User talk:Camembert/archive 3


 * try CCL for a new modem. They're under a tenner. http://www.cclcomputers.co.uk/ -- Tarquin 14:55 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks tarq, I'll look into it. --Camembert

- Glad you noticed the updates to string quartet - though surely both Mozart and Antonin Dvorak are major players? OK - Dvorak only wrote one really famous quartet - the American, but several others are definitely of similar quality. I think he wrote the same number approx as Shostakovich. Mozart wrote more than either of these, and several are considered "great" surely - in particular the group often known as the Haydn quartets. Could be worth trying to find a way of reworking the text. The other composers mentioned - even Brahms - were nothing like as prolific at quartet writing, so it is reasonable to have them listed as "also contributing". Now need to get some of the quartet details filled in ..... -- David Martland 20:39 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix in Hamilton County, I gues in another couple of monthss I'll have this notation business down. I'd give you a Wiki-Love gold star, but I don't think I'm at 200 yet. I guess I need more short edits and less long articles. Thanks again - Lou I 20:56 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * No problem - glad to help :) --Camembert

Thanks for reply - I've been doing other things for a while - and actually going to hear music etc - Handel Alcina, for example - magnificent at ENO. Do you know the name of the 2nd violin in the Amadeus? I'm just trawling to see if I can find it. -- David Martland 21:05 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * I do, but it looks like you've found it before me :) --Camembert

Yes - but I got it wrong the first time round - I had him playing the cello! You've done a great job sorting out the composers who've written string quartets. I'm going to fill in a few more of the quartet(player) details. However, you might have missed the Beaux Arts Trio - obviously - not a quartet. I didn't realise that this has had quite a varied make up over the years - difficult to find all the information. About the only thing which remains constant is Pressler. I'm going to have to dig around to find out the detailed history of this trio. Most quartets change a bit - but this trio .... !! -- David Martland 07:28 27 May 2003 (UTC)


 * I've added what I can on the Beaux Arts - it's basically what's in Grove 6. With a bit of luck I'll get to Grove 7 later this week which will have some more up to date info. --Camembert

Another comment about string quartets. I have been intrigued by the similarity of some passages in Mendelssohn's quartets to (say) Op132 by Beethoven. According to Stephen (BBC3, Classical Forum), this is well known, but not by me! Do you happen to know how much Mendelssohn based his quartets on Beethoven's - it'd make an interesting comment on the quartet page. -- David Martland 21:33 30 May 2003 (UTC) --- --- OK - thanks for reply - you give a few more clues, but there is still a mystery here. There are such clear references to Beethoven's work in Mendelssohn's that I feel sure that it is deliberate. As I said, Stephen (Howard Smith) says that this is "well known" - but I haven't been too aware of this. I'll have to keep looking to see if there are any references to Mendelssohn paying homage to Beethoven in this way. You also make the suggestion that there are several pieces with similarity, so this might give more clues - the reference to Op 132 in one of the string quartets is very striking. -- David Martland 08:01 31 May 2003 (UTC)

"You know you're getting old when you have a talk archive... "
 * Eeek! I have 12 and another is well on its way. What does that make me? ;-) BTW, "WARNING: This page is 35 kilobytes long..." It looks like you need another talk archive. :) --mav 08:09 27 May 2003 (UTC)
 * You're really only old when your talk archive has subpages... -- François else 18:04 27 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Aw, not another "François"... Actually, in a way I'd be quite pleased if you changed your name - I've lost count of the number of times I've nearly invoked it in error with a talk page comment like "I don't know how to fix/improve/correct this, but maybe someone else will do it"... And mav: a friend of mine who saw you doing the rounds adding about three squillion "Welcome to the Wikipedia!" messages to new users' talk pages reckoned that you were a bot, so, obviously, old age won't affect you to quite the same degree ;) --Camembert
 * Well, I've toyed with the idea (when I can't remember if I'm somebody else or someone else) but [a] I'd have to pick one, and [b] changing would probably be a mess. And there's much to be said for being unrecognized when one's favourite example of hemiola is "America" from West Side Story.... -- Someone "da Jets" else 19:44 27 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Hey - that's a really good example - it should probably go in the article. Wonder why I never thought of it... I expect I had my mind on higher things (ahem) --Camembert
 * Ah, the secret of my popularity at parties. I'm never reticent to let myself drag down the prevailing level of erudition. -- Someone else 22:01 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. I do appreciate the sentiment. Maybe ask me again in a month or something. Evercat 01:34 31 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Ah well, 'twas worth a go - in a month, then :) --Camembert

