User talk:JamesMLane/Archive1

Initial welcome from Djinn112
Hello! Welcome to Wikipedia, James. Thank you for your fine work around the encyclopedia. Judging from the work you've done, it seems that your forte is in politics; if you want to continue helping us, you can find plenty of articles in need of help in this field or others at Pages needing attention.

You might find these links helpful in starting new articles or helping with existing ones: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style, and About 'Show preview'. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you'd like some help from the community on starting to edit, you can sign yourself up at the new users log. If you have any particular questions, you can see the help pages, or, for individual help, feel free to add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page.


 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.


 * You can sign your name on talk pages using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.


 * If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Thank you for your contributions; I hope you continue to help us.

-- Djinn112 05:39, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Procedure on copyvio (from pump)
Having noticed a probable copyvio at Don Lafferty, I added it to the list of possible copyright infringements (with the URL of the source material) and replaced the page's text with the copyvio messages. Am I supposed to do anything more? I see the copyvio page says things should stay there at least 7 days "before a decision is made" but that adroit use of the passive leaves it unclear who makes the decision. I'm guessing I can just ignore the matter and leave it to some panel of certified Great Minds but I'd like confirmation. JamesMLane 02:57, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That should do it, it gives people a chance to comment before it's decided whether or not to delete. RickK | Talk 05:12, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate knowing that I'm not leaving something undone. But as a new participant I'm curious about the process -- and I notice that you, like the copyvio page, use the passive voice ("before it's decided"). Who makes these decisions? JamesMLane 13:36, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Copyvios
In general, if people feel that an item listed on the Votes for Deletion pages, they comment on it, by voting Delete or Keep. It's a rough consenus decision on whether something should or should not be deleted. After the article or image has been on the VfD page for 5 days (or & for copyrights, I think), then a sysop will take it on him or herself to clean up the page by deleting the things listed there. Hope that makes sense. :) RickK | Talk 01:07, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * deletion policy has the gory details... Martin 14:37, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Okay
James, could you apply your knowledge about the Choctaw origin of the word "Okay" to that article? That Fay paper is really long and hard for me to digest. Thanks, Kevin Saff 17:21, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Big O Tires
The convention regarding the "Inc." in the article title is probably best covered by Naming conventions (common names). Since "Big O Tires" is more common than "Big O Tires, Inc.", we should stick to the former if possible. This is why articles are named Google, General Electric, Time Warner, etc., instead of "Google, Inc.", "General Electric Company", "Time Warner, Inc." The exception to this rule is when the "Inc" is needed for disambiguation, such as for Mars, Incorporated or Fossil, Inc.. Hope this helps. --Minesweeper 18:44, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Edit conflicts
Hi James, yes you should get a prompt if you're editing at the same time as someone else. What I think happened in this case is that you just accidently managed to delete some bits. It happens to us all sometimes, so don't worry about it. ;) Sorry if I deleted a comment of yours, I couldn't exaclty figure out what had happened.  fabiform | talk 08:02, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Las Vegas, Nevada
James, In regards to your edits in this Wiki Entry please see my comments left for you in the Talk:Las Vegas, Nevada page and let me know. Misterrick 08:40, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

James, Click to Talk:Las Vegas, Nevada for a response to your latest message. Misterrick 19:44, 1 May 2004 (UTC).

John McCormack
Good call you made, on reflection. Tnx for the eyeballs! --Jerzy(t) 15:00, 2004 May 7 (UTC)

