User talk:FirstPrinciples/archive2

Talk Archive 2 - December 2004 to May 2005

Uploading images
Hi, sorry to bother you. I was trying to upload an image and it just wouldn't do it. It was a photo of the interior of a cell in Alcatraz prison that I took when I was on holiday there. Could my trouble have anything to do with the fact that I don't have broadband? Please reply on my talkpage,--Honeycake (internal ID number: 118170) 12:23, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * No, I've uploaded it now.--Honeycake (internal ID number: 118170) 12:44, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mirrors for Wikipedia content
Thanks for pointing out my mistaken copyvio. Ensuring that content isn't being legitimately mirrored makes Wikifying new articles a bit cumbersome, but I'll try to err on the side of caution in the future.

Regarding copyvio, would a corporate news release concerning a military project be protected? I marked MATADOR as a copyvio since the content was lifted from such an item. Wagiles 21:56, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * Generally, if you're unsure if a site has been plariarised, try looking for a copyright policy on the site concerned. Most decent sites have at least a rudimentary policy. If the site information is in the public domain (or if it's been created by government employees), then chances are there are no problems. As for the MATADOR article - it is from a definitely copyrighted site, so you were right to flag it. For more information see Copyright problems. -- FirstPrinciples 09:26, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Manga/Anime overload
I wonder if you've noticed how many entries in Wikipedia this Japanese comic style has generated. While omitting mention of the style isn't the right approach, I don't understand why it and other topics are discussed in such fine detail. Another example is Star Wars and Star Trek, both of which I personally enjoy. Exactly what kind of encyclopedia is this supposed to be? I'm a little confused as to the goals of the Wikipedia project. It seems like it is in danger of becoming a storehouse for every minute detail of fads and pop trivia generally inconsequential to the store of human knowledge.Wagiles 00:19, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

Where would be a better place to put in my 2 cents on this? I'm sure it's been discussed before.


 * Many people have raised similar objections, and I sympathise with you. Wikipeida has many "nooks and crannies" that have been overtaken by somewhat "overzealous" enthusiasts. The Pokémon category is a good example, as are the instances you mention. I think this is simply due to Wikipedia's nature as a freely editable encylopedia; some people simply are very interested in certain areas, and have chosen to pool their knowledge here. Personally, I'm not too worried about it. I recommend the following pages to address your concerns: Replies to common objections, Why Wikipedia is not so great and Why Wikipedia is so great.


 * For general help using Wikipedia, I recommend visiting the help desk. A good place to ask questions about the direction of Wikipedia is the village pump.


 * Please let me know if you have any more queries. Best wishes, -- FirstPrinciples 12:06, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

Gravity and fictitious force
The image namespace is for images; it is not really supposed to be for articles in their own right. I strongly suggest that you create a proper article in the Wikipedia main namespace and move your information there. Then you can link to the image using Wikipedia image syntax. If you need assistance I am more than happy to help. -- FirstPrinciples 11:20, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi FirstPrinciples


 * Let me scetch the editorial problem. The 'gravity is not fictitious' section is not a proper article, is a part of the fictitious force article.


 * In articles involving physics there is a nasty problem: sometimes the same thing must be discussed twice, once in newtonian terms, and then in relativistic terms. In the case of fictitious force this problem is acute. Many people misunderstand general relativity causing them to think that according to general relativity the fictitious forces have the same status as gravity.


 * Preferably, 'fictitious force' should be discussed in everyday language only, that is sufficient. I think wikipedia articles should be accessable to a wide audience. But people who misunderstand general relativity will then complain that "the article disregards general relativity".


 * The only purpose of the section on general relativity is to show that the section on general relativity is unnecessary, because the two theories agree on the subject of fictitious force.


 * So moving the 'Gravity is not fictitious' information to a separate namespace is an undesirable option, the section is part of the 'fictitious force' article. I was looking for a way to give the 'gravity is not fictitious' section a much smaller profile.


