User talk:Wik/Archive December 2003

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Why are you reverting the content of Sarah Edmonds without comment? RickK 02:01, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I was reverted first. --Wik 02:03, Dec 1, 2003 (UTC)
No, you reverted me first. (Danny)
This is pretty clear: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Sarah_Edmonds&diff=1849085&oldid=1849069 --Wik 02:07, Dec 1, 2003 (UTC)

What is your problem with the Hank Eskin page? Can you please discuss it rather than reverting? Angela 20:51, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wik, please stop reverting so often. It's annoying to almost everyone. It's much better to respect what other people are doing, and to either edit the page to make it better, or to post your concerns on a talk page.

Reverting is poor form. Jimbo Wales 23:47, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's also annoying to me when my edits are reverted. It is not logical that people can override edit conflicts without any consequence and I am blamed when I revert to my version. Another reason to revert is when my concerns on a talk page fall on deaf ears as the other side is just interested in pushing a POV or just trolling; absent any better mechanism for resolving such conflicts what am I to do but revert? --Wik 01:32, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)
Well, my main suggestion, and not just to you but to anyone, is to avoid just writing 'rv' and reverting whenever you can. Generally speaking, it would be better if you made new edits that attempt to be mutually satisfactory. Yes, I know that sometimes it's difficult. But I feel that you rely too heavily on 'rv', and that it gets in the way of you ultimately getting the changes that you want. Jimbo Wales 21:29, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing Anton Chekhov. Martin 00:46, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that collage link in Mina Loy Bmills 09:01, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Umlaut

Re" your recent rename of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius: is there a clear, canonical way to put an umlaut'ed vowel in an English-language topic title? Lack of certainty about that is exactly why I didn't move it when I recently edited. Is there somewhere I should have been able to look this up? Please reply on my talk page User talk:Jmabel. -- Jmabel 03:17, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. There is no reason not to include umlauts or any other ASCII characters in titles, only Unicode doesn't work. --Wik 03:23, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I've noticed in general that a lot of titles seem to avoid them (same for acute accents & other diacriticals). My guess was that the intent was to make it easier to link: for example, I have no easy way to type an umlauted 'o' on my keyboard, so I insert them as 'ö', which of course would not link the same as 'ö'. Again, please reply on my talk page User talk:Jmabel, & thanks for the help. -- Jmabel 03:41, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Re: List of national leaders - where did you get your updated spellings from? I'm sure your right - just interested. I used the BBC's country profiles to compile it. Secretlondon 19:06, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

Rulers.org is the best source for that. --Wik 19:12, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

Please see the vote at Talk:2003 Canada-U.S. blackout. Angela. 04:35, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wik, I've noticed that you've occasionally come into the interminable Silesia arguments to express your agreement with Caius2ga. I was wondering if you could present more fully your thoughts on this article, as Caius2ga is extremely difficult to deal with, and perhaps more definite thoughts from you would help us arrive at some kind of consensus. john 22:03, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi WIk. I'd welcome your comments on Mother Teresa. I respect your factual integrity and ability, even though I have been critical of how I believe you rub others up the wrong way. Your independent voice would be most welcome. FearÉIREANN 03:41, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, Wik, for offering your advice. It was much appreciated and was as valuable and honest as I expected; that was the reason I asked for your advice. I value your independence of mind and your judgment. And yes I have responded badly to Erik's criticism. I suppose I react badly to being accused of bias, a particular irony given that I went to the page in the first place to tone down the glorification tone of the start of the article, only to find that one third of the article sold a 'MT was the greatest human being of the 20th century' message, and that two-thirds sold a 'MT was a corrupt intolerant bitch' message. Both were repulsively OTT. Yet the moment the latter two-thirds were touched, a blitzkrieg erupted, with reversions, threatened deletions, accusations of censorship, theats of bans, of pro-catholic bias, etc etc. Those editing the page from a 'pro-catholic' perspective were open in saying that they did not in any way see my edits as 'pro-catholic'. One user did (as he did when Ed Poor raised questions as to the neutrality of the article, only to be then described as a "self confessed admirer of MT". Or when Daniel raised simple questions, only to be treated with a "read the fucking article" diatribe). I am use to seeing the odd extremist appear on wikipedia and highjack an article. It is depressing when one of the developers does it. So that is why I did react the way I did, and yes it was unwise. We all are human, I suppose!

But again, thank you for commenting. Your comments were highly thought-provoking. FearÉIREANN 06:40, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've tried to call a vote on the Silesia introduction, with various questions about different specific issues, so that perhaps we can try to get somewhere on this. Since you've participated in the debate, I'd appreciate your vote. john 21:41, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

On Wikipedia talk:Edit conflicts, I wrote:

Well, what constitutes evidence that makes such an occurence [that is, someone ignoring an edit conflict] obvious? It would help if you could list edits where you think this has happened to you. Then we can ask the other people involved what they experienced, and come up with guidelines that will satisfy everyone. -- Cyan 03:31, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

To which you replied:

If a user gets the edit conflict screen, he can be expected to either repeat his edit on the basis of the previous user's edit, or analyze the diff and repeat the previous user's edit on the basis of his. It may be an accident if a user applies the latter method and misses a part of the previous user's edit, but if he reverts the entire previous edit, he apparently hasn't even tried. --Wik 03:48, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

I was just looking through the history of Sarah Edmonds, and I noted that your edit [1] introduced three changes: "Emma", her middle name, "December", for her date of birth, and a wikilink for Houston, Texas. Danny's edit [2] reversed the first two of your changes, but left the third intact. By the standard you put forth in the quoted text above, it would appear that Danny's reversion of your edit was accidental. I felt you would want to know this, as I have observed you are meticulous about claiming responsibility when you feel you have made an error. Cheers, Cyan 05:10, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You're confusing my previous acknowledged practice (which included reversion even in case of accidents) with my compromise proposal for the new policy which would tolerate accidents but condemn deliberate reversion. --Wik 05:23, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

