Messages from 10 July to 4 September 2004

Pronunciation

I'm curious as to how to pronounce your name. -Paul

re: Concealed ovulation

First: yipes, orthoganal. I didn't check authorship to see that it was yours. My apologies. I got the nickname "ge-ogre" for a certain pugilism that I can adopt in academic matters.
Second: my objection is so much the verb of the title that I can hardly say. I do know that there is anthropological research on the matter. I believe that it's there, but I'm personally getting more and more suspicious (and possibly polemical) about evolutionary biology. It's not because I think it's wrong, but more that it's unverifiable and nondisprovable. It ends up, as I've said elsewhere, saying, "Whatever is, is right." One can look at any behavior or fact of the present and construct an evolutionary biological scenario that would explain it. In that way, it can be like Freudianism: once you possess the approach, you can make everything fit. For example, if male standards of beauty are for thin, then we can say that thin represents wealth, and if they're for fat, we can say that that represents wealth, and if female selection appears to be based on leks, we can say that the cell phone waggling in bars is a lek, or that the drug use is a lek, or that the car is a lek, or, well, whatever we wish.
Third: I mean no disrespect with my skepticism, nor do I mean to suggest that it came without foundation. All along, I've wanted there to be a good discussion of human fertility and the Anthropology and evolutionary biology explanations of it. I didn't like the implicit hide and seek of "concealed" fertility.
If no one takes offense, I think that a sort of skeptical (and that's how it's intended, just as skepticism) line on the discussion page is more than enough. The POV of the page is not in dispute. Nor are the facts.

I apologize again if I've given offense. In political and social matters, you'll be hard pressed to find someone farther left, but on academic matters I tend to be more conservative than most. Geogre 00:38, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As I've indicated on that Discussion page, now, I didn't think you were implying Intelligent Design, but I was and am concerned that coincidental mutation that serves an adaptive goal must never be confused with being because of the goal. The closer evolutionary theory gets to behavior, the more uncomfortable I get with it, because humans keep demonstrating a mutability that defies all categorization.

I hope the Slashdotters got it. If it doesn't have a Groklaw reference in it, I'm not sure... :-) (Yeah, I'm a reader of /., usually.)

Also, though, I went to a Ph.D. program where the official line was, "We make American scholars" (with that last word lasting about 8 syllables). The emphasis was academically conservative (fact fact fact history history fact, interpretation on your own time, Buster), where all innovations were subjected to intense scrutiny -- not because of the "culture wars," but because of the old, European, positivistic emphasis on "rigor." Detractors said "rigor mortis." Stanley Fish said, "Soon, all English Departments will be obsolete, except for that museum over in Chapel Hill." The CH response was, "We ought to make that our motto." Geogre 03:26, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good evening. I think your suggestions for an opposition section would be good for this article. I tried to incorporate your thoughts and realized I was doing a bad job so I took them back out. I'll keep trying to research it though. Thanks again. Rossami 23:04, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

How to create userpage subpages

[1]

Uh...ah... I'm never sure how much of that lot to chop off for the internal link, so I've just left the whole thing in there, I know you'll know what to do with it.--Bishonen 20:07, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Administrator nomination

Hi Geogre, you don't seem to be on the Wikipedia:List of administrators, but I think you should. I'll nominate you for adminship if you like. You can reply here or on my talk page. Happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 01:08, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, Wile E. Had anyone else proposed it, I would have said no, but, time and again, I've seen that your judgment has earned respect. If you believe that I can help the project as an admin., then I accept the nomination and hope, if others agree, to find ways of aiding in the strength of Wikipedia, as well as its growth. Geogre 12:53, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Terrific! I have posted your nomination at WP:RFA. Please reply there to accept. You've always shown good judgement, so I think you'll be a great administrator. You don't have to give up being an ordinary editor, but I hope that if the situation demands it (or perhaps merely asks nicely) you'll be able to weigh in. Regards & happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 14:25, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely. Thank you again. I don't know quite how to say this, but I'm for Cincinnatus admins. People who answer the call, rather than ring their own bell, and I hope it all succeeds. As for those who say that there is no power in the position but who feel that they have to vote against giving the power that they think is not there to one who feels differently from them about the general philosophy of Wikipedia, I'm not sure what to say, so I'll say nothing. I wish them no ill, but it is an odd argument. Geogre 04:09, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fetish articles

Hi George,

You state "I'm on record as opposing all those tiny fetish activities getting primacy of namespace on their specialist articles". Would you care to elaborate on this please ?

Dlloyd 13:16, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Sure. My position is not that fetishes not be covered, nor that the information in any way be suppressed. Rather, what I seek is that the minor aspects of them, and especially individual acts involved in fetishes, exist within the master article on the fetish. This is all about the granularity of coverage, and not the content. For example, BDSM is particularly offensive in this regard: The master article covers the general practice, but then every single practice gets a separate article. I'm on record as wanting the coverage to be in a single named article. Now, if BDSM is too large (and it is) to cover all of them, a "BDSM play" or "SM play" article could do the job better than one article for ball gags, one article for spread-eagle, one article for spreaders, one article for rubber suits, one article for masks, etc. It's a kind of Occam's razor position I take: Do not multiply article names unnecessarily. I feel the very same way about fictional characters, mythological breakouts from games, etc. It's not about the information, but the way we cover it. I want us to cover all of this information, but not where it is actually more difficult to find, and not where the entries will cover up or force disambiguation from other topics. Geogre 13:25, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- By the way, to see what I mean, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Geogre#Entertainment_Unit. above (on the Entertainment Unit). I always want us to multiply entry titles only where necessary. Geogre 14:21, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi,

Thanks for explaining your position on this.