Adding lakes to the natural features section
See my comments here: MediaWiki talk:Colorado River system. B 13:48, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Virgin River
Thanks for you message. The highlighting seems to work better in some browsers than others. I've been experimenting with colors to find the best combination that works. I will probably redo them at some point, What kind of browser/computer are you using? It would help to know. -- Decumanus | Talk 14:57, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info about your machine. I appreciate it. As for your suggestion. It always seemed appropriate to have both kinds of maps, ones with topo features and ones with state outlines. I disagree with the broad statement about preferences. I prefer topos myself. Keep in mind that I have made over a hundred such maps, ones for almost all the tributaries of the Colorado and the upper Missouri, and I'm working on the Ohio tributaries right now. You can follow the "images" link on my page to see all the maps that are in Wiki so far. It's an ongoing project of mine. Tweaking the color schemes has been part of it. I've noticed it doesn't work well on some machines, like I said. For some reason the green of the highlighted doesn't come out as well on some screens. In any case, the more maps the better, in my opinion. -- Decumanus | Talk 23:56, 15 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I should mention that the next iteration of those map series will probably have the state outlines superimposed over the topo features. Best of both worlds. -- Decumanus | Talk 00:10, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Poll re Pinochet article
Do you want to make some comments at Talk:Augusto Pinochet? 172 15:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

The CIA is not mentioned in the intro that is being voted on. The assertion of U.S. backing being voted on can be found here. 172 17:05, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Name for Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse page?
Saw your comment above, Eloquence is trying to conduct a poll, you may wish to express an opinion, it's at the BOTTOM of the talk page, Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse_reports. I was the one who objected to "scandal" and move the page to Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse_reports.

Pinochet
I am bothered by what now increasingly appear to be accusations from you that my edits to the sandbox were not done in good faith. You should understand that I feel the CIA issue is far more than adequately covered in the article already (by noting it's half the article, I did not mean that it should be, I meant this one issue is getting exaggerated coverage). I don't think having several sentences about the specific pieces of evidence about the CIA is appropriate in what is essentially a biographical entry about a person. That is why I favor having slight mention there. The interested reader can consult the bloated section below to learn more about the subject. But whatever the case, your implication that I'm somehow putting a wrecking ball to good information for some agenda is disturbing and wrong. I initially wanted (and still would like) to not mention the CIA/alleged US role at all and just have it be an article section (note there is not even a mention of Pinochet's arrest in the non-sandbox intros!), but I added a short reference to the issue to satisfy those who felt it was important enough. (Of course, this was when I was working with reasonable users who could accept compromise and accepted that as fair.) VV 14:47, 20 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your thoughtful reply. The point of the sandbox is to experiment - that's what I was doing by reshuffling the content.  I don't think I deleted anything of substance, but rather moved it to a separate section.  I think you are reading too much into this action; it was a counterproposal as to how to handle the new content, which I did think was excellent and appropriate for the article, just not the intro.  I'm not sure I agree about what people would come to the Pinochet article for; questions they might have is, why does Pinochet have such a bad reputation?, was he a hero or monster?, how did his reign end? - in addition to the arrest, etc.  (I once created a U.S. intervention in Chile article in the hopes of consolidating some content there, but that doesn't seem to have worked.)  But I'm bothered by spending a quarter of the intro talking about a foreign nation (the US) in an article on a Chilean politican.  Don't get me wrong, I know where you're coming from, but having had to hash out wording on this intro for what may be months now, I'm getting a fairly strong sense of how it should be structured.  My preference remains to state that the US supported Pinochet's government, and leave all the details (what kind of support? does that mean the coup?) to the article, but too many are pushing for specific coverage of the US coup allegations for that option to work (although Eloquence seems more willing to consider it now).  The reason for putting "many believe" is that that is how I read the NPOV policy; if a point is disputed, say so. VV 07:31, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Despite being in the section that you iniciated, I was not talking specifically about your edits. As you can see in the histories of the sandboxes, the one without the footnote has been worked on by several people, while the other by esentially one, but once the page is unprotected, that one pushes his version stubbornly, and refuses to take out the "US backed" part. --AstroNomer 14:33, May 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * Tell me what you think of my latest proposal. I'm putting this note here b/c you might miss it because of 172's shenanigans. VV 22:39, 25 May 2004 (UTC)


 * New response on Talk:Augusto Pinochet. VV 23:56, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Re:Nobel Peace Prize tag
The tag was useless. I warned about removing it at the talk page of the MediaWiki page.

Now that we have the categories system in place, the best thing to do is to add Category:Nobel Peace Prize instead. --Jiang 21:13, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Critical Mass
James: thanks for comments about my critial mass item. I assure you CM was first active in Thanet. Some of its eco active supporters moved to london, uk and although I can not trace the path now I am sure they started being active at london based demos against pollution.

