User talk:Protonk

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IF YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE I GOOFED AN EDIT OR SOMETHING I DID NEEDS TO BE CORRECTED, PLEASE CORRECT IT. I'M HUMAN. I MAKE MISTAKES. PLEASE DON'T JUST REVERT IT BUT ASSUME THAT I WON'T GET UPSET IF YOU TINKER WITH MY EDITS

Here it is! Protonk (talk) 04:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 Welcome! 1.1 Additional tips 1.2 Current open tasks 2 Re: Notability of Royalty 3 Mathematical economics 4 Re: 5 HI 6 Take it easy 7 Response to comments on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/desysop poll 8 Re: Bloody Sunday 9 Wikilinks 10 Your recent edits 11 Image copyright problem with Image:John Fauquier.jpg 12 Yo 13 Re: GVAC 14 Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wealthiest_families_in_history 15 Occupied territories

[edit] Welcome!

[edit] Re: Notability of Royalty

Thank you for posting on my user page, I think you will find that I respond better and have much more time and patience to settle "personal" disputes when it is removed from an ongoing situation. As you can imagine, there are huge and numerous issues with the notability of royalty on Wikipedia on either side: first, the people who think most or all are notable have to deal with the AfDs, etc, and defend the articles because they don't want to see them deleted. Then, the people who speak for royalty not always being notable have to combat with a serious lack of justification from the other side with ambiguous conventions and guidelines on either side. The issue has always been the notability of royalty as a group versus royal individuals themselves. Is it not easy to agree that an individual can belong to a very notable group but on their own they are not notable at all? It is quite possible that in sometime that little Eléonore of Belgiumm, for instance (of much more exalted position than the Ladies Windsor, even if newly-born), a scion of the House of Wettin, of the Belgian royal family and so on, will become a notable individual in her own right but none of the attributes she has now make her unique or noteworthy outside of the context of other people.

You are right, I am very well acquainted with royalty; I know some royals, I work here and there on articles (about two thousand are on my watchlist at any given time, mostly all of which are royalty) and I make it my business to know as much as I can but also not to overemphasize the frivolities and trivial matters which don't make an encyclopedia. I won't hold that above others though. I won't say "I know everything" or "I know more", but I will simply state at times that people don't know in general. Face value: all royalty appears notable. We're working with content though. The appearance of someone or something in a news article, or even as a news article's subject doesn't make that person automatically notable on their own. Maybe there is enough to fill an article with information that would otherwise be useless on an article of a non-royal individual but that doesn't create encyclopedic content: it creates a genealogical directory, an Almanach de Gotha or a Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, none of which Wikipedia is. The issue is creating precedent that will eventually (and has, before, to articles most would agree are wholly unsuited to Wikipedia). I ask the question, what is the advantage of having articles for these people in educating people that cannot be accomplished in Family and Children sections on the pages of their notable parents? My "anger" comes from the complete and total lack of justification given to the royalty = notable arguments, the lack of acknowledgement to queries on why people choose arbitrary numbers like 10 (or 25 in some arguments) and the fact that some articles like the ones on the Ladies Windsor plainly and clearly only serve as bare-bone biographical data without stating why they even need a biography if they interest is that they are on a list.

The attempt to keep things civil is best made if the party assumed to be most aggressive (probably me) offers a location where he or she is sure things can cool down. To me it sounds like a rather smart idea. I know what happens when such things continue *in* the source of the conflict, the multiply and carry on. I've observed it and have been on both sides. If I thought viewpoints were entirely irrelevant, I would have said so, ignored the lot of you and wouldn't be replying to you right now. I find the viewpoints to be misguided and if one person realizes it then it is better than none. Charles 04:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematical economics

Thanks for recent efforts on Mathematical economics, Protonk. If you're able to get back to it any time soon, you might consider way condensing the Heilbroner quote. (I'd guess that a concise rendering would improve on the source.) Also, a page-specific reference within the Boland citation would help. (An aside: I'd be surprised, & delighted, to learn that Popper ever wrote about math econ, as that citation suggests he did.) Again, thx. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 18:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

On trimming, Heil. rambles, so I wouldn't be shy about cutting -- a lot. It is clearly polemical in part, which makes summarizing esp. in order. Since quotation is linked exactly to online source, page numbering is not a biggie there.