Administrators. I let you talk me into it. :-) Evercat 19:33 31 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Glad to hear it! You should get your sysop pack with garrotte, throwing stars etc in the post soon :) --Camembert

Just wanted to thank you for all your help with User:Kils/User:Viking. It was certainly an unpleasant situation. MB 07:37 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for adding to the Helen Frankenthaler and Kenneth Noland pages. I've been finding that our fine arts pages can be kind of weak, especially with some of the modern artists. Danny

Just wondering if you could add something to the David Hockney stub I created. Danny


 * I'll have a look in a bit (writing that Barnett Newman article just now). --Camembert


 * Had a go at Hockney, hope it's OK. --Camembert

Camembert, I think it's best to inform users who make edits to Michael's pages that he is banned, and that if they want to write about the subject, they should create the page after it has been deleted. We do not want to give Michael the impression that he is allowed to edit here. So it's best to create the page from scratch, to keep it free from Michael's "impurities".

I think it is understandable that Zoe is agitated, given Michael's extremely insulting behavior. Mav has been similarly agitated when an anonymous user posted death threats against him. --Eloquence 01:25 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * You may be right - in cases where, for example, Michael writes two paragraphs and then, before anybody deletes it, another user comes along and adds a further two which don't make sense without Michael's to give them context, that may indeed be the best thing to do. I tend to think that such cases are rare enough thatif the later editor or somebody else can confirm that Michael's facts were correct, it doesn't hurt to leave the article as it is and save everybody some work. But I honestly don't know how I feel about this for sure - as far as I'm aware, it's a situation which hasn't so far arisen.


 * What I do feel is pretty clear is that when you have a situation like Conflict (band), where the non-Michael content doesn't overlap with or rely on Michael's content at all, there's no need to delete the page and then recreate it. Just delete Michael's part of the article. I don't think anything is achieved by removing Michael's name or IP number from the article history if his content has already been removed from the article.


 * I agree that Zoe's agitation is understandable, and believe me, I don't want to do anything to increase that agitiation. I just concerned that we shouldn't delete good content or make work for people who have done nothing wrong. --Camembert

You know, I think Michael may have had a point there, with his "rule" #3, "Nothing I do shouldn't be reverted." How very true. -- John Owens 04:30 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Heh, I'd not noticed that. The guy certainly has a way with words, I'll give him that... --Camembert

In case you didn't already know, I've created a group watchlist of sorts at Favorite pages of banned users to help with tracking when Michael is vandalizing (and any future vandals like him). So feel free too use it, I have already found it helpful, and please add to it when he vandalizes more. Thanks. MB 22:13 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sorry for screwing up the accents on the string quartet page. It still seems a weak area of this Wiki to me - I'm guessing that those people in the USA didn't expect that anyone would really care about accents, or non-standard ASCII codes etc - which was rather thoughtless. The way the search/linking worked (or not) with the correct spelling of Janacek was most intriguing! One day someone will get an algorithm which will avoid most of these problems. Sometimes links do work with accents - but clearly not with some symbols from Eastern European languages. Oh - and you reacted PDQ to that one - perhaps like me you don't have anything more interesting to do .... I "should" be doing other things! -- David Martland 15:26 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

-- Nothing quite so grand as being knowledgeable, I'm afraid. I know just enough to get me started, and then googling can take care of the rest. It's frustrating, though, because I bet 98% of the links I find are reviews of CDs or places to buy them with no real information. Infinite patience and an ability to wade through contradictory texts is the only answer I can give. Carribean music especially has dozens of styles with foreign names (for me), which is why I'm trying to get a basic start to all of them at once. Thanks for the thanks...Tuf-Kat


 * Ah - I'm glad I'm not the only one winging it ;) --Camembert

About Finlandia vs. Finlandia Hymn. The Hymn uses the last part of the original Finlandia with the addition of the text by V.A. Koskenniemi. Allthough Sibelius originally (in 1937) used a different text for the Hymn. But you are correct in the fact that one should not confuse the Finlandia Op 26 with the Finlandia Hymn Op 133. -- Jniemenmaa 18:27 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * I tried to clarify both the Finlandia and Finlandia Hymn pages. Actually there are two different texts for the hymn, one by Sola, and the more famous one by Koskenniemi. -- Jniemenmaa 18:45 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Re: Anne Frank

Fine. I wasn't considering the fact that this earth was a sphere and not a flat chunk of land, and that times are different in different places. My apologies.

