User talk:Jtdirl/Archive 6

Did you know that if you had a real computer and you took it to a real computer shop, you could have that faulty hard drive replaced in about two hours? Tannin

Thanks for your note on my talk page - i made a mea culpa for which i apologise - im only human after all - and an Aspie to boot. I'm just a humble Wikipedian and for what it's worth my only claim to fame is that my brother is Simon Austin who was the guitarist for the Australian band Frente back in the early 1990s

PMelvilleAustin 04:27 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for saying that i'm a "damm good" contributor to Wiki - though i don't know if really am

PMelvilleAustin 04:51 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Be careful about weddings. When my brother got married my father ended up in hospital. (I blame my brother's RAF officer training for leading him into over-planning everything to an overly and unnecessarily tight set of criteria - which led to my father needing to do to much at the same time in different places and have a car crash instead.)

"Leathers"? How too too much. Waxed cotton bike gear like Bellstaff's makes a far stronger non-fashion statement. PML.

I noticed that Taku is moving the Japanese Emperors around again, but as I am currently arguing with him about something else I didn't want to get involved. Was it agreed? Mintguy 02:16 19 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Please notice my new scheme seems agreed and notice that many people besides me think the old one emperor something of Japan is wrong. I know I am getting in the fight around yesterday and today but you know the quality of wikipedia (accuracy in Jtdirl's words) is really importnant. It would be more peaceful if you concerntrate on only writing a new article but sometimes change in status quo or in settled convensions are necessary. What you have to is be careful. Otherwises, you will end up in name calling, which is the last thing all of us want. -- Taku 04:00 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Someone (ok, 68.21.42.253) was mucking about on your user page. On the assumption that you haven't moved to Texas, working incognito, I've reverted the changes. -- Someone else 07:00 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Hello. Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I was a bit surprised to see all that stuff on your user page about how wonderful you are. Don't you worry that it might give people the wrong impression? I don't mean that the praise is undeserved, but it does make you look a little ... well, big-headed.

I'm afraid your application to become a sysop had passed me by (I stopped subscribing to the mailing list about a year ago, because it was always full of people squabbling). Obviously I would support you, though I must admit that I hoped you and I would be the ones to remain outside the "establishment". Deb 16:41 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Hey, do you feel like working on Political philosophy? See also my comment on the talk page -- I think it needs a major overhaul. I tried to write a general intro that would accomodate a variety of views (NOT just political science!!) but I think you could really make a major contribution here, if it interestes you, Slrubenstein

Have you seen this page, about the electronic voting last year? Basically, the inner workings aren't available for public scrutiny. Which makes me sleep easier at night.... -- Jimregan 10:46 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I saw you reverted the changes at Republic of Ireland. I hope to hear/see some suggestions for improvement of the page at Republic of Ireland/temp, rather than just moving the old contents back. See also the talk of that article. Jeronimo 13:11 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Could you take a look at the Ian Paisley article? 62.64.220.151 has been making some changes regarding IP's future, but I don't follow the NI news closely enough to know if the changes are justified. By the way, you're quite welcome to borrow my joke from the Ian Paisley talk page! Arwel 16:13 26 May 2003 (UTC)

I already replied on my own talk page, but I can do better Yeah, Republic of Ireland/temp looks ready for prime-time. And what's your excuse for being up at this late hour :) -- Jimregan 03:25 27 May 2003 (UTC)


 * I replied on my talk page, but the Republic of Ireland/temp article looks OK - I can't speak for anyone else, but I found the history interesting. The only thing I'd change is to drop the article when you talk of "The English..." being a second official language! -- Arwel 18:33 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Ah, its good to be back... if only on moderated (clinically supervised) doses. ;) I've been plugged into that life which exists (sometimes too neglected) outside of the confines of Wikipages and squabbles about the deservingness of albums to be on whatever stupid list happensto crop up... Now, what's this I'm hearing about Wikimoney?? Mein Gott, I feel somehow responsible... If I was around at the time - I might have stopped this... :)- &#35918;&#30505sv