I had a close association with said group 20 odd years ago, and have been contacted by a US author who wrote a book on the Cycle collective, via a third party supporter. He included the Ramsgate cm in his work (Title?). Regardless it predates all other groups with said name and had very similar methods. IT SANDS ALONE AS THE PREGENITOR OF ALL OTHER GROUPS THAT FOLLOWED REGARDLESS OF LINEAGE. If politics is your bag, you are perhaps best qualified to confirm my assertion, which is based on active knowledge of the original events, as I was the first secretary of said group for over five years. I for one would like to know why if all later groups are not from the core group, why have they stolen the name of a group, allready active, proven by a tv programme. all the best Faedra 11:34, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation style
The "alternative/alternate meaning" style is certainly more common, in my experience. The suggestion to leave in a divisor was removed from disambiguation a while ago so those should not be added (the convention is to indent). IMO The summary of the article is redundant with the first introductory sentence so is not needed. Those looking for the US politician will see soon enough they're in the wrong place after reading the first sentence...

I agree that the label sounds cold. Suggestions for alternatives? --Jiang 00:14, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I suppose it's fine as long as it fits on one line. Otherwise, the tag wraps and it starts looking ugly. The trend seems to be going the other way though. --Jiang 23:26, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

on Fahrenheit 9/11
You asked me to describe my view on the deterioration of the F911 article. My main concern is simple. An encyclopedia article should consist primarily of facts about the subject of the article. My rough count says that on 6/30 (when I made my initial comment) there were around 16 paragraphs of content about the movie and 2-3 paragraphs about what other people thought about the movie. A nice, concise description of the film, documented circumstances about its release, etc. and enough about the controversy to get the point across that not everyone agreed with the content. The current article looks like about 40 paragraphs, at least half of which are not about the film, but about various peoples' opinions on the content of the film. The typical format is "the film said such-and-such, but critics point out that so-and-so, though others argue this-and-that". The whole thing becomes a weirdly-structured debate transcript and the point of the article is obscured.

Secondary concerns are the insistence of folks to walk the edge of NPOV (such as the added line in the first section about "widely described as propaganda") but this is more controllable, I guess. I haven't actually seen the film yet so don't feel able to jump into the fray but I do feel that from a user point of view this was a much more useful article a few days ago. Jgm 02:51, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good call on Palmdale article
Thanks for reverting those edits by that anon user from Palmdale. I saw the path of misinformatio and destruction spreading and was waiting a while to get deeply involved so as not to provoke some kind of pissy reaction. Almost everything I read by the user was either POV, factually wrong, or (as you found) a copy vio. I had to resist the urge to revert everything right away. Fittingly the user decided to edit the toilet and fart articles in the middle of that spree. Got a laugh out of that. :) -- Decumanus 20:05, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And more thanks. I was watching "from a distance" and had higher priority tasks to do. It was obvious that the anon writer was doing promotion, not article writing as is normally done in Wikipedia. Now that some time has passed, I'll see if I can get the article cleaned up in an appropriate way. BTW, I too live near Palmdale, which as you mentioned is not a qualification 'per se' to writing the article, but it helps! It also helps to be a native of the area, I suppose. Please see my article on Tehachapi to get an idea of how my Palmdale revision might go. Your work is not unappreciated from these quarters. --avnative 00:00, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

Mr. Lane. . . would you believe that our anon user finally "cried uncle?" I dunno if that change of heart is genuine, fake, permanent, or temporary, though. Hard to say. For now it's a real Model T of an article, but better than what you first saw - by far! Check out the talk page if you have nothing better to do - it's now archived (as well as my talk page, where that user's meanderings wandered to). Thought you'd like an update and some good news in the midst of your current John Kerry arbcom situation.

BTW, I appreciate you suggesting Wiki feature Alan Keyes, since Mr. Obama made it to the Main Page. Your reasonable tone is much admired. Happy Trails to you! --avnative 04:07, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)


 * JML. . . Good thought on qualifying POV in articles. Please see my elaboration on my talk page.  Thanks for your well-considered input!  --avnative 06:28, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Would you like to be nominated for adminship?