Cheers! - Rickyrab


 * No problem :) --Camembert

I decided to protect monkeypox for a few minutes. -- Notheruser 00:02 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Eric Robert Rudolph too; I wonder where all this traffic is coming from... -- Notheruser 00:11 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * We have her to thank. -- Notheruser


 * There's one person who won't be getting a Christmas card from me this year... --Camembert


 * Sure. I have the feeling I might be here a while... -- Notheruser 00:32 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting me of the date of Kasp-Topa, stupid mistake... Pascal 00:37 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * No problem - we all slip up every now and then :) --Camembert

- Hi cam- having had several ice cold lagers in the garden followed by a couple of bottles of wine it seemd a good idea to start a page on the Canterbury Scene- with your indepth knowledge of music I wondered if you might be interested in fleshing it out a bit- was the canterbury schene actually based around canterbury and directly linked to Canterbury university or did it more describe that kind of whimsical englishness and gentle slightly self-effacing proggie-ness epitomised by Caraven, Hatfield & The North, National Health, egg, etc. Gong were kind of 'Canterbury Schene' yet they started out from a commune in France & Divided Alien was Ozzy... Henry Cow wern't exactly whimsical or self effacing, more austere and maoist self- critisism, yet they still seem to belong with Hatfields, etc.... What do you think??? quercus robur 22:41 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hiya. Was wondering if you'd be interested in putting in your opinion on Wikipedia talk:Use line breaks (I admit I'm asking in a selfish manner, having a good idea how you'd vote *g*) - Hephaestos 01:34 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * I'll have a look - I expect your bribe in the post (used bank notes and bottles of whisky gratefully received ;) --Camembert

Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for supporting my sysop application. Angela 14:14 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * No problem, Angela. --Camembert

Incidentally, Cam, part of the problem is that "does someone with only one edit really deserve a vote?" comes off as a question (and rightly so). It does not imply, at all that the removal of that user's vote has already taken place. One could characterize it as a misleading edit summary. I'm not saying it was intentionally misleading, but it's another problem with it. --Dante Alighieri 19:45 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * I've asked him on his talk page to restore the vote. I think that since he removed it, he ought to put it back. ;) --Dante Alighieri 20:22 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Discussion is always good, but in any controversial situation a census and poll of opinions should be undertaken (merely as a means to understand the arguments of the varying sides) and such a survey is a vote. Pizza Puzzle

No its not clear at all. As Joseph Stalin said (in so many words), "The most powerful person in a democracy, is the person who countes the votes." Likewise, voting is extremely controversial because there is a lack of consenus about what form of voting to use (and how to enforce the results of any vote). Of course the equally problematic question is, if we don't vote - how do we make decisions? Pizza Puzzle


 * Indeed. It's a problem, I know. --Camembert

You made two short-order consecutive edits to my talk page. Such editing destroys the wikipedia by turning the Recent Changes into nothing but a list of recent changes. I will be reporting you, post-haste, to director Eloquence. Pizza Puzzle


 * Heheh - Erik's alright really, you know. --Camembert

I see DW has been acting the idiot on your page too. Is there no end to his childishness? At least Adam can bring the (just occasional) bit of wit. All DW has is pompous ego. FearÉIREANN 02:26 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

All Im saying is credit the POV statement to somebody, problemists, fans of Ruy Lopez, Kramnik's buddies; somebody - I thought it was an interesting position. Pizza Puzzle

When they come for me, all the thanks in the world will be but tinder for their fire. Pizza Puzzle

While many players might not know what a Novotny was, if u played a game, and this situation occurred, would u not recognize it is a Novotny? Surely, a grandmaster would refer to it as, "and so finally, Kramnik's three-tiered Novotny combination paralyzed Ashley's entire force!"

How about a wiki chess tournament on yahoo!? Pizza Puzzle

Whats your account handle on FICS? Pizza Puzzle

Im embarrased of my nagging fear of your rating. Pizza Puzzle

i just started using this site, and am enjoying it muchly. camembert: one of my favorite cheeses. anyone who has such a username must be one of the good guys. you 'tweaked' a page to which i recently added some trivia, and it flows better, now. thanx. User:wayne

An advertorial is a promotional publication that is part advert, part editorial, aimed at promoting a cause or candidate. The advertorials I did were political; the smallest and 8 page tabloid-sized broadsheet-quality, which had columns by a number of local candidates and politicians, as well as a crossword, commentary on local community issues and in the centre pages an interview I did with the then prime minister. The most recent advertorial I did was a 8 page soft tabloid style, discussing local issues, plans for a local railway development, tourism informations, columns by the local politician seeking election, some humourous stuff, etc. I also edited a 32 page advertorial for a university students union.