You're the second person today to say that...hmmm...who, me, paranoid? I figured I'd pick a name that would be completely anonymous, and it's been famously successful -- though I might have chosen something more memorable had I known I was going to stick around. Ah, well, a moment of caprice, years of regret... sounds about even. Now, does that Irish religion column have a centerfold?  -- Someone else 04:28 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Is Jim Duffy you? If so, can I add the sentence "He edits wikipedia as Jtdirl ."? Evercat 21:48 29 May 2003 (UTC)


 * No so, I'm afraid.

In answer to your question on the Talk:List of French monarchs page, I'm basically in agreement with you: the article looks good as it currently stands. However, one individual is insisting that it needs some undefined improvements. Hopefully I can get this individual to either explain what is wrong, or agree that the page is satisfactory before other individuals involved get too frustrated. -- llywrch 00:24 30 May 2003 (UTC)

lol = lots of love?

Sigh... stupid acronyms... :)

--Dante Alighieri 08:37 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

As per Jimbo's agreement, you have just been made a sysop! Sysops basically can't do anything: They cannot delete pages arbitarily (only obvious junk like "jklasdfl,öasdf JOSH IS GAY"), they cannot protect pages in an edit war they are involved in, they cannot ban signed in users. What they can do is delete junk as it appears, ban anonymous vandals, remove pages that have been listed on Votes for deletion for more than a week, protect pages when asked to, and help keep the few protected pages there are, among them the precious Main Page, up to date.

Note that almost everything you can do can be undone, so don't be too worried about making mistakes. You will find more information at Administrators, please take a look before experimenting with your new powers. Drop me a message if there are any questions or if you want to stop being a sysop (could it be?). Have fun! --Eloquence 01:10 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Well, I saw your response on the anonymous guy's talk page and it seemed pretty convincing. :-) Evercat 02:06 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

First may I say how impressed I am with your commitment to Wikipedia and high standards of contribution. I noticed that you added the footnote to the article on British Commonwealth pointing out that states formally leave the organisation prior to readmission as republics. This matches my understanding. Am I correct in thinking that the detail of South Africa's exit from the Commonwealth (on which both articles are vague) followed this pattern - with readmission as a republic being refused. If I am correct, then I think it would be a worthwhile addition to both articles as I can recall hearing sterile arguments as to whether SA was expelled or whether it withdrew. Thanks - Alan Peakall 17:31 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Yeah I saw his emphasis of the word Protestant on a few pages and was going leave a message for you here to look into his edits. I was about to revert David Norris when I noticed you already had. I'm off to bed shortly, so no time to investigate all of his other edits. I've come to the conclusion that Wikipedia will never be free of those who want to twist the articles to their own agenda. The normal vandals can be tackled, but then there are those with an agenda. My recent spat with Taku just tired me out, and I ran off and sulked for a week (he means well I guess, but his poor English and his relentlessness and other things mangle articles to the point of uselessness i.e. look at subprogram - a word virtually no-one in the computer industry uses). User:Harry Potter introduces blatent absurdities along with subtle inaccuracies and impossible to verify assertions into articles so that it difficult to distinguish fact from fantasy. I've given up fire-fighting. Mintguy 22:22 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ok, this is not an endorsement, since I haven't transacted with them, but the website that is selling miniature Papal Tiaras here and here is too good not to share! -- Someone else 06:22 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hello - I myself went to check with the RTÉ press office as well - great minds, eh? - and suitably *modified* my note on the Irish language talk page. Thanks. -- Kwekubo