So let me ask you, did you know that Danny's reversion was accidental at the time you reverted? -- Cyan 05:55, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I didn't care. I was reverting anyway. --Wik 06:07, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

So did you or didn't you? -- Cyan 06:20, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't remember if I registered that he left the Houston wikilink intact. I just know that I noticed that he reverted the Emma and December. --Wik 06:26, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, if that same situation arose again, and you did notice that part of your edit was kept, would you revert? Or has your personal policy now changed to the compromise version? -- Cyan 06:29, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I can live with the new policy, if it's stable now. --Wik 06:38, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

Well I'm not fiddling with it, that's for sure. I wonder if you might be willing to make one further compromise: when you've been overwritten, if you do decide that it was deliberate and that reversion is justified, could you include more information in the edit summary as to why you're reverting? It seems to me that people are actually quite eager to include your edits in the cases where those edits been overwritten; folks just need some extra help figuring out why you're reverting. Just some specifics as to which words are being changed would help enormously. In terms of expended effort, doing this will save you having to watch articles that are being reverted back and forth, and it will very much reduce the hostile comments whose responses occupy much of your time that could more profitably be spent working on articles. What do you think? -- Cyan 06:45, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. --Wik 06:52, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

:-) -- Cyan 06:54, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ditto Cyan on the :-). Sorry for all the edit warring over it. I'm glad a compromise has been reached. Angela. 06:59, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
So am I. Perhaps we both learnt something. Martin 00:41, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

From 1886, both his mother and Louis Passinock faded from Godowsky's life. Passinock's fate is unknown and all we know of Anna Godowsky is that she died shortly before the First World War (she and her son had retained a nominal contact). (Wikikiwi)

Louis Passinock lived impoverished in the cellar of a fish factory on the West Coast. (No, actually, I have no idea what you're talking about.) --Wik 22:47, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

You have joined the discussion of whether Brunswick or Braunschweig should be the home of the article on the German city several times now. The decision still appears to be at an impasse. Could I ask you to take a few minutes to review the facts presented on Talk:Brunswick and share your current thoughts? Thanks. Rossami 22:28, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think we've made our case. Not sure what more to say to convince Jtdirl, but if the new vote is in favour of Braunschweig he may go along with that. --Wik 22:47, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)
The debate on Brunswick/Braunschweig seems to have run its course. The vote has been open for a week with no new votes in over 5 days. Thanks again for your help. Would you do the honors with the page moves? Rossami

Hi Wik,

You and I have been going back and forth on the Free energy entry a few times now.

Could you please tell me why you keep removing a link to my Free Energy coverage at GreaterThings.com? It is recognized by many in that field of study as one of the best FE news and directory services.

I can't fathom why you refuse to allow people to be informed of it.

Sterlingda 16:44, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If your site were relevant at all, it would belong on Renewable energy, which is the term we use here. Free energy should not have more than a cross-reference. --Wik 21:44, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Zimbabwe-Rhodesia

Do you have any conclusive proof that there should be no hyphen? I don't; I have only ever seen the name hyphenated, but will stand corrected if you can proove this to be incorrect. I'll see if I can find an atlas printed during the time when this name was current, but in the meantime, do you have any evidence? 80.255 21:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That is confirmed by any source from the time, e.g. "Nation of Zimbabwe Rhodesia Is Proclaimed and Muzorewa Hails Black Victory", New York Times, June 1, 1979. --Wik 21:44, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
The Beeb doesn't seem to agree - [3] and there is much disagreement in online sources. You'd need an actual government document of the time to be sure on this point. Stan 23:08, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Old Europe: thanks for fixing the Rumsfeld quote. I couldn't figure out how. Darkelf 19:29, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)


Thank you for correcting my spelling of "organizatoin" on the PLO page. sigh....cut and page from the UN page, and in changing all capital letters to mixed case, I bobbled two keys ;( Thank you again. OneVoice 13:19, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Spelling of Swiss Cantons

I've noticed that you've changed the spelling of Berne into Bern. I'm aware that the German spelling (Bern) is sometimes used in English, but I suggest we use Berne throughout. This so because we've got the Berne Convention. Also, the entry on Switzerland shows Berne. Kokiri 22:37, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've just seen that you changed Zurich into Zürich (with umlauts) in the Swiss Council of States article. Now, Zurich is definitely the English spelling for that place... Kokiri 22:42, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I don't think we should use "Berne" just to fit "Berne Convention". "Berne" is an old English version that is falling out of use. Google shows 130,000 hits for "Bern Switzerland" and only 40,300 for "Berne Switzerland". Also, Zurich is not an "English" spelling. It's an ignore-the-umlaut spelling. But we can and do use diacritics here. --Wik 22:56, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)


Berne and Zurich are the standard spellings used in english. Please stop using ridiculous google searches. They are absolutely worthless because they are based on self-selecting sources and make no distinction between accuracy and bullshit, of which there is a vast amount on the net. As to umlauts, they are rarely used in english. Zurich is the correct version in english. FearÉIREANN 23:01, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Jtdirl, it seems futile to repeat the discussion we already had at Brunswick, which is the same case as Berne, and I refer you to the vote at Talk:Brunswick. I don't want to repeat myself, but stripping a name of umlauts doesn't make it an "English name". Zurich, Dusseldorf, Malmo, Sao Tome and Principe - those are not "English" names. Those places simply don't have a special English name, so we use the original including diacritics. --Wik 23:10, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Can I ask you to contribute on Talk:Switzerland? Kokiri 23:26, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)