As a writer and journalist (one of the many things I do!) I could usually turn the most boring press releases into something of some interest to someone, make some boring fart of a senator seem interesting, etc. But on the ones I worked on I insisted on a high level of credibility. (If I was going to write about a new train line to Thurles, it better be a real idea, not some bullshitty promise. And I am not going to burst my balls making some talentless twerp sound interesting. I only do it for people I believe deserve promotion. Idiots need not apply.) I am about to start working on a new larger advertorial to be targeted at the greater Dublin area. Print-run 100,000. The previous biggest I did was 45,000. That, Cam, is what an advertorial is. And one of the first things you learn doing advertorials is the importance of colour. Green unless the right colour makes people feel sick and want to look away. Blue is a turn-off. Red (a colour I hate!) gets people's attention. (That's why the tabloids tend to use read mast-heads! Why Coca Cola cans are red) Pastel colours in the right context are calming.

Re the front page on wiki - Black and white (or shades thereof) have about as much appeal for the average net user as a stale tea bag. Too many words intimidate people away. To attract attention, you need colours. Pastel may calm people and help them read the page. Too many bright sharp colours will distract. The German wiki page, with its careful lines and block colours is like a clichéd image of just what a Monty Pythonesque German is like. All order, structure, etc. It might do down well in Germany, but it would have as much appeal outside Germany as a naked Hilary Clinton. But I have to admit finding the argument on the issue of the front page hilarious. Reading the comments of a small number of people, you begin to wonder what planet they are on. Have they ever laid out a document in their lives? Designed something and watched to see the public reaction to it? Watched hidden as people were presented with the same document laid out differently using different colour schemes, and seen people quite literally wince when shown a document in brown, look coldly at it in blue, and pick up and read it when it uses red. Some of the comments is quoted to advert designers would have them laughing for a week. But I am keeping back. And watch the Wonderful World of Wiki at its most wacky!!! FearÉIREANN 04:58 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I don't doubt that many people find pastel shades calming, but not everyone does, and I think all that's happening is that those people who don't are expressing their opinions on what they, personally, like and don't like. Anyway, it looks like some sort of colour is going to stick on the main page, and it looks likely also that some of the clutter will be removed - I think we can agree that that's a Good Thing. --Camembert

Thanks. -- Jim Regan 18:31 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * No problem. --Camembert

my poor rating :< Pizza Puzzle

* chuckle* at edit comment. --valley girl



Yes! One of the sorrows of switching from vinyl to plastic was losing access to Florence Foster Jenkins' superb interpretation of the Queen of the Night's aria... -- Someone else 02:21 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Does the CD have the fetching picture with the cupid-size wings (on the less-than-sylphlike Ms. Jenkins)? If so, I shall leave no stone unturned in my search for it ! -- Someone else 02:29 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I must admit I don't care whether Nursling has Hampshire and England added or not, but I would like a consistent process.Harry Potter 23:22 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Drop us a note when you feel ready to start, and I'll see what I can do around teh East End.Harry Potter 18:34 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Erm, how many more of these places in London are there? I see that you've moved loads of them, and I've moved a few, but to be honest I haven't been going through them in any logical order, so I have no idea where we've got to! -- Oliver P. 01:09 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Should we call this The Great British Name Change? Or GBNC for short? :-) FearÉIREANN 01:18 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I'm calling it "Seemed A Good Idea At The Time, Induces Madness", or SAGIATTIM for short. Which isn't a very good acronym, but we can work on it ;-) --Camembert

Thanks for the link! Hmm, I think we're nearly done... -- Oliver P. 01:26 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oh happy day... --Camembert

Are you expecting an award from the Queen? Like Pierce Brosnan? FearÉIREANN 01:39 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I'm expecting RSI, nothing more or less ;) --Camembert

I've decided to call it Debden, London (I'm fiddling with its contents at the moment), but since the article actually says its in Essex (as the other one is), that might just be confusing. Hmm. We could just say that since it's inside the M25, it's as near to London as makes no odds, and just leave it there, but we probably shouldn't. I suppose we could have Debden, South Essex and Debden, North Essex... Or how about Debden (nasty urban one) and Debden (nice rural one)? ;) -- Oliver P. 02:29 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Okay, good night. And yes, there'll be more moving to come if disambiguation with parentheses is made the official policy. What fun. :) -- Oliver P. 02:40 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Cam, 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 00:49 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=New_Imperialism&diff=1175926&oldid=1175312