My position is similar to yours, that BDSM activities are a form of human sexual activity that nearly everyone has hear of ('S&M'). This makes BDSM in itself a noteworthy topic for Wikipedia. I would agree with you wholeheartedly that only noteable topics should have their own articles, so within BDSM I would say that (to use one of your examples from above) 'Gags' should be one article covering all types. I also think that BDSM articles should not contain links to BDSM vendors, for instance one article currently has a link to "The Stockroom" (a vendor in Los Angeles). Dlloyd 19:13, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Oh, yes, absolutely. I'm sure the people who put those links in mean well (or I want to think that, anyway), but we have to keep the project from becoming a service project. We're an information project. When our external links stop being information and become instead places where people can get their starter kits, whether we're talking about rocketry or blogging or fetishes, then we've been diverted from our purpose. I think we need to have a frank and dispassionate, if possible, discussion about how we organize massive subjects like BDSM or the TG/TS world or the fictional mythologies. Subpages don't work, but a consistent way of determining when and, more importantly, how we divide would really help. Right now, though, it seems like people are entrenched into "None" and "All" positions. I really hope we can get past that, eventually. One way or another, something will have to be done -- either a hundred mini-wikis or a logical taxonomy. Geogre 04:09, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Lord Cobham

Geogre, can you create an article for the Stuart Age one, please? -- orthogonal 10:22, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Also, I added Bye Plot, Main Plot, and Hampton Court Conference; can you correct my misconceptions, and add clericalism?

Thanks!-- orthogonal 10:26, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Ok, I've done Lord Cobham: Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham is the article, because "Lord Cobham" changes families and titles. I added a bit to the Main Plot (I think the 2nd word is supposed to be miniscule). I haven't gotten around to Bye plot, but I've got the info. Pretty minor plots, really, and a bit before my period, but I got good stuff with some patience. Geogre 19:15, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sysop

Congratulations! You are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the administrators' how-to guide helpful. Good luck. Angela . 14:10, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

Congrats from me too :-) Kim Bruning 15:23, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations, Geogre, now you get to show your true ogrish nature untrammelled at last. ;-). Did you see the 34th vote, from Uther:SRG? Way cool. :-) Bishonen 15:44, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'll be proud to say I knew you when you were a humble editor, before your elevation to cabal-hood. P.S. Have the cheerleaders invited you to the homecoming ~~game~~ dance yet? -- orthogonal 16:17, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Congratulazioni! - your elevation away from us mere mortals is thoroughly deserved Giano 17:19, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks all. I'm waiting for those cheerleader invites. They swore it would happen! Emma and Debbie and Heather and Heather and Ashley and Ashlee and Ashleigh will now fall in love with me. It's only sad to see what's happening with Lucky. People are really saying that someone with 60% approval should have is nomination removed early? That's a sad comment on how much heat and how little light there is. It ought to be enough just to vote "oppose" without all that. I plan to take off the mask, now, and reveal a serious milquetoast under that guise of being a nebbish! Cross me, and I'll argue logically, bucko. :-) Geogre 17:08, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Still the same

You know, there's still no way I can think of that Heb 13:8 joke without laughing aloud. It may be the funniest thing I've ever heard. :-D --Bishonen 23:06, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- I agree. All day, I've thought about it, and it still cracks me up.

BTW, re e-mail, I've tried to argue the case. I think we've got some nefarious stuff going on just recently. A wildly rabid Bush website told all its readers to go to Wikipedia to "learn the truth about John Kerry." They linked to a vandal-change to the Kerry article. And now, out of the blue, we've got two anti-Moore articles and people who know how to cast sock votes? I've had a migraine all day, a class 4 one, so I've been useless. Really wiped out. Geogre 23:20, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

B-Movie Bandit blooey

Once again, stress has darkened my usually sunny disposition. I'm not quitting, but I am going to take a few days off. Thank you for all of your support, and feel free to drop me a line on my e-mail. I've started a new job today and I might not have as much downtime as I did before. - Lucky 6.9 20:32, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You know, you need to take a break from this pursuit itself. I just got another lecture/sermon on IRC about how every stub is sacred, every stub is great, if ever stub is wasted, IRC gets quite irate. I think these people are rather like puffer fish. They're few in number, but they always, always speak as if they are the Lord above. Some mechanical issues with WP need to be solved so that policies are made in the light of day and a quorum is required before anything is binding. Only then can the project act in a consensual and logical manner, IMO. Otherwise, we're at the mercy of the most motivated and the most nosey. I will try to drop you an e-mail, though. There have been some disgraceful behaviors recently. Geogre 20:37, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Every stub is sacred,

Every stub is great,

If ever stub is wasted,

IRC gets quite irate.

Sorry, I don't even remember why I happened to be looking at your talk page, but I found that quite hilarious and felt an urge to reformat it to make the wikipoetry more obvious. --Michael Snow 00:02, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Thanks. I was pretty ticked at a long sermon from IRC on how all one sentence stubs are good things and, more to the point, anyone who deletes them is a problem user, and I came up with that one. Needs the next verse, though. "Let the deletionists drop theirs/ On the dusty plain/ We know IRC will get them/ With a big Arb-Com?" Doesn't scan properly. Geogre 15:18, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sång till Skåne