 * If you can advise me please do so. I want this resolved, and I agree that using image space for a section of the article is not a good solution to te editorial problem. --Cleon Teunissen 11:51, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * currently, the fictitious force article links to the gravity_not_fictitous image space. I have used the following syntax:
 * [:image:gravity_not_fictitious.png] instead of [image:gravity_not_fictious.png]
 * possibly that is why it says: no article links to this image. --Cleon Teunissen 12:05, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I can understand your concerns... but I don't see why you had to move outside the main namespace. I would like to suggest that you raise this issue at Village pump (assistance) and ask for advice there. If you want, I can ask for assistance on your behalf. -- FirstPrinciples 13:28, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi doug, I have moved that body of text from that image page back to the fictitious force article. The image gravity_not_fictitious is now an orphan, and can be deleted. (I don't know the syntax for a 'this is an orphan' template. I removed the 'this is not an orphan' template.) In the fictitious force article I have tried to make the section on general relativity as low profile as possible. --Cleon Teunissen 16:27, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Auckland power crisis
Sorry about that comment on homework, but you weren't logged in at the time you made your request, so I had no idea who was asking. Are you now happy with the coverage? I thought about adding something on the Mercury Energy leader who had a fatal heart attack shortly afterwards, but wasn't sure if it was appropriate, and anyway couldn't find a news item about it to get his name and the date.-gadfium 00:52, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

B-Ryan explanation
Actually, User:B-Ryan is a friend of mine from school. I convinced him to go to Wikipedia, but he's not a big fan of writing things; so, uninterested in Wikipedia, he decided not to come back.&rarr; Jarlaxle Artemis   03:39, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Whether or not User:B-Ryan was known to you, your behaviour was still very questionable. E.g. telling him, "By the way, your user page sucks. Try to write something a bit more intelligent" is hardly good Wikiquette. -- FP 03:58, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee case opening
The case against JarlaxleArtemis has been accepted by the Arbitration Committee. Please bring evidence to Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis/Evidence. Thank you. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 16:26, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

Apology
I accept your apology. I apologise myself for being such a nuisance.&rarr; Jarlaxle Artemis   03:55, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re: Congratulations
Thanks! I put a lot of time and effort into it. :) – ClockworkSoul 15:18, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee ruling
The case against JarlaxleArtemis has closed. Please read the final decision for details. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 23:06, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

Chemtrails
I really have a problem with the section you added, even though I happen to think chemtrails are bunk. Please discuss at Talk:Chemtrail. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:37, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sikh pages
FP, thanks for recommending keep Sikh pages. I thought too, at first, that maybe categories could replace this list. When, or if, the VFD notice is removed I'll try to remember to fix the double categorization problems I created. DialUp 19:56, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Xiong 1
Instead of labeling my actions "utterly stupid", why don't you debate them on the merits? If you can make a case for retention of {tfd}, please do so. If you cannot, then perhaps you would be better to make a frank statement of personal, subjective affection for the doomed template. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than speak and remove all doubt." &mdash; Xiongtalk 03:31, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
 * Xiong, I am not aware of the full back story that led you to become so passionate about the deletion of templates and such. I don't really want to get entangled in this. However, it is my opinion that you are simply being disruptive on TfD in an aggressive attempt to get your way, flying in the face of consensus. I used the phrase "utterly stupid" with careful consideration. Note I am not saying that you are stupid, but your actions in this matter are. (P.S. I ask you to please avoid long, rambling proposals; your proposal to delete Template:tfd was over 1,000 words long.) -- FP 04:47, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Labels, labels. "Passionate", "disruptive", "aggressive". It's so easy to label opposition as invalid. I've summarized my complaints pretty clearly; if you really demand an "executive summary", I'll provide one -- but I point you to Requests for arbitration/Netoholic 2/Evidence. I almost linked to my evidence, but I think you should read it all. Really, I do.

In a word, Netoholic reacted viciously to my rebuttal of a proposal he is trying to shove into policy. Before you judge, do the footwork -- see what he did, when, and with what comment. It will take you a lot of time to uncover his tracks, because he kicks plenty of dirt over them -- and it takes plenty of time for me to uncover them, too, and post signs to them. The effort has stalled my substantive contributions, which is exactly what he wants.

I am perfectly sincere in my nomination of Template:Tfd for deletion. What is stupid about it? Like others, you refuse to debate on the merits. I've presented good arguments in favor of the nomination; rebut them -- on the merits, not with labels. &mdash; Xiongtalk 06:09, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)


 * Clearly, you have a personal dispute with Netoholic. I don't really care about the details; there is no excuse to disrupt the operation of Wikipedia. Your paranoid comments about your posting being deleted, your duplicate-post comments to multiple users, and your proposal to delete a very important, functional template are disruptive. As I've already told you, I don't want to get involved any further in this nonsense. My final suggestion to you is to calm down and not get worked up about trivial stuff. Goodbye. -- FP 06:53, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

I see I've neglected to respond. Please don't take this as insistence that you reply. Purely for the record:


 * I do have a personal dispute with Netoholic, or he with me. Fortunately, I am not alone, and ArbCom is considering fairly stringent penalties. I expect we will all rest easier once this source of instigation is gone.