Do you realise that when you wrote the stuff on Mountbatten that you put "Provisional IRA, a small terrorist group in Ireland"? I thought an anon had written it and reverted, and then realised that he had actually removed it. Mintguy 21:46 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * I understand what you're saying about the pIRA. In terms of numbers and popular support they are small, but in terms of impact that are massive. I think the same could probably be said of most terrorist organisations which by their very nature they are generally small. Compared to other similar organisations I don't think you could say they were small. BTW do your mates call you Jimmy or Duffy? I assume it's one or other. Mintguy

You're back? Cool! Tannin

--- Congratulations on sysop status! I've been busy lately, and thus inactive and late to find out. I'm going to be away for another three weeks, but look forward to a blitz of new articles afterwards. 172

Hi. Can you look at Lord Lucan, which I just disambiguated. The problem is that the first two earls of Lucan, are usually ignored when refering to the 1st Earl, 2nd Earl etc.. I'm sure you can figure out a sensisble way to disambiguate the Sarsfield's. Mintguy
 * Ahh also... just remembered that the current Lord Bingham (which I believe is the title always used by the Earl of Lucan's eldest son), does not appear to be the same chap as Lord Bingham of Cornhill. The former being a merchant banker and the latter being a Law Lord. Mintguy

--- Hey there. Total empathy with the 'History of China has been destroyed' viewpoint. I stopped watching it after it became apparent that said user was not going away and was persisting in reverting, and others were actually contributing to those reverts rather than my rewritten version. Please drop me another talk note once the article is reverted, I will continue to work on it if it is not constantly silently reverted in the same manner it has been : if it is, I simply lack the time to follow through on edits and re-integrate subsequently contributed material. -- prat


 * Hey, Jt. the History of China was a mess. The said user has obviously some difficulties with his English; however, as I said earlier, some of his viewpoints are valuable. His attitude of taking edits as personal attack and wholesale reverts of others' works offended wikipedians. I will try to work out a compromised version based on Prat's, Moostoh/202's and others' work. Hopefully everyone can start working from there. kt2

--

Banknotes, especially really old ones, are almost always copywrite-free for use in contexts such as this. So go nuts! Banknotes are my speciality, by the way. I have a vast collection :) user:J.J.

I know of the big statue in Phoenix park etc.. I'm sure Ireland is very proud of the duke, but how Irish was he really? Would you classify all British nobility born in Ireland as Irish? I'm sure you know of the Duke's supposed quote about his Irishness. Is this apocryphal? Mintguy


 * Well I know all about the prejudice towards the Irish, even Irish gentry at that time. Wellington also served with the colonial army, which was also looked down on by the rest of the army, IIRC. So he managed to do pretty well for himself all told. His Irish accent was probably as bad as Peter O'Toole's. Anyway I was just wondering if there was a line to be drawn between "foreign colonial oppressors" and absentee landlords with Irish titles and those who made some contribution to Ireland. It's a fuzzy line I'm sure, but probably a very POV one. Mintguy 00:11 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Anyway.. I've kind of got hooked on disambiguating British and Irish peers having done [Earl Lucan|Lucan]], Spencer, Westminster and Wellington. I've noticed that User:Jlk7e has been busy doing the same. So I was wondering if you had any thoughts about standards for doing this. i.e. Look at Duke of Norfolk. I don't like the way this was done. I also don't like the #numbering infront of of each duke in Dukes of Devonshire, and agree with you that Duke of Devonshire is a better title. I also think that these articles should include the holders of the titles that are now held by the current Duke, i.e. see Duke of Westminster for what I mean. Just wondering if you had any thoughts. I'm no expert, I'm just pottering about. Mintguy


 * User:Jlk7e has just pointed out to me on my talk page that this is a lot more complicated (as I should have guessed). Mintguy