Sheesh, Geogre, it turns out I don't know how to remove "Scania" and the song from the List of national anthems without completely breaking the columns, making them look terrible. Good job I always preview. Maybe you know how to remove the offending material without leaving a mess? Bishonen 21:56, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Great input on the Skåne issue, thanks, Geogre! The Scotland point was wonderfully well taken. If Scania was ever politically independent, it must have been before all written records. (Hang on ... I think it must have been under water in those days. Maybe Kevin Kostner was involved. :-)) How did these groups ever float (sorry) the anti-Swedish idea, then? Well, Scania once did use to be not-Swedish, i. e. when it was Danish. The feeling that "we'd rather be Danish" does exist, far outside the small extremist groupings. Turns out it's perfectly possible to preserve, nourish and revive feeling on such a basis, even though Danish rule is 350 years back. Bishonen 14:46, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The other thing is that the underpinnings are the pre-modern idea of ethnicity. It's one of the phenomena that I don't mind being belligerant about: nationality is not ethnicity. Ethnicity is racism or at least the undergirding of genocide. Forcing these folks to address, explicitly, their similarities with the genocidal maniacs of Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and Germany is helpful. Geogre 15:12, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Yeah, I guess ... except that it's hardly what people want to read about on VfD. I tried hard to condense my replies, but I really worry about boring people beyond what's bearable there. (But I don't worry about it with the Dead Porn Stars series. Let 'em be bored, just as long as we get it done, already. I can't believe how ineffectually that's been handled.) Still, I hope you liked those banner slogans I created as a free gift to Skånepartiet. The sock posse is probably leafing through dictionaries as we speak, brows furrowed. :-) Bishonen 16:04, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Professor Tomoe

You stated:

Merge and redirect with the proposed Sailor Moon antagonists. It's not that I'm against the information, but I am against this level of granularity. Geogre 01:13, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, this is a valid argument maybe. But I'm curious I must say (sorry to bother you :-) ).

So what are you going to do, *reduce* the level of granularity? Why? The effort to reach this granularity has already been expended, after all!

I don't quite understand your reasoning, and would like to find out. If you have some time for me, could you maybe explain? Thanks! Kim Bruning 07:22, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Kim, you can see the same argument that I would make on this topic voiced on other subjects. You can see it all over VfD. I am very consistent about this. When it comes to break outs, I ask the following things: a) Is the thing so well known outside of its master fiction that people will have heard the term and need an encyclopedia to explain it? b) Is the master subject covered in such length that it would be unreadable to add this detail? c) Whether the thing is famous or not, has it affected the world as an independent entity or meme? I will not get into arguments about database activity or storage space. I am talking only about encyclopedias and Wikipedia. In the case of this Sailor Moon thing, the answers are a) No, b) Somewhat, c) No. Therefore, the answer is to still move one level up from listing every critter and go to a type article. Type of fictional entity = Sailor Moon antagonists. It allows all the information to be preserved, but it also makes some taxonomical and logical sense. Again: Look above on The Entertainment Unit or throughout VfD's discussion on Dartmouth College. I would be just as against Squire Allworthy (hero in Fielding's Tom Jones) and Flimnap (major character in book I of Swift's Gulliver's Travels) as I am this guy, even though both of those probably get an answer of "yes" to criterion c) above. Geogre 12:31, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sång till Skåne links

Links brought to you by your Scanian friend:
Scania article
Scania VfD discussion

And another link, if you want

This is the link to where the guy told someone to keep his opinions to himself, if you want to go Dr. Johnson on him. (Only if you want to as a diversion, it's not necessary to leap in to defend me or anything, I'm good.) Bishonen 19:53, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Footnote: wow, Wodan scored another bull's-eye a little while ago (19:08). Some people sure ought to count ten before they speak. (I'm one of 'em, I know, but I don't say stuff like this.) Bishonen 20:04, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What what? (Skåne)

Huh? What what? Who said there was a Keep decision for Sång till Skåne ? Oh, hey. You know, on the phone I was talking about the infamous Keep decision on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/European Union Olympic medals count for 2004. Maybe I talked about too many different things? There's been no decision on Skåne, the VfD template is still on the page, and the VfD debate is still pretty active. And Rossami hasn't been back to comment on the info added to his synopsis, so I think it would be premature to make any decision yet, even though it was listed on 18 August.
But if you want to see the Keep decision I was talking about on the phone — made by SimonP on the basis of 15 Keep votes and 35 Delete votes, plus a number of sockpuppets/new users — check out the link to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/European Union Olympic medals count for 2004. Plus, if you want, my latest message on Rossami's Talk page. Bishonen 23:19, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

VfD policy for dicdefs

Good afternoon, Geogre. In light of the discussion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sty, I have opened a discussion thread at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Dictionary Definitions. I'd be interested in your thoughts. Thanks. Rossami 20:27, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- Rossami, check out my thoughts on the matter at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geogre#Advice_for_VfD_Voters

I've been meaning to sketch out my feelings on VfD for some time now. I'll take a look at the discussion you've got going, of course, but I wanted to work out, in a non-interlined form, my positions before going into anything discursive. You can see, below the "advice for voters," a section on "notability and breakouts." I'm trying to offer a view of my own criteria, here, and not presuming to tell anyone else, much less the community as a whole, what they should adopt. I'm more exclusive than many, but I'm a raving fan of information. I just think that we've reached a tipping point. Our first efforts were to grow. We've grown. Now, we need to preserve our democracy and try to integrate coherence. I'm afraid that we're becoming a spilled glass of words. Geogre 22:06, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Geogre, I have composed a comment for Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Dictionary Definitions and would like your permission to link to User:Geogre#My_"Deletionism" in that comment. I am e-mailing you the full comment so you can see it in context. I will await your reply before posting. Thank you. SWAdair | Talk 07:44, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

John Joyce

Glad to have written it. It still feels a bit rough, though - feel free to clean it up. I've been reading Ellmann, and thought to write an article on Joyce the Elder, who was a fascinating character. (I already wrote the article on Simon Dedalus...). But, as I said, still feels a bit rough. Especially for the later part of his life, since I'm only up to about 1900 in the Ellmann book. john k 00:21, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

re: managed deletes

Re: your comment on my Talk page: I think your idea has some merit and would be happy to work with you on it. I can think of a number of situations where that would improve our controls. Here are a couple of thoughts off the cuff. I'll keep chewing on the idea over the next few days.