 * I don't believe I have yet disrupted this project; despite my nomination, TfD steamrolls on, for good or ill. But considering the damage it does, had I derailed it entirely, I feel I would be acting on the side of right.


 * Some of my comments have been deleted. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. On the other hand, some of my concerns were unjustified, and I've gone to some trouble to go around and strike them. Just because they're out to get you doesn't mean you're not paranoid. Sorry for the inconvenience.


 * I don't consider {tfd} to serve any purpose; on contrary, I think it a menace. I have made extremely detailed analysis of its effect -- destructive both on the technical level and on the moral.


 * Nobody has yet to put forward a concrete defense of it beyond one point -- instead, all defenses are in the same vein: "It's just plain stupid to delete it!" That one point is that interested parties ought to be noticed when a template is nominated for deletion. Since there are many other, less destructive ways to do that, {tfd} is merely a tool for vandalism. Q.E.D.

You are welcome to remain uninvolved, but I see recently you put your oar in. If that's what you feel you need to do, fine -- but then I ask you to reach into your duffle bag, pull out some intellectual honesty, study my objections, and then act. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 06:59, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)


 * Xiong, I only put my "oar" back in to update the RfC after it was blanked by Radiant. Apart from that, my involvement consists only of factual analysis of your actions. (I've been at pains to point out that I have practically no involvement with you personally.) I would like you to consider the following points:


 * 1) I think you are an intelligent person, who has great potential to contribute. Your great weakness is that you seem to want to push your ideas through quickly and without consensus. Unfortunately Wikipedia policy changes at a geological rate, and consensus is paramount (and there's little that can be done to change this). I understand that this can be frustrating.
 * 2) The RfC against you is not a personal vendetta. (The acceptance of the new RfC shows that users had the same concerns irrespective of Netoholic's position). It reflects real concerns about the way you have conducted yourself in this community.
 * 3) The RfC against you is intended to achieve "rehabilitation", not punishment.
 * 4) I have read your objection to tagging. In fact, I share some of your concerns about the placement of templates. Indeed a few months ago I was involved in a small tiff about templates being moved to the talk page. So, I think your position is a valid one. However, your modus operandi for promoting your views has really hindered you badly. I understand that Netoholic may have provoked you, which may have made you act a little more aggressively; nevertheless, your conduct (which I need not elaborate here) did little but put other wikipedians off side with you.
 * 5) I want to very strongly encourage you to limit your rhetorical flair, and be concise and polite in all your wikipedia comments. Even if you're certain that you are in the right, it is poor form to go into rhetorical rants about your opponents "intellectual honesty" and so on. Such conduct puts people's defences up, rather than encouraging them to consider your side of the argument. (Plus, if your opponents are trying to upset you, then being constantly nice and considerate is worse than heaping hot coals on their heads.) It is far better to peaceably argue your opponents around to your way of thinking, rather than to attack them.


 * That's it for now. I really want you to consider whether your actions have been appropriate. I would appreciate your reply, but only if you take me seriously and avoid personal attacks. -- FP 07:46, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

My reply weighs in at 4200 words. I'll post it elsewhere, later today perhaps. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 16:04, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)


 * Oh dear, I suspect 4,200 words will be far longer than is strictly necessary! :( -- FP 22:04, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Image Placeholders
Sorry, that was my bad about the image placeholder. I've reverted the article. android↔talk 22:28, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

/To do
I ran into a block-compression error when trying to delete your /to do page. Standard practice in this case is to add a notice and protect the page, which I have done. However, since it is in your user space, I (or any other admin) can unprotect it if you'd like to use it some time in the future. -- Scott ei&#960;  08:05, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. -- FP 08:05, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Introduction and Atlas Award
The Atlas Award can be applied to the Introduction page as the Sandbot doesn't rake that clean. -- AllyUnion (talk) 21:41, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Xiong 2
As one of the people who's tried to encourage this user to act more appropriately, I thought I'd let you know I have opened an RFC on him at Requests for comment/Xiong. In short, his actions have continued to be disruptive, especially his recent nomination of Templates for deletion for deletion (see Votes for deletion/Templates for deletion.