About Republic of Ireland, things look under control at the moment. I hesitate to become deeply involved, unless things get really nasty, which they haven't yet, as Ireland is certainly not my area of specialty. I do agree with you, though, that the "Republic of Ireland" article should refer specifically to the modern Republic of Ireland, and not include medieval history of the country (which can easily be dealt with on History of Ireland), and that Scipius's discussion of that history is pretty ridiculously simplistic. The struggle against the English that began in the 12th century? The Irish Free State becoming "independent" in 1922? In any event, I'll keep an eye on the page, but things seem to be okay for the moment. john 04:19 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It all seems quiet on thr RoI front ATM. Thanks for the heads up. I've disambiguated the Duke of Abercorn and Lord Longford. On the List of Lords Lieutenant of Ireland we've got


 * James Hamilton, 2nd Marquis of Abercorn (June 1866)
 * Duke of Abercorn (March 1874)
 * Duke of Abercorn (March 1874)

.. Unless I've made a mistake they are actually the same person, just the latter is after he was created a Duke. Not sure how best to indicate this. Mintguy 16:25 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Like John, I'm a bit baffled by the Republic of Ireland controversy. Can't figure out who wrote what, but it looks okay the way it is as of this minute. I should let sleeping dogs lie. Deb 17:15 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I was wondering about the Lords-Lieutenant pages. Currently, the page "Lord Lieutenant of Ireland" has a list of holders of the office, but there's also a page of "List of Lords Lieutenant of Ireland".... Something ought to be done, I imagine... john 18:57 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

- Hi there JTD! Well, is there really a need for all this polemic regarding my edits? Certainly, some of my changes are likely in need of improvement, never claimed they were perfect, but I would have appreciated it if you had simply corrected the bits that were inaccurate, rather than reverting wholesale (including other changes that were appropriate), accusing me of vandalism, and going off misrepresenting my position and intentions to other people. The debate about the name of the article is long past us, my issue now is with the template and its format. Your history section is excellent, but it's far too long for what is intended. Check other country articles to see what I mean.

I think our difference of opinion partly stems from what we envision the purpose of the page to be. Your expertise is obviously on the creation of the Irish state and its history and workings and you would see the article on the Republic as a continuation of that and thus be sensitive to exact definitions of that state and how it differs from previous states. My purpose is more to create a general, broadly themed article about the present country, speaking in general terms about where it came from, how it works and what it looks like. In these terms a definition is certainly wanted, but it shouldn't dominate the page, as other topics are equally important to a general (non-Irish) public, and as such it is unfortunately not possible to go into too much depth.

What do you say we try to flesh out a shorter history section that combines our versions, but is more focused on the creation of the Republic? -Scipius 23:36 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

re: mailing list - At last, someone speaks sense on capitalisation! Thanks Jtdirl, you've convinced me completely. I at least will follow your suggested approach from now on. Martin 20:46 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! Obviously the famine was going to be contentious topic, and I could tell from the page history that it was a source of constant conflict. That's why I posted in talk, hoping that it would cause less of a stir. Perhaps some pages need a "metatalk" as well :) PS4FA 22:45 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for shifting the Lord Lieutenant Link, etc. on Sackville's page. If you don't mind a question, how do I get anyone to comment on the talk page for the Battle of Saratoga? I can't tell if anyone thinks its a good or a bad idea. Also, yes I'm a history fan, but concentrating on Amerucan Revolution. We will, of course contine to cross paths from time to time, mostly in the UK material. Thanks again, see you around the wiki,  Lou I 00:06 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I share your concerns about scientology! Arno 07:41 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just read your mail about Capitalisation; maybe you should put it on Talk:Capitalization? Seems a better way of retaining these sorts of discussions than the mailing list. Or maybe I'm just saying this cos my mailer is broken and I can send replies... -- Jim Regan 18:04 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

In your capacity as an administrator, you presumably have the power to change the Main Page. Could you add Phil Williams (politician) to the "Recent Deaths"? LOL Deb 18:54 12 Jun 2003 (UTC) - Why is Phil Williams listed on the Main Page but is not listed in recent deaths and does not have the date of his death mentioned in his article? These are all prerequisites for listing on the Main Page. --mav 23:37 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * That's my fault. There was some doubt about whether he died on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.  I will put it right. Deb 17:41 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