The definition of those situations where the article harms the site by remaining even during the normal 5 day discussion period should be fairly tightly defined. The list can always be changed as new situations arise.
- An "other" category might be appropriate as long as it comes with a disclaimer that any new situation must also be nominated as a new item on the list so we don't get into the same arguments every time.
My first thought is that this should be a variant of the Speedy delete nomination process and that we should discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion or one of the speedy process pages. I'm not exactly sure which one would be best.
My second thought is, as always, the devil's advocate's position. By definition, all VfD nominations are deleted only because at some level they are harmful to Wikipedia. Can we really come up with a list of examples which are so bad that they should not be allowed to suffer the normal discussion period? I thought I had an initial list of suggestions of articles that would qualify and I've argued myself out of them. What examples are you thinking of?
If we don't immediately move this discussion to an existing policy's talk page, we should open a dedicated thread to keep track of our thoughts. Perhaps a user sub-page? I'd volunteer but it's your idea and you deserve the credit. Rossami 18:49, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, heck, I hardly need any credit. I don't think I'm a galvanizing user, but I thought that I'm probably, on a continuum of deletionism with Everyking on one end and RickK on the other, about 70% over on the RickK side, and you're probably about 65-70% on the Everyking side. I thought this made us, as moderates, good choices for opening a civil discourse with open minds before going to the policy pages and the heat that those always generate. I do agree, though, that we might consider a page on meta or something to do a kind of invite-only talk before a wide community. I don't mean to fear the wider community, but I'd just like to work out some principles before then with people who will listen to each other before the more ideological show up and thunderously say that more things should be on CSD or none should be. As for "harm the site," we can't be too absolute, here. In a sense, none of the things that are deleted by CSD hurt the site worse (and many much less) than the things that go to VfD. After all, a John Kerry: Coward page would take 5 days to go away, and Bushcountry.com could tell all its readers go to to Wikipedia and "learn the truth about John Kerry" during that time, and we'd be screwed. Compared to that, my favorite speedy delete (Tokyo Street Motocross 3, the content of which was "cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt") is safe as milk. Harm is relative. However, I'm thinking of patent lies, patent fantasies, and even michaelisms. I admit that part of my motivation is that there are some things that are just plain going to lose on VfD by any estimation, and these are getting speedy deleted, when they shouldn't be, by the rules. The question is whether the admins are wrong (absolutely, they are, in many cases!) or the rules (and I think they're not wrong so much as not sufficient here). So there: I've admitted my ulterior motives. :-) One last thing, though: I don't mean to sound like a jerk when I say that you're staring at an entry too hard. I know you're doing the right thing, and so do you. I, too, can think of reasons for saving lots and lots of things, and I'm delighted when we get to do so. It's just that some of these are cases where what's at test is not the article, but our own abilities. Too often others (not you that I've ever seen) say "keep" and then lift not a finger to help an article. You put in the work. Other people, though, say, "Well, this could be an excellent article about the grand history of the world," and then I look back and it still says, "Rashes are skin abrasions." Sorry for going so long. I'll paste this to your page, too, so the reply can be accessible to you. Thanks, Rossami. I hope we can continue the dialogue and start getting some other voices in here. (Maybe the dangerously sane Andrewa and the open minded Siroxo?) Geogre 19:03, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think you should explain that last comment... Although I'm not exactly sure that I want to hear the explanation... (;-> !

I agree with most of what you say above, both what it says and the tone of the suggestion. Good stuff, let's try to get an acceptable (in both senses) proposal out of it. Andrewa 20:49, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

orthogonal RfC

Snowspinner has opened Wikipedia:Requests for comment/orthogonal

I'd appreciate seeing your comments as well. -- orthogonal 06:01, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, you might look at the discussion of IRC evidence that David Vasquez ("DV") has brought up on the rfc page and my talk page, and his, ambi's, and my thoughts on it on the rfc talk page. He advises me not to go forward, I explain why I think I must on the rfc talk page, and Snowspinner adds a comment there too re: IRC "context". Your thoughts? -- orthogonal 15:41, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't take getting an A in Reading in school to decode it. There is a kind of IRC cultus growing on Wikipedia, and some of the stodgier and non-IRC-ish need to lay down some heavy boots on how tangential it is to the procedings of the project. I'm surprised a little but pleased that my comments have drawn agreement. They're not so flattering to you, or Snowspinner, but they're pretty pissy when it comes to whether or not there should be an RfC. :-) It was kind of interesting to see Avala's comment. Geogre 03:33, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What is notability?