If you'll consider either certifying or supporting the summary, that would be appreciated. -- Netoholic @ 21:41, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)

RE: Help
Thanks Doug, I think I have figured it out now. I was trying to work out how to embed an article that was just in the default namespace (i.e. without a pre-fix, such as "Wikipedia:").

It seems, as I am sure you already know, that you can just prefix the article name with : when embedding it; e.g. . Obvious really!

Anyway thanks again for the offer of help. 213.52.175.2 12:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chemtrails
Well, first off... I don't see any hurry at all about removing the NPOV tag. Let it sit there for a while. I think this is always a good thing to do. It shows respect for the good faith of the people who placed it. And removing them may provoke them into editing the article itself.

Suppose a user looks up Chemtrails and sees the NPOV tag. Does it damage the article or make it less useful? I don't think so.

Second, let's put in an RFC and see if we can garner some more comments. I think the article is on very safe ground.

Wikipedia attracts a lot of Gradgrind facts-facts-facts people who need a little immersion in what the Wikipedian community means by NPOV. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Xiong 3
Hi there! Because the RFC about Xiong seemed to deal mainly on his disagreements with Netoholic, I thought it best to start a new RFC to see if people have comments on Xiong's behavior that do not relate to Netoholic. Please give your thoughts and/or opinion on that at Requests for comment/Xiong. Radiant_* 08:26, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * You are right that it may be frustrating. Sorry about that but I felt it was necessary. Feel free to copy/paste any comments that you believe appropriate into the new RFC. Radiant_* 09:08, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Kaaahn and the "anon"
It seems this was a bad joke by a regular user - including the stupid edit summaries and talk page message. Once I realised what was going on, I asked him to stop, it looks as though he has done so -- sannse (talk) 22:14, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More Maori place names
FP, you were so helpful with Aotearoa that I hoped I might impose on you for some more help. I'm about to record Francis Petre for the Spoken Wikipedia project, and I'd like to pronounce these place names correctly. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:49, May 3, 2005 (UTC)


 * Wanganui (whan-gan'-oo-eye', wan'-gah-noo'-ee?)
 * the Taieri Plains (tay'-ur-ree?)
 * Oamaru stone (o-ah'-mah-roo?)
 * Te Aro (tay-Ah' roh?)
 * Otago (oh'-tah-go?)
 * Newtown (new town or newton?)
 * Llanmaes (Welsh? "lahn'-mees"?)


 * Hello again! I have to go to a lecture now but I will message you in a few hours with a full guide. -- FP 01:06, May 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * Cool, that'd be awesome. -Willmcw 05:48, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Here is a rough guide. Unfortunately I have a cold so the sound is a bit harsh and nasal :) -- FP 07:04, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

As for Llanmaes and Newtown I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps you can leave a query on the New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board. -- FP 07:04, May 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * Fantastic. This is a huge help - I'd have really mangled them otherwise. We oughta copy these into the articles themselves. Thanks! -Willmcw 07:30, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Qualitative
Which version do you think should remain? I couldn't see anything that wasn't covered perfectly by a more appropriately titled article, such as Qualitative research; the rest seemed to be merely dictionary definition (as is almost inevitable with an adjective), and 'qualitative' is already in Wiktionary. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 22:09, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
 * If it was up to me, I would revert the article to the older, more complete version, at least for now. I agree that qualitative has a less-than-ideal title. However at most this justifies a renaming (or possibly a merge and redirect to qualitative research), not a deletion. Incidentally, do you have any comment on quantitative since it is in exactly the same boat, so to speak?
 * Also I would like to suggest that you drop a brief note on the article talk page in this sort of situation to explain your rationale, as I am not telepathic (yet) :-) -- FP 22:24, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, a redirect to Qualitative research would be better; I'll do that (I had a reason for not doing that at the time, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was). And I apologise for not making a note on the Talk page &mdash; it was indecent haste, not a deliberate snub. As for Quantitative, I looked at it, and thought that there was much more there, making it much more difficult to deal with; it certainly couldn't be a redirect (perhaps a disambiguation page?). Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 22:40, 7 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, I did a search, and found three articles starting with "qualitative", so I made it a disambiguation page. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 23:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Brilliant - the problem is solved to everyone's satisfaction, amidst much rejoicing. You're clearly a conscientious admin, thankyou. -- FP 01:26, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Oops! Sorry, I should have unprotected long ago. Thanks for reminding me. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 15:51, 12 May 2005 (UTC)