FearÉIREANN - I did all the New York bishops at the same time List of Roman Catholic Bishops and Archbishops of New York at the same time and used the same date format for all of them. I don't change date formats for the sake of changing date formats. Sorry if you were offended. -- Someone else 21:14 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * the '?' thing is perplexing. It undoubtedly has something to do with Microsoft and curly quotes, but I'm not sure if the problem is mine or yours... they show up normal (to me) before you edited them, and as question marks afterwards (see this difference). I'm pretty sure I have smartquoting off, though I may have missed a spot. Is your "smartquoting" off? Were the question marks there before you edited? Maybe your editor (Safari?) is choking on a character I put in and changing it?  -- Someone else 22:09 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * I probably just accidentally typed a curly quote in there then... Thanks for checking. -- Someone else 22:35 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Morning. I like what you did with the British Isles page&mdash;much better than anything I could have done. -- Jim Regan 05:21 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

BTW, since you decried the lack of "demonstrable facts" on VFD, are we ever going to see any citation of sources for Mary Robinson? A lot of the material sounds pretty doubtful and POV to me, but without sources I'm reduced to googling - which mostly turns up info on how much the Israelis hate her (and I notice that whole episode is missing from her bio, hmmm) Stan 13:30 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads up about Michael. I am familiar with his story. In regards to Dashboard Confessional, I was just going about my daily activities and editing mistakes I come across. I didn't stop to think of the origins of the article. If you intend on deleting the article, I fully support the move. Sincerely, Kingturtle 03:06 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the glowing reference. After that, I could hardly refuse! Deb 10:16 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Bleah, you would think Michael would give up one of these days. Anyway, I fully support the removal of all of his text, even if I touched it up a bit. Thanks for the heads up. -- Notheruser 12:43 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Is it true? You and Scipius have reached an agreement on Republic of Ireland? The Wiki process works! -- Jim Regan 09:52 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Re: same-sex marriage, yeah, there was never much doubt in my mind, though I sometimes wonder if I should try to rephrase stuff like that to "critics say that, blah blah, etc" :-) Anyway, cheers for the support... Evercat 23:03 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the praise about the Alfred Hitchcock writeup, but I fear it's misplaced--I wonder if you noticed both pages of its history. My first contribution to it was on 21:30 1 Mar 2002, and ironically, I think the majority of my contribution to it has been in rearranging text and removing various parts I thought were POV and explaining why.... Though, don't get me wrong, I do like Hitchcock quite a lot, have seen many of his films, have read the Spoto book, etc. :-)  Koyaanis Qatsi 05:10 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

-

I'm sorry, but the Center for Disease Control has expressly forbidden gurlz in the cabal in order to control the spread of cooties and monkeypox. My hands are tied... Gay guyz are allowed, as long as you promise to never be too gay. The Irish, though.... I dunno about that. Aren't you all a bunch of U2-listening, Guiness-drinking, pub-brawling Brit-killing redheads who toss c's, l's and ch's into words willy-nilly? If so, you're in, if only for the Guiness (I'm drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, now -- and if you don't have that in Ireland, consider yourself lucky.) Tuf-Kat

FYI: "No photo placed here by me had any copyright claim of any nature. And, I am not required by law, nor is Wikipedia by the DMCA, to check out if a photo not labeled as "copyright" should be". --Joe Canuck, from Oliver's Talk page. Martin 12:22 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hey, IM me about the naming convention on years in articles. --Dante Alighieri 02:24 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Doing a bit of canvassing are we Jtdirl? I'm not particularly interested in these naming convention debates, but your point about renaming hundreds of articles reminded me about that super-page-move code I'm meant to be writing. Maybe I'll have to quickly shackle something together. Anyway, I hope you have more luck with Jim, Dante, Evercat and John. -- Tim Starling 02:30 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Here we go again. Please see Talk:List of British English words not used in American English. For some reason I can't fathom, PML has decided to make an unwarranted slap at me, and I really don't understand what I've done to offend him on that page. -- Zoe