If Boland's discussion in on googlebooks, that would have page numbers for the book. I'm not here referring to the pp. for the whole article but where in the article it discusses what is referred to in WP Math econ. For examples of footnoted online links, there is Quantity theory of money, fn. 19 (variations permitted of course). BW, Thomasmeeks (talk) 19:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thx for your industry. BW, Thomasmeeks (talk) 01:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:

Nah, don't worry, doing so was my bad. Sorry! PS: I've restored your text. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 08:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, good luck to you on yours as well. :) +Hexagon1 ^(t) 23:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] HI

You just reviewed me at WP:ER. Thank you. I voted delete for Bloody Sunday (1969). Look at the history and it is an unsourced one liner. Me what do u want? _{Your Hancock Please} 11:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It's O. K. And I used Big delete because Speedy delete would imply that it passes CSD. I said that it just failed the CSD for little or no context. Me what do u want? _{Your Hancock Please} 17:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Take it easy

I don't revert for the joy of it. I reverted you due to a very clear error in the introduced changes. Current version is not perfect either, but there's no clear error that mandates anything other than collaborative discussion.
Take it easy, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied to you here: User_talk:Jaakobou#reverts. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Response to comments on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/desysop poll

As that page got archived and the discussion closed, I'd just like to respond to your comments to me on that page here quick: First, the parallel drawn between an inactive admin here and an employee who leaves a company is not valid. The company deactivates all the employee's security access because the employee no longer has the authority to use them; it parallels much more strongly with being desyssopped than becoming inactive. As for the hackability of inactive admin accounts: Stealing the password of an active admin is far, far easier than stealing the password of an inactive one. Active admins could sign into and walk away from a computer, have spyware or trojans on their computer, or just be always signed into a computer that's open to access by their mischievous younger siblings. Any brute force attack that could be done on an inactive admin's account could be done on an active admin's account just as easily. Of the 990 active administrators, how many of them do you think are security conscious enough to refrain from keeping the same password for months if not years at a time? For that matter, if you wanted to break into an account, why would you bother with an admin account at all when there are bureaucrat, steward, and checkuser accounts available for the hacking? I simply do not understand the logic that says that the more sysop accounts there are, the easier it is to hack into one. All it takes is one account with a weak password that get's attacked, and removal of the inactive accounts is not going to substantially reduce that risk as there will still be hundreds of accounts with static easily hacked passwords. Seeing every inactive admin account as "a potential vandal with wide ranging powers and no automatic red flags" is being excessively paranoid in my opinion.--Dycedarg ж 22:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

(I usually respond to comments on my talk page on the talk page of the user who made the comment, I'd prefer if you respond to me on my talkpage as well.) To clarify: I stated that we have 990 active accounts. We have ~1,538 sysop accounts total. Incidentally, only approximately 84 of those accounts would have qualified as inactive for the purposes of the failed proposal. The full list including definitions of what constitutes an active/inactive account exists here. Now on to business: Well, to respond to your argument concerning the increased danger due to lack of vigilance on an inactive account: I'd argue that in a wiki system, what could be done with an inactive admin is extremely minimal. First of all, all sysop actions are recorded in the relevant logs. I find it difficult to believe that a vandal would be so subtle as to avoid attracting attention for any length of time. For that matter, merely the fact that an editor who hadn't edited in a year is suddenly performing admin actions without warning would attract attention. Just note what happened when Lord Voldemort showed up on the desyssop poll to comment: He had half a dozen people commenting on his talk page in no time at all. If said person wasn't acting like his usual self any odd-looking sysop actions would throw up a red flag immediately. I will admit that someone who really knew what he was doing could get away with really minor stuff for possibly a long time, but what's the point of that? They wouldn't be able to do anything fun: No deleting the main page, blocking Jimbo, moving USA to poop etc., nor would they be able to do any major damage. People tend to notice suspicious out of process deletions, they'd never get away with blocking someone or abusing page protection, what else is there to do? As for distributed brute force attacks: An approximately 5% decrease in the number of admin accounts is not going to reduce the dangers of that. I don't think they're particularly possible anyway; as I understand it (though I'd be the first to admit that my understanding of mediawiki's security is rather minimal) log-in attempts are throttled by IP, not by the username you attempted to login under; an increase in the number of accounts should not substantially increase your ability to manage this. Really, I don't think there's any practical way to do it at all. And finally: Security, in the end, is the responsibility of the developers just as much as performance is. We can't know for sure what benefits any particular action will have for the security of the site unless they tell us, and there really isn't much purpose to attempting to bolster the site's security on our own without any word from them on the potential effectiveness of our actions. The only comments by developers on this issue I can ever recall reading were to dismiss it as not a major security issue. So I don't think it's something worth worrying about for now.