Please explain to me why the New Imperialism page is allowed to remain at 50+k...well in excess of the 32k advised limit. It seems that 172 is extremely aggressive to any user which attempts to edit "his" page -- in fact, if Im starting to understand the edit history correctly...one user was actually banned for trying to bring the page down to 32k!!! So naturally, Im afraid to try and "be bold in editing" for fear of being banned as well. Is 172 the owner of wikipedia? Pizza Puzzle

I have been looking at the edit history and it would appear that, some time ago, a User:Vera Cruze attempted to move parts of the article to imperialism and theories of imperialism...seems like a reasonable idea to me. Pizza Puzzle

Well, im ok with chopping it but let me warn you do not revert back to your old ways cam/em/ber/t/1884/trebmemac/comeplayfics Pizza Puzzle

--- I'm alarmed because Pizza Puzzle = Vera Cruz. If you want a non-partial account, it would be a good idea to ask Tannin or Jtdril about Pizza Puzzle/Vera Cruz's past contributions to this article. 172


 * Yes, I'm aware of the fuss about Pizza Puzzle. All I'm really bothered about is that articles should be short enough that anybody can edit them. --Camembert

It's so frustrating that each time someone deals with this user under any name some naïve; well-intentioned user has to jump in play his games. Take a look at the talk archive. You'll see the disaster that I'm striving to prevent preemptively. He starts with a series of "minor edits" and before you know it he has hijacked the article. This article has been a personal obsession for this user for over half a year. It is the one that got him banned under the name Vera Cruz. His only objective is to annoy and humiliate me. Please, please, take a look at this article's history and you'd see that I&#8217;m taking the only measures possible to avert a disaster. 172

--- Please take a look at the article's history once again. Pizza Puzzle's only goal is to remove text to spite me over what happened months ago. A while ago, you agreed that a history of Germany-style series or dividing the article into parts was a good idea, agreeing that text should not be be removed. I agree too and that will be possible once Vera/Pizza's pernicious presence is dealt with. Take a look at the jumbled, incoherent mess that Pizza Puzzle seeks to restore gradually, one by one, in a series of minor edits by looking at his version from months ago that he kept restoring under the name Vera Cruz. 172

-- The edits look acceptable right now (although I'd argue that prior versions were more coherent and more proper in format), but you know that it always starts off with ostensibly legitimate "minor edits" with him. Doesn't it trouble you that this user has an obsession with removing text from this page? Before you know it, there will be a repeat of what was probably the biggest edit war in Wiki history. Due to his past (I'd be willing to bet my life that Vera=Pizza), he should be asked to do all this edits on a temp page (which was a suggestion by a new user on the talk page) to be examined by you and others who have contributed to that page before his edits are promoted to the article. I'd be willing to keep an open mind when examining what he does with a temp page. Please encourage him to accept the offer. 172


 * I don't think the "new user" suggested all his edits should be done on a temp page at all - they suggested perhaps creating a temp page as a way of ironing out disagreements (not an approach I approve of, incidentally). Anyway, I don't think any of us are psychic, and I don't like the idea of pre-emptive page protections. --Camembert

Fun For You
(much of the below originally at Talk:New Imperialism, IIRC) --- For everyone's information, theories of imperialism was an article that Pizza Puzzle created under the banned user name, Vera Cruz. It's a useless article that hasn't been edited by a single user, not linked to a single page. I favor deleting it. 172

I don't have a clue why 172 thinks I am some other user. Pizza Puzzle

Why does 172 keep removing the text here? Much of this was just posted yesterday, and the comments by erzengel (back in April) are certainly relevant. Pizza Puzzle

I'm placing it in this archive, not removing it. 172

--- Pizza Puzzle: anyone is free to archive talk. You can find the latest messages above in archive 6. This time I'm going to protect the page. 172


 * And anyone is free to unarchive it, which I have just done - there is no reason whatsoever to archive one day old talk on a matter which has not yet been resolved unless the talk page is so long that people cannot edit it (which it is not). Such archiving makes it harder to contribute to recent discussion. --Camembert