Sigh... why you persist in being online without being logged on to IM continues to baffle and frustrate me. ;) --Dante Alighieri 10:09 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=Adam+Rinkleff&type=1 Pizza Puzzle

Oh, sure, fix your bracket and &lt;nowiki&gt; errors on everyone's talk page but mine, see if I care. :p -- John Owens 21:15 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Well, I did vote, but I think the edit summary about says it all. :p -- John Owens 21:59 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Have you looked at Talk:U.S. Virgin Islands (as well as the accompanying article)? I got sucked in by PML, and though I know I can glean something from the link I put into the talk page, I'm feeling just a bit burned out from it. -- Jim Regan 00:25 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

OK, I did it anyway, but could you give it a glance, and give me an opinion? TIA -- Jim Regan 00:29 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (theorems) Pizza Puzzle

Saw you write "I was only able to go back through his last 500 edits (aaagh!)"

Actually, you can do any number, I think. Just replace the 500 in the URL with 2000, or whatever. I think this catches them all, if you're feeling particularly masochistic. :-) I count 718 Evercat 03:20 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Heh. You don't have to do it right now... :-) Evercat is off to bed.

Oh I know, but as Mav mentioned this is a bit over the top even for Adam. And of course there's been no actual "vandalism" from that account since. Call it a hunch I guess. :) - Hephaestos

Oh, and by the way, I suspect that Michael is a Canadian, but I'm not entirely sure. Something about being from Canada in Michael's page, etc. I heard Canadians are more likely to use British than Yankee spelling anyway, so you might be right on that score. Rickyrab 15:22 20 Jun 2003 (UTC) - Hi Jtdirl, I don't have any inconveniences with protected pages in general, but I normally request the right to review the decision why a page has been protected. The only notice visible was Joe complaining about abuse. There are certain rules about blocking pages, basically: Don't block if you're involved yourself, list them on Protected pages, unprotect as soon as possible. Personally, I would have asked other syspos to protect the pages instead of doing it myself. But this is not the typical kind of edit war, it's not about content but about copyright. We should review this afterwards in a lessons learned summary. -- JeLuF 19:22 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I need a second opinion on my last comment on Talk:List of British English words not used in American English, i.e. was I being too harsh? I'm not too sure, because this rubbish with PML has dragged on longer than I care for. -- Jim Regan 02:01 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Jtdirl, Can I ask you to cast your mind back about 3 months to the debate about whether dates should be "Month date" or "date Month"? I was under the impression that it had been decided that we could use either as long as we were consistent within articles, but I seem to have got into an edit war with User:Eloquence over 10 Rillington Place, and I'd like a second opinion before I kick that particular sleeping dog! I have to say that "month date" in an article about a British murder case simply looks very wrong to me... -- Arwel 19:27 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Well, thanks for trying. It's certainly my recollection that both forms were acceptable, and the way I add up the voting on the talk page more people favoured either dd/mm or allowing both than just mm/dd. I've certainly been using dd/mm in my articles for the last 3 months anyway, and this is the first time anyone's complained! -- Arwel 23:12 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I'm just curious as to why you created both Irish presidential election, 2004 and Irish Presidential Election, 2004. -- Minesweeper 16:56 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi JT, how's the connection holding up for you these days? Even for me on a nice broadband it's occasionally slow, but OK most of the time... (BTW, if broadband is available in your area you should really consider it... :-) Evercat 22:43 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Eircom's home package is pretty cheap, but if you download a lot, I'd recomment getting the Esat business connection - no download cap. BTW, I know you're passionate about the capitalisation issue, but I think you may have been a bit harsh on User talk:Michael Hardy. All the best. -- Jim Regan 23:