I did nominate the kings of Numenor pages for deletion and it seems that they're too popular. Apparently my factual pages on election results are far less notable than lists of names out of a Tolkein appendix. Acsenray 16:20, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, if there is a failure there, it may well be the failure of any forum where votes take place. See, however, my main page for what I think makes for "notability." In the case of all those kings, I'm probably going to vote for merging. I'm not in favor of them, and you'll find others saying the same thing. That said, you picked a tough example. Stuff from Simarilion is way ahead of the Gundarm, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon stuff. Even I, enemy of break-outs, can see arguments in favor of leaving the kings alone. At any rate, it's an apples and oranges debate between them and the county elections. I prefer reality to fiction, but the county level is simply too narrow for an isolated article. Geogre 19:10, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
By the way http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geogre#Notability_Nota_Bene takes you right to my own attempt at defining "notability." I'm harsher than most folks, but there are people harsher than I. Geogre 03:58, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

User_talk:Orthogonal#ambi.27s_second_comment_.28ambi.29

Please check out my revised user page and the above, and tell me if I've gone over the top. Thanks. -- orthogonal 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The user page...I don't know. I'm thinking it over. The response to Ambi.... Well, see, I get the impression that Avala is a very troublesome user when it comes to Yugoslav questions. Thing is, Snowspinner correctly identifies someone who has repeatedly offended (on these topics) and doesn't find a 3rd party who is willing to speak to Avala, but then, when he presents the case, it's presented in personal terms, with charged language, rather than in a dispassionate way. As for your narrative, I don't know. I think in the Avala Evidence we come in in the middle. I don't think Snowspinner was baiting him, but he wasn't trying to figure out the words, either. This could be because of bad experiences, or he could have not figured it out. In either case, I don't think it was quite on the level of the redneck. (We had a Chinese guy in our lab who was pretty good with English, but people would play language jokes on him. "Alex, where are the filters?" he asked. "Oh, they're right by the dickfor," Alex would say. The difference was that Bo would laugh and swear revenge and knew the game that was being played. I saw that exchange and said to Alex, "You just got an extra five years in Purgatory, you know?") Anyway, the only general advice is advice you're already following: emphasize that you haven't any involvement with the trolls that you "defend." I could tell what you've been doing when you defend them, but others are mistaking pain-in-the-ass goading for support. I've got to think about the new user page format before I can comment on it. Geogre 13:20, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Swedish vandalism good news :-)

Hey! I left admonitory messages with both honey and vinegar on the talk pages of 164.4.31.79 and 81.227.148.223, a couple of the Famous Vandal Kids of Sandviken, and maybe David Remahl and I scared them on Vandalism in progress too, and just look what I just got on my Talk page! :-) I feel brilliant, but I guess that'll pass if it turns out they don't mean it. Bishonen 18:02, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Great! That's fantastic! How really cool that they were (a)bashed. :-) I love the fact that David Remahl was just going to call them up and give them a good talking-to, too. "May I speak to your parents, please?" :-) I'm glad to see anything work out, especially something like this. (I bet the .se knows of them, too.) Geogre 18:23, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, I think David did talk with them, actually, and that the glory is all his — see message from "Martin" on David's Talk page. Whoops, forgot you don't have the lingo, or rather, I forgot that Martin used it. He was asking David how we got hold of their phone numbers. :-) Bishonen 18:44, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gee, and after they told us all their names in their prank articles, it must be a work of staggering detective work to figure out who they are. They must have been real kids, too. I hope David was scary enough and yet pointed them to some other playground, like Everything2 or Slashdot. :-) Geogre 18:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Actually, David tells me they scuttled first and he never got to phone them, so it seems it was my scary message that did it after all. :-) They're 17. Bishonen 00:36, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You are scary, you know, you distinguished personage, you. I wish I knew when you were around (as you must be now and shouldn't be), because I'd call you over to IRC (where I have not been going for days). I thought I had the last outstanding e-mail to you, but I saw one today that seemed to suggest otherwise. I'm...well, we'll see. I updated my CV. That was my accomplishment today, but I'm running scared of everything. Geogre 00:38, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:-) Thank you. Sometimes I do pomposity well. I just checked IRC, but you weren't there, and, you know, I really really need to not be around. Uppsala yet again tomorrow, I can't believe it. Btw, good thinking there about Swedish wiki. They don't seem to have any "Vandalism in progress" page, but I left a message on their Village Pump (Bypumpen). Bishonen 01:00, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm glad you mentioned the kids there. I'll bet that you find someone on Bypumpen saying that the kids are well known to them. Their English was not strong enough for the en to have been their first thought, I'm sure. Bet they're already well banned there at .se. I wasn't going to talk to you tonight, though. You need to have been asleep a while back. Shoot, it's nearly my bedtime, and I've got another 6 hours in a day than you. Anyway, I really haven't gone to IRC in ages. Every time I do, I seem to either be completely bored or over-stimulated. Things are either very dull or not dull enough. Geogre 01:06, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The IP's are kind of known on sv.wiki, but not banned. They haven't been creating articles there so much, more adding sentences about Niklas Modigh etc. in various existing articles. I got a lot of response to my info, and checked for myself that the kids have not "contributed" anything since they got bashed here. I told Bypumpen that in case they do, David and I have a couple more IP's and the phone number of medieval philospher/oldest beaver known to science Niklas Modigh up our sleeve. You know what, also? I'm gonna check German wiki. But what I really came to tell you is that it's a coincidence that I just now saw your comment on VfD Islamonazi, while a couple of days ago I was this close to listing the infamous Feminazi for deletion. Like a coward I decided not to, because who can stand the resulting mudbath? I merely made a nasty remark on the Feminazi Talk page and left. The VfD discussion of Reciprocal System of Theory has taken all the spunk out of me. I do believe, as I say in that discussion, that we need to deal on the policy level with the fact that some articles are impossible to maintain. You know, I thought at first that the people listing Reciprocal System of Theory were very unnecessarily rude about it. People like Andrewa and Ambi threw around words like "lunatic" and "tripe", which made me have some sympathy with the Doug/Infradig party. Until, that is, Doug's and Infradig's debating styles made me realize what the delete faction has had to put up with over the years: they've been exhausted, bludgeoned, worn to a frazzle. Heck, 24 hours of that VfD debate did for my manners (that doesn't take much, you'll say), while the histories of the article itself and its Talk page stretch back through untold voluminous archives for three years. :-( Bishonen 20:43, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia namespace pages on VfD

Regarding your comment on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Wikipedia:Popular articles - Actually I don't think there's any policy that prohibits listing such pages on VfD. Since it looks like you support my contention that we should have fewer such pages, I was mildly surprised that you raised that as an issue, though there's certainly nothing wrong with making sure things get done the right way. I'll grant that these pages don't show up on VfD very often unless somebody is being disruptive (like the original Sysop Accountability Policy), but there isn't any other forum to discuss deleting those pages.