 * You seem like a fine candidate. I'd be happy to nominate you. Would you like me to? Neutrality 00:38, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Obviously, I'm very honored and flattered, but at this point I'll decline with thanks. To decline with no explanation would seem a churlish response to your kind offer, so: Your suggestion prompted me to get around to doing something I'd been intending for a while, viz., to get a better idea of the role of the admins.  Hence, I've now read some of the Administrators' reading list.  My conclusion, just from the parts I've read, is that right now, with certain other things going on in my life, I'm not willing to make the time commitment of adminship.  Heck, I'm not willing to make the time commitment to read the rest of that list.  :) &nbsp Maybe in a couple months.  JamesMLane 05:37, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, I understand. Thanks. ;) Neutrality 21:46, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for your kindly comment over on Talk:American and British English differences. If I'd known I'd be greeted with such a good-natured response I'd have backed down much sooner :-)

chocolateboy 09:58, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Moore/Bradbury
Repeating what I said on the Talk:Michael Moore page (and redirecting this discussion here):

I'll concede your points. I let myself get led down a sidepath. Following Bradbury's title-borrowings leads us down a path are really not germane. However, whoever brought it up probably did so precisely because they didn't understand what is and isn't OK when it comes to borrowing bits of written work.

I still think the current discussion in Fahrenheit 451 needs retouching. The problem as I see it is that friends to whom I have spoken about this understand even less about IP than I do, and don't understand why Bradbury can't sue "because Moore stole his idea."

The current discussion says


 * "However, since Bradbury has not trademarked the title, legal action is unlikely."

I would prefer for it to say something more explanatory. You can undoubtedly wordsmith this better than I. I'm thinking it should say something more like


 * "Since Bradbury has not trademarked the title, and since borrowing short phrases does not infringe copyright, successful legal action is unlikely."

We can always fall back on "just the facts, ma'am" and that's sometimes appropriate in contentious topics, but I think neutral and accurate interpretation is usually appropriate. The sentence "However, since Bradbury has not trademarked the title, legal action is unlikely" is, in fact, NPOV interpretation. But I think it could use some clarification, since I honestly don't believe the average reader understands trademark-versus-copyright.

BTW why don't authors trademark more of their stuff? Does it cost a lot to register a trademark? Dirk PittTM is a registered trademark of Clive Cussler but I can't think of many others offhand. Dpbsmith 13:00, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Although I'm a lawyer, I don't do IP work. Your suggestion -- "Since Bradbury has not trademarked the title, and since borrowing short phrases does not infringe copyright, successful legal action is unlikely." -- looks OK to me, although as a matter of style I'd replace "since" with "because".  I guess we could put that sentence in, then an explanation of how some people think borrowing of this type is bad "etiquette" even if legally permissible, which would invite the response that Bradbury did it too, which would invite the reply that he borrowed only from dead guys, which would invite the rejoinder that the whole concept of "public domain" is relevant only to copyright as opposed to etiquette, which would... well, who knows what would come next, except that we can be sure we're already pretty far removed from the nominal subject of the article.


 * As for authors trademarking things, trademark protects only against "passing off" type offenses, i.e., likelihood of confusion. In one of the discussions of this Bradbury tiff in some Talk page or other, I commented that "the Pepsi Generation" is a trademarked slogan -- but that I could nevertheless title a book The Pepsi Generation.  The reason is that no one looking at a book would mistake it for a can of cola.  Even where the products are the same, trademark cases get into questions of whether there's a confusing similarity.  If Bradbury had trademarked "Fahrenheit 451," could he then prevent anyone from using any form of "Fahrenheit ___" where the blank is filled in by some number?  What about my forthcoming masterwork on human metabolism, Fahrenheit 98.6?  I think Moore would have a good argument that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is sufficiently different, especially given that the intense publicity for his movie should make clear to anyone that this is not a film version of a science fiction novel. JamesMLane 04:10, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)