Pizza Puzzle, banned under the name Vera Cruz for his conduct on this page, is messing up the proper layout and format, gradually deconstructing this article in a series of so-called "minor edits." To avoid the Vera Cruz/New Imperialism debacle, well-chronicled on the mailing list and the talk page, this page will be protected. 172


 * Don't be ridiculous. Look at what you actually reverted - now seriously, does that look like "deconstruction" to you? I have unprotected the article, and have also unprotected this talk page: I'm intriguied as to why you thought either was necessary or appropriate. It is in any case very bad form to protect pages one is directly involved with. Please do not do this again, or I shall be sorely tempted to ask for your sysop status to be revoked. --Camembert

Don't be fooled by Pizza Puzzle's misleading claims that he is not Vera Cruz. Please read this message, from Jtdril on the Vera/Pizza relation:


 * Please don't treat us like fools, PP. Most of the people have known who you are from day 1. (A simple check of IPs, location etc apart from anything else shows it.) I don't care who you are. All I care is that we don't have a repeat of the Lir/Vera Cruz/Susan Mason/Dietary Fiber performances.You know why and how you got banned repeatedly before. Just avoid doing that again, OK, Adam. That way everyone will be happy and you will be able to continue to edit wiki and most people will simply deliberately ignore the past. It is in your interest to avoid opening up those old wounds. But if you return to your trouble-making old ways then you will be hardbanned again and this time it will be permanent. A lot of people, not withstanding the past, have trusted you and shown respect for you as PP because your standard of behaviour was a big improvement. If you piss them off by acting as before they will never trust you again and treat you to the same all out war waged on Michael and DW, with you being banned the moment you are caught on and every single letter and full stop you place on wiki deleted on sight. IMHO that would be a shame given the talents you could bring, and the contributions you could make, to wikipedia.


 * It is entirely in your hands. But don't insult the intelligence of many intelligent wikiepedians here by playing the "oh golly gosh. Who is this Vera?" lark. There are plenty of wikipedians who can establish within seconds what IP you are using, where you are physically calling from, etc. They have done so (they did it almost as soon a you first came on and established exactly who you are. Nobody on wiki will be fooled by protests of innocence. If you don't want to talk about who you really are, then just don't talk about it at all. But pretending you are not who you demonstrably are is one sure way of generating bad will towards yourself. Just drop the issue, keep up the standards you set as PP and don't revert to previous behaviour and all will be well. But it is entirely up to you whether you want to stay and continue to be a respected working colleague here on wikipedia or whether you want to muck it up and be kicked off. And if you get kicked off again it will be for good, and not a single wikipedian will be supporting your presence on wiki again. So stop messing and get back to work, OK! FearÉIREANN 04:42 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Yet, after this message, Pizza Puzzle made this dubious claim on the New Imperialism talk page: "I don't have a clue why 172 thinks I am some other user. Pizza Puzzle"

Yes, 172, both you and Jtdirl think Pizza Puzzle is Lir, but that doesn't necessarily make it so, and it certainly doesn't make protecting pages that Pizza Puzzle (whoever he may be) makes perfectly good edits to acceptable. --Camembert

It's so frustrating that each time someone deals with this user under any name some naïve; well-intentioned user has to jump in play his games. Take a look at the talk archive. You'll see the disaster that I'm striving to prevent preemptively. He starts with a series of "minor edits" and before you know it he has hijacked the article. This article has been a personal obsession for this user for over half a year. It is the one that got him banned under the name Vera Cruz. His only objective is to annoy and humiliate me. Please, please, take a look at this article's history and you'd see that I&#8217;m taking the only measures possible to avert a disaster. 172

hijacking...preemption...*cough* Pizza Puzzle


 * 172, I am trying very hard to keep my temper, but you are making it very difficult indeed for me. I am not "naïve" in this matter - I am well aware of the history of this article. It does not matter what has happened in the past, nothing untoward is happening now. And I repeat, protecting an article which you are directly invovled with is very bad form, especially when there is no need to protect it in any case. If Pizza Puzzle - or anybody else - continually makes changes to the article against consensus, then we can consider protecting the page, but this is certainly not what is going on now, and page protection is very much a last resort. In protecting the page, you not only keep Pizza Puzzle out of it, you keep all other non-sysops out of it as well. Protecting the talk page is particularly pointless. And I REPEAT: it is not useful to archive (some would say "hide") talk which is one day old and about an issue which is still unresolved. --Camembert


 * And for crying out LOUD: archives of article talk pages do not go in the user namespace!! --Camembert

That was just the existing format. This can be fixed later.


