and do it than, not now. -- JeLuF 09:56 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for kicking off Gerald Duckworth. I admit I knew absolutely nothing about him - I wasn't even sure if he was the publisher. Deb 16:27 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Hi there! I just read your note about Nursling. Sorry to be such a townie, but having come across Wikipedia:WikiProject London I have to say I took our London ways out into the country side - and no nad thing perhaps. Having developed this convention for London I think it is only sensible to extend this out to the countryside, even if this can only be done by selecting location to be found on straight lines criss-crossing the soft green mantle of Albion's landscape.Harry Potter 12:57 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Not me Guv! Mintguy

Er.. yeah it's a fair cop. I was just looking at my archive. I remember now (sort of). I made a big balls up. Someone moved 'List_of_places_in_London' and I was moving it back but I made a cock up, I accidentally moved 'Talk:List_of_places_in_London,_England' to 'List_of_places_in_London', so I have to put it back and I couldn't fix it properly as I'm not a sysop. I'm afraid I completely forgot about it. Mintguy

This search should pick up any that need moving (it doesn't include redirects, handily, though it will return some disambiguation pages and other oddities). I had no idea there were so many distinct places within London, and I'm starting to go a bit mad with moving them all around, I think. I'm sure some of them have been made up just to annoy me (I mean, Pratt's Bottom?). I really appreciate your help, by the way. --Camembert

It's looks like the only one left is Debden, London, England, which appears to be a different place to Debden, England. I'm not sure how to handle this, as they're both in Essex - any ideas? --Camembert

Debden (nasty urban one) and Debden (nice rural one) use parentheses rather than commas, and so must be superior ;) I'll leave it in your capable hands, I think - I'm off to bed now. Thanks again for the help. --Camembert

I demand you talk some sense into Fernando! Pizza Puzzle

Hi Oliver, I've put forward some other ideas about how to make the VFD page more user-friendly and more decisive. They are on the Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion. I'd welcome your observations. lol FearÉIREANN 00:41 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)