Part of the reason for the infrequency is that people very rarely run across these pages. The best candidates for deletion are found not by perusing newly created pages (as with articles), but by discovering relics with no real links to them and no activity. New ones deal with some "issue of the moment" and nobody thinks about getting rid of them until they've forgotten about the issue (and the page), so it becomes one of the relics. I've gotten rid of the most obviously useless ones, but usually by redirecting them to a more suitable location, not by deleting. --Michael Snow 18:25, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Michael, I agree with you. I was just saying that I had thought that there must be another page (and there are too many of them) because of how rarely I had seen such appear. I also think that we're in a weird position with name space. The deletion guidelines don't really apply to name space -- the pages just serve a different purpose, and that also means that a lot of people hide squirrely stuff in name space. (There is a lot of "policy" going on there that isn't worth the electrons it's made of.) Anyway, I was more offering an impression, but I can see how this space deserves a different deletion page because it's a different domain of Wikipedia with different purposes and functions. That said, I absolutely agree that we need to get this tangle tamed, and we especially need more light on the processes. Geogre 18:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

- I agree that you can't really apply normal deletion criteria, I just wonder whether we'd get enough activity (and whether enough people would participate) to justify having a separate page. Anyway, if you want to get a picture of the tangle, I started Wikipedia:Topical index a while ago, although I haven't given it a thorough update recently, to include all the blasted new weeds (uh, I mean pages) that keep springing up everywhere. --Michael Snow 19:19, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Crossed wires

Geogre, with all respect, I think you may have gotten suckered here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/orthogonal#Policy_concerns_vs_personal_attacks. -- orthogonal 07:30, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Possibly so, but I wanted to address what I thought was the underlying problem: what is a personal attack. I wanted to lay in, somewhere, that I thought that characterization of actions is fair, of people not. Besides, though, the RfC is over, so there's no need to keep up the matter. Geogre 13:30, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's unclear whether or not the RfC is over. The last time I looked at the main RfC page, I saw it under the heading "Approved pages - have met the two person threshold". That was yesterday, sometime, I think.

But what actually has happened is more convoluted; please bear with me, all times UTC:

At 02:42, 31 Aug 2004, when Snowspinner initially created the RfC, he listed it under the "Candidate pages - still need to meet the two person threshold" header, which was appropriate because he was the only one yet to certify it.
At 02:43, 31 Aug 2004, Fennec certified it, and it had the two certifiers required.
One minute later, at 02:44, 31 Aug 2004, Snowspinner moved the listing under "Approved pages - have met the two person threshold". This was also correct.
At 20:45, 31 Aug 2004, David Vasquez left it there, but added and signed a note immediate under the listing, "The certification of this Request for Comment is under dispute." Also appropriate, as it 'was' certified, but David Vasquez believed the certification was invalid.

Now it gets more interesting.

At 23:48, 1 Sep 2004, Guanaco moves Fennec's signature from on the RfC itself from the "certification" section to the "endorsement" section, apparently in agreement with David Vasquez's dispute, or my assertion of invalidity. in the edit summary, Guanaco writes, "(Statement of the dispute - Fennec's certification is an endorsement)"
At 23:49, 1 Sep 2004 Guanaco moves the listing on the RFC list page from "Approved to "Candidate" with the edit summary "(Comment about individual users - /orthogonal is a candidate page)"

Now I've got the RfC on my watchlist, because I've edited it. My watchlist shows me that Guanaco's edited the RfC, and curious to see hoe he's voted, I go look, only to find no vote but that he has moved Fennec's signature. I feel that it's very bad practice to move another user's signature, especially in a case like this where it changes that user's intent, and I note this on Guanaco's talk page.

At 00:03, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC), I put a note on Guanaco's talk page, asking him to revert the moving of Fennec's signature.
At 00:29, 2 Sep 2004, Guanaco does the revert with the edit summary "(rv per request of orthogonal)"

But because I've never edited the RfC listing page, I never see Guanaco has moved the listing back to "Candidate pages", so I don't ask him to revert that.

So the listing is still at "Candidate", but it's unclear whether or not it should be, largely because I haven't been able to find anything that says who is supposed to determine if a certification is valid.

So is the RfC on? Is it off? That really depends of whether you buy David Vasquez's';s argument or my argument. And they are subtly different: his hinges more on Snowspinner tainting the evidence by mentioning IRC, mine on Fennec not having a dispute with me and Snowspinner and Fennec not sharing a dispute.

No one was endorsed Snowspinner's view on the RfC page, but is that because they don't buy his procedural or his substantive arguments (or both)? We don't know, because no is asked to sign if they don't endorse.

Six people have endorsed your argument, which says there are no grounds, but your argument is more that there are no substantive grounds, in which doesn't throw the RfC out, it argues for an adverse finding, which is different.

The one person who might shed some light on this is Fennec, but I don't feel I can ask him, what with us both being party to the RfC, not to mention the appearance that I'd be "hounding" him.

It's this sort of stuff that makes me harp so much on due process and procedural rules, because otherwise things get bogged down in a very murky grey area.