 * I did fix it. Then you unfixed it. --Camembert

I found this good quotation by a very trusted, respected contributor about Vera Cruz's conduct on New Imperialism. This will explain my sentiments:

"172, I don't think I can be much help. I cannot reason with VC once he takes it into her head to start "improving" an article with a thousand cuts and changes any more than you can. I don't mean that the task is difficult, I mean that the task, so far as I can tell, is impossible. It makes no real difference if there are dozens of other contributors bringing evidence and reasoned argument to the task: once VC has decided to "improve" an article it just becomes a mindless edit war until she either gets her way or makes a tactical withdrawl in order to concentrate on "improving" something else for a while. Sometimes, these really are improvements. I'm not sure if this is evidence of an intermittent desire to contribute useful information; a camouflage tactic for the real intent; or simply examples of the usual random changes which just happen to be useful ones.

The only two things you can do, so far as I can see, are (a) resign yourself to an eternity of filling up the Wiki database with endless reversions when you could be doing something productive, or (b) on VC's arrival, give up on whatever article she is infesting and go elsewhere." User:172


 * I understand what you sentiments are, there is no need for you to elucidate them further, but please try to understand the points I'm making, which I shall recap here:


 * 1) Protecting a page is a last resort.
 * 2) Just because you suspect Pizza Puzzle is Lir doesn't mean to say that he/she is.
 * 3) Whoever Pizza Puzzle may be, and whatever they may have done in the past, their recent edits to this article are completely OK. If future edits are not OK, we can deal with that as it happens.
 * 4) Archiving talk which is only one day old on matters not yet resolved is counter-productive.

I am going to leave this page for an hour and have several cups of tea. I hope things will have calmed down when I return. --Camembert

um - this page is getting kinda long, but I dont think archiving is the right idea since the last half of this is basically 172 arguing that Im a terrorist. Perhaps we can move all that to Pizza Puzzle is a Terrorist so that the actual discussion is visible? Pizza Puzzle


 * Yes, possibly the latter part of this talk page should be moved somewhere (if nobody else wants it, it can go on my talk page). --Camembert

-- This article got you banned under the name Vera Cruz. Over time, it will get you banned under the name Pizza Puzzle. 172

-- To Pizza Puzzle: Good ahead, create your own page on New Imperialism/temp and see how many Wikipedians agree with you. If you have enough supporter, then no one can stop you from modifying the main article. If you believe that you are right but most Wikipedians don't agree with you, then you should just stay away from the article and regret that nobody agrees with you. That's how democracy works. Don't let edit wars changed into the source of hate. Wshun

I can create temp pages all day long and nobody will ever see them. Pizza Puzzle


 * I don't think there's any point in a /temp page - Pizza Puzzle's edits are quite minor (and, as far as I can see, good), 172 is reverting them because of who he suspects Pizza Puzzle to be rather than because of what the edits are. --Camembert


 * The worry of Pizza Puzzle is relatively easy to settle. A simple way is to put a remainder on the current page. An alternative way is to create two temp page and temporarily change the main article into disambigious page--but it may not be acceptable to most wikipedians.


 * However if it is just minor edits, then it means the edit wars between 172 and Pizza Puzzle becomes personnal, then I am afraid /temp page is not a good idea and that they have to settle their differences in a more civilized way :P. Wshun

You might want to delete all the above, 172 apparently insists that it must stay on the talk page.


 * I'll keep it here for a little while - it'll ensure there's at least one stable version in case the other gets moved around again. --Camembert

Here is a "temp"; don't let it go to waste. New_Imperialism (temp) Some text, such as the long "definition of imperialism" paragraph at New Imperialism can be moved to imperialism -- other text has been moved to theories of imperialism -- topic specific text on the Panic of 1893 or the Congo Free State or Cecil Rhodes...or....or...etc can be reinserted at those appropriate locations. I urge you to read New Imperialism very closely and you will find some amusing things (not to mention a migraine headache). Pizza Puzzle


 * I probably ought to get rid of my current headache before embarking on a new one. I'll try to have a look at it at the end of the week, but I'm not promising anything.... --Camembert