As a final comment: I do agree with you that there might be security benefits. I agree that as the number of admin accounts rises, the possibility for issues to rise also increases. However, I do not agree with the development of policy solely for the purpose of solving vague, hypothetical concerns that have never risen, nor with the wisdom of solving potential future problems that have not been proven to currently exist by creating complex work-intensive policies now.--Dycedarg ж 00:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Bloody Sunday

Don't worry, I totally understand :) I knew the content I had added wasn't very wikified, but I figured if I got an initial base up a more knowledgeable wikipedian could really make it a good article. Thank you for the work on it as well :) --Dustinmacdonald (talk) 00:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't really have any sources which would help this one. No problem helping out with Fauquier though. David Underdown (talk) 17:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks

Hey, you're making more work for yourself than you need in your wikilinks. You don't need (and shouldn't use) all those underscores. I've taken most of them out from the Patrick Tyler article. You can follow that format for any others you do. :) Aleta ^Sing 04:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 22:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:John Fauquier.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:John Fauquier.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the copyright status of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the copyright status of the image on the image's description page, using an appropriate copyright tag, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided copyright information for them as well.

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This is an automated notice by STBotI. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 17:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Yo

Response on my talkpage. Skomorokh 19:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: GVAC

Protonk, thanks for your concern, but I think at this point I am just to disillusioned with WikiPedia to even care any more. Every one of the points made by people that want our article deleted could be argued, but I don't much see the point. It seems to me after doing some reading of the deletion logs that once a site is nominated for any reason, it's an uphill battle for anyone to keep the article. Take our article for example.

The first claim was it reads like an advertisement. What is an advertisement other than a bunch of information about something. Sounds like the definition of an encyclopedia entry to me. Any set of informative subject matter about anything could be claimed as an advertisement.

Next, and only after the initial claim noted above, we are told that we are not notable because we don't have another source that remarks about our network. How many articles on WP have no sources at all, or have completely useless sources that in the end have nothing to do with the original text, yet they are not put through all this. I think this is a very poor test of weather information is useful to other people, which should be the true judge of notability for WP.

The last thing is so many people say the article needs to be improved to change their mind, but I have yet to see anything but blind criticism.

I'm not going to continue debating the points made, but I think you get my point. From my point of view, and I would bet most other people who have their articles deleted, one person comes up with their "Personal Opinion" of an article and makes the nomination for deletion. Then 15 other people all just agree with that first person, and the writer of the article is left to argue against a crowd.

In the end, our article will be deleted no matter what we say. There is nothing we can do about it, because the rules, and regulations at WP are so vague and left up to interpretation. I don't doubt that you are not related with other networks, but I can't speak for the rest of the people making mindless objections on the deletion discussion. It has happened many times with the IVAO and VATSIM debates, people have been seen bragging about it on their network forums, of course only to be removed by the first staff member that sees them. Why should I think that it is any different here?

In the end, it's just not worth my time to deal with this any more, and more than likely will never be in the future. If I had a subject to write about that I could site through the roof, after this experience I wouldn't bother posting it. Not when there is a chance that one person with a personal ax to grind starting a deletion discussion, to be followed by a slew of other people mindlessly agreeing with the first, causes me to have to spend any amount of effort defending the article. In the end this also only leads one to have a whole lot less respect for the information that is left here knowing that the process that judges it is so flawed.

Ryan Waldron (talk)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wealthiest_families_in_history

Thanks for your sensible input here. I am neither an economist nor a historian, but I do know dodgy methodology when I see it. Problem is that the topic is probably worthy of a PhD thesis, but not within Wikipedia parameters. I feel, in this case, for the author of the article, who hasn't defended it, and wouldn't want to discourage him (or her). I spend most of my time reverting and blocking completely unworthy vandals, so when I come across an editor who clearly has spent a great deal of time and effort on a pet project, it's difficult to stomach the fact that he may be disheartened and cease editing here altogether. However, I don't see any way his article can be rescued. Shame, in a way. --Rodhullandemu 00:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Occupied territories

It doesn't, but it isn't a country. works for a community. And If I'm going to make generalizations about communities, I would prefer to pick the smallest community possible before assuming homogeneity (I'm not saying that you are doing that). Protonk (talk) 00:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't be misled - the correct term is "occupied territories". There has been a massive tendatious discussion on this, see here, but as far as I'm aware there's no real question that it's correct. PR^talk 07:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)