Yours, -- orthogonal 14:32, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly a mess. Fennec could do us all a favor by clarifying his position. I might go to his user talk page and simply ask nicely if he could offer a few words so that we know. I take no position whatever on whether he has grounds to endorse or not. It doesn't seem like it, but it could very well be the case. Geogre 14:38, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Judging by the message Snowspinner just left on my talk page, he thinks it's still on. -- orthogonal 15:36, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Geogre, would you mind looking over your note to Fennec again? Thanks. -- orthogonal 16:02, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(Oh, PS. You seem to use "*" bullets rather than ":" indents, or I could say, I keep using ":" indents rather than "*" bullets. Actually, I'm not sure which works better, but I think "*" bullets get a bit haywire when they have line breaks between them. Not that I plan to RfC you or anything over it. ;) PPS although the bullets do set off the start of comments better. I think this might be a wiki syntax discrepancy. -- orthogonal 15:36, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC))

Ok, well, I looked over the note again, and it summarized as concisely as I could the issues as I understood them. The big thing is just that he clarify his position. Is he complaining about orthogonal too, or does he agree that Snowspinner has a complaint? If the former, it would be nice if he offered a statement or two to indicate such. If the latter, then that, too, would be fine, but it would indicate that Guanaco was right: this is an endorsement of substance, not a certification. Anyway, I'm sure it's more complex than that, but, frankly, I'm for cutting the knot. Fennec: speak your peace. That's all. It's not worth getting too intricate, IMO. Geogre 17:51, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
As for whether it's still on or not, it kind of can't be. If I understand it, then if Fennec's original signature was certification, then 48 hours of RfC is up. If his signature was not certification, but endorsement, then this is an RfC upon which the clock restarts (after clarification) for waiting for certification. That's if I understand it. Geogre 17:51, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

- Alright, so we have a clarification. The RfC is uncertified. That at least sets the record straight. I believe that means 48 hours waiting for certification. Geogre 20:02, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mario, et alia

I just found something worse that Pokemon. List of Super Mario characters is pretty much a list of stubs in dire need of being consolidated. I mean, my god, it would be far more useful to anyone interested in the subject to put it together, but perhaps a subject feels "more important" if it's thinly spread over 80 pages. But it's not my idea of an encyclopedia. -- orthogonal 12:59, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What a lot of these things come from is some bum writing Super Mario Brothers and saying, "The characters are Mario Luigi Metal box Goofus Gallant Larry Curly Moe Manny and Jack," and then some enthused kid sees the article, wishes he'd written it, and decides to write about a redlink. Blug. People ought to think before they wikilink what obviously doesn't need an article (e.g. "The Filligreed Potatoes are a band formed a month ago. They are My neighbor My buddy on guitar and Some dude on drums. They are hoping to release a record any day now." Blug. So this is another reason I hate "List of..." article. Geogre 13:05, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Or assumes -- and why should he not -- that the red link means we want it filled in. Perhaps this something we need to write up for Village Pump.

PS I figured out what "picturesw" is all about. See VfD. -- orthogonal 13:26, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

PPS: you planing to be on IRC this afternoon? -- orthogonal 16:01, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I can't tell whether I'll be on or not. This is my short wiki session before trying to be productive (doing 2 job apps and calling unemployment). If I get those things on or go into full despair, I'll be on IRC later...around dinner time. Geogre 17:53, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

- Good luck! Do not despair. As Churchill said, "Deserve Victory!" And have broiled fish for dinner; I did it four days runing and it was yummy (and so easy to make, and makes you feel so good). -- orthogonal 18:14, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Help me!

Hi Geogre - Could you do me a huge favour, and go to Montacute House and make the image bigger, I have uploaded it, and the original is gigantic, I've followed all the instructions (this is a first attempt! - Quelle suprise) I can't make the original smaller, or the image on the article page larger. Problem is the very large image shows that I have airbrushed my charming children out of the picture, and a medium sized photo looks quite natural (children replaced by foliage!) If you could do this or tell me (in words of one sylable) how to do this I would be very grateful, I've quite a few other photos from Italy and Europe I want to treat in the same way, if I can work out how, I think they could enhance, or at least liven up, a few other articles. --- I was re-reading 'our Spire' the other day -when one comes back a reads it 'cold' it really is rather good (can one say that of one's own writing?) Oh, and when one tries to edit your page a warning thing tells one it is too long! Regards Giano 22:17, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In answer to your final question - No! But I will try, first initiative test is to try and find image workshop! Thanks anyway Giano 20:04, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If I weren't having such a mess of a time with uploading and downloading attachments, I'd just grab the picture and do the edit for you. It's pretty easy for me, as I have some PShop experience, but getting rid of the big L of whitespace seems like the first priority. The image size is the second. I really think the definition of the image size (300 pix) is fine, if that big white L goes away. Geogre 01:44, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Done it - downloaded it back to my own computer, edited it in simple picture edit - and then reloaded, unfortunatly lost some of the picture quality, but as it was hardly of professional quality in the first place! Regards Giano 05:29, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Cool. It looks properly proportioned. It could be at about 350 pix, but it looks good at 300. I keep bashing my head against my own upload/download problems, here. It's bugging me no end. What's the use of being an intermediate Photoshop user, if I can't get images back and forth? (Photoshop, in the US, costs $600. I don't have that. On the other hand, Photoshop Elements costs $100, and it has all the same power and features of full PShop except the ability to create printer-ready (as in professional printing presses, not as in computer printer) output.) BTW, I agree with you on Spire: we did good work there. Geogre 12:36, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

redstar2000

Please check the page for new info. I didn't create the page orginally and neither did redstar2000, who is a 60 year old man with little skill when it comes to computers. Anyways, I believe it is reasonable now.--Che y Marijuana 09:22, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Title typo Elin Nordegren

Geogre? Title typo — you redirected "Elin nordegren" to "Tiger Woods", and put a link in "Tiger Woods" to "Elin Nordegren". The N spelling substub is still there. I was going to fix it — make the N spelling a redirect instead — but only an admin can delete the n redirect, right? So I've left it all as it was.