--- The New Imperialism issue has already been resolved now that several other users have persuaded Pizza Puzzle, formally the banned user Vera Cruz (banned for his continual restoration of incoherent versions of that very article, versions quite similar to the one on his temp page right now), to play around with the article in his temp page sandbox. I confided to Jtdril that perhaps I overreacted, but am ready to move on now that the controversy has been postponed temporarily by his acquiesce to editing a temp page rather than the main article.
 * BTW, I am certain that my actions preemptively averted an edit war on the scale of the one half a year ago on that very article. Realistically speaking, you know that if it hadn't been for my opposition he'd be promoting something along the lines of what's on his temp page on the main article, which is what he was doing months ago until others forced him to back off and had him banned. You also know from previously dealing with Lir and Vera that this user probably has some sort of behavioral disorder impeding him from reasonably seeing the limitations of his own viewpoints and normally interacting with people. This article has been a personal obsession for him, probably because he is obsessed with competing with me, among other users such as Zoe and Jtdril. He is a specter that keeps on coming back to haunt this article. 172
 * Months ago, many users agreed that a version along the lines of Vera Cruz's (which is quite similar to the on PP is promoting right now) was a completely inappropriate and incoherent way of solving the problem. We will be able to finally resolve the length problem when the pernicious presence is gone by creating a history of Germany-style series. In addition, please don't give me any more high-minded, idealistic lectures anymore.  You know very well what a conflict with Lir/Vera entails. New name, or no new name. Vera Cruz is back on New Imperialism and it would be helpful if someone else could keep an eye on him.


 * The "issue", at least as far as I was concerned, was not Pizza Puzzle editing the article - that is something he is quite entitled to do as far as I am concerned. The issue was that the New Imperialism article was too long. It still is too long. In my eyes, the issue remains unresolved, and will be unresolved until the page is below 32kb. --Camembert

Thankyou for you comments. --Camembert

Hi, Wasn't there a picture from North by Northwest in one of the Wiki pages? Maybe I am thinking of a different movie Thanks for combining the work. --smith03


 * I've replied at Talk:North by Northwest (movie) (in short: there was no picture). No problem with the combining. --Camembert

So what, 172 tells you "How the hell are you to be giving ultimatums? Wipe the foam off your mouth and retract your statements. " and you decide its all too much trouble and he should get his way at New Imperialism? What the hell did I create New Imperialism (temp) for... Pizza Puzzle

Well I made a nice page that was under 32k. Pizza Puzzle

It is now Monday. I have created an edit version of New Imperialism at New Imperialism (temp). My version is under 32k, and is better wikified and organized. My version has less POV and is better written. Pizza Puzzle

Jtdirl has protected New Imperialism, as part of an "edit war" in which he was part. This is an abuse of his sysop powers. 172 has also previously protected this page (and the talk page) unilaterally. Pizza Puzzle

there is a vote regarding this at talk:New Imperialism Pizza Puzzle


 * edited the above for links. Martin 17:33 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Re the Chavez 'vandal', the user has been posting anti-Chavez comments all over the place in articles and talk pages. A very similar IP has been adding in suspiciously similar POV stuff (calling everyone even slightly less left wing than Pinochet as communist) to various articles. I have had to do numerous revertions, deleted chunks of articles were were so OTT they were hilarious.

His comments, each on a different page, include  In public speeches at international level the Venezuelan president wastes no time to attack the U.S. government, the U.S. proposed FTAA's implementation being an ever useful motive to congratiate himself with international anti-globalisation movements and leftist hardliners.

In your paragraph of " Modern populism" mention is made to Lula, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela also epitomizes the term.

''One should think that you have missed the government of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as an exemplary case of Kleptocracy. Aleksander Boyd''

Extreme-left political party of Hugo Chavez.

I hope the Chavez page (and others) are spared any more of his POVisms but I'm not sure. The page (and indeed just about every page on S. America) needs to be watched closely. (I remember an very similar IP being used some months ago by someone who used almost identical language and claims on other pages, annoyed at reversions of paranoid rubbish, called Wiki a "communist conspiracy" and if I remember correctly, you, Mav and I think it might have been Zoe were the "arch-communists". - I don't even remember seeing you mentioned in the list of those who had edited his page but somewhere an edit of yours seemed to have made a bad impression! FearÉIREANN 19:51 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

- Thanks for restoring the recent version. I too was baffled over Mav's restoration of such an ancient version. 172 13:10, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A vote was held and concluded that the temp links should be visible at New Imperialism. Pizza Puzzle
 * It's irrelevant now. The main page is now an executive summary/main page for a series well under the 32 K limit. It's time to list his incoherent list of every important historical actor and event in the nineteenth century that he calls an article on the VFD. 172 19:22, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)