It only caught my eye because Elin Nordegren is yet another Swedish name, and I was afraid she might be Niklas Modigh's girlfriend. A little research shows she's bona fide, but how I hate such celebritycruft in Wikipedia. :-( The rest of Tiger Woods is fine, I think, but this fiancée business ... Is Wikipedia the gossip pages? Who the +{}\}≠\≠{¿\ gets engaged, anyway? However. If you do want her in Tiger Woods (I don't mean you personally want, but if you think the info has a right to not be lost), you might want to change "recently" to 2002. Not that recently, is it? Shouldn't they either be married or have split up by now? Engaged, bah. Sorry. Reading bland Swedish tabloid features about how Tiger fell for Elin and how Elin fell for Tiger and how Mama Woods who has rejected so many girlfriends for Tiger has accepted Elin into the family was a depressing experience. Bishonen 18:21, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I fixed it now. Did you actually research thins? Wow. That's some hard durance. As for why I did it, I was on NP patrol, saw the misnamed one come in, thought the same as you, and readied to pounce. I saw what it was and then was handcuffed. If it's not nonsense, I can't speedy delete it (although, if I had known we already had it with the capital letter, I'd have redirected there and passed the problem), so I had to do the merge. I did the redirect because, well, I couldn't delete it. It was a substub, so I might have done it under that banner, but some folks get very vexed about that. That meant that I had to do the TW edit. I guess I'm now going back to add the bit about its being in 2002. Geogre 18:42, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've been back in the slough, it seems. No sooner do I climb out than I teeter on the edge and fall back. (sigh) Geogre 18:42, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- (You reply fast sometimes. Did you notice my message under heading 21 above, day before yesterday?) Sorry about the slough. Easiest research I've ever done. Elin's got an identical twin sister! She's a level-headed person! She gets on really well with Tiger's mother! We have a lot of professional swimsuit shots of her! (She's a model.) You know, with being a Swede who's engaged to a world celebrity, she's totally Swedish-tabloid-worthy, because, uh, I think it's something we can all be fucking proud of, or something. It's a little like we all got engaged to TW. That's how it was really easy to find. Wikipedia is not a Swedish tabloid, though. Bishonen 19:04, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm on the project, and I get a nice message telling me I have a message.

I know I feel proud of Elin. We were all cheering for her. :-) I did see the reply, way up, but that was at the time when every second that I was online was getting diverted. There's so much bullcrap going on that matters so little that it's frustrating. I keep reminding myself that these are young folks to whom everything matters more. They say that we're all literally ennervated as we age, that we feel pain less in our bodies, so a skinned knee that made us cry now doesn't hurt because it literally doesn't hurt as much. I think the same is true of these towering passions of ego. I can't believe you engaged Anthony, though. That's a futile experience. I needed to take a deep breath and count to ten a couple of times with him on VfD anyway. He really is behaving like a troll. Geogre 19:11, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You would be proud if you saw her in a swimsuit, Geogre. I'm fine with Anthony, getting on like a house on fire. Well, sort of. (Take a look at his Talk page, if you want to see. :-)) It was futile to start with him, I know. He'll inevitably have the last word, because I'm embarrassed to be swelling the VfD page with pointless bickering, and he's not. No big deal if he doesn't know what "ambiguity" means, anyway; more people don't than do. As User:danmc pointed out on Votes for deletion/Reciprocal System of Theory, we can't all be besserwissers like Bishonen. :-D Bishonen 19:51, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

VfD Vandalism from Netoholic's Talk page

I have tried to be nice, and I will try again. DO NOT remove VfD nominations. It is neither your place nor your ability to decide for others whether the nominations are valid. You removed three nominations that I made tonight, perhaps out of pique. That is absolutely out of bounds. Consider this an official warning that I consider your actions to be vandalism, and not boldness. If you repeat it, I will seek ArbCom action. Geogre 03:12, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I second this. Please do not remove unilaterally remove nominations, nor redirect the article and call the discussion over. Ambi 07:12, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Geogre - You submitted three articles (Eckvic Culture, Demish, Eckvic), not for deletion but as a request for cleanup. I am correcting your poor choice. If I see any more misplaced "nominations", I will remove them and place them on the more appropriate cleanup listing. That is not "vandalism", but an attempt to keep silliness out of VfD. Rather than threaten me with silly actions, why don't you reevaluate your misuse of the VfD page? -- Netoholic @ 14:09, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So, you are confirming that you will continue this in the future, that my attempts to achieve peace are being turned away? The three VfD entries were, as you will see now, an attempt at unearthing a Wikipedia vandal, and if you could not understand the language of my nominations, that is sad, but not germane. If you remove other nominations and demonstrate lack of willingness to abide with community standards, we will have to proceed from there. Geogre 14:31, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I promise that if any nomination is placed on that page in error, I will correct it by moving the request to the more appropriate location and remove it from VfD. Stop being so high and mighty. As for your attempt to clear out a Wikipedia vandal -- VfD is still not the correct forum for that. You're misuse of that page is more damaging than any cleanup I could be trying to perform. -- Netoholic @ 14:35, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

- You are not allowed to remove nominations from the VFD page as you see fit. That is vandalism, and grounds for temporary blocking, even without action from the Arbitration Committee. Please follow the rules. Ambi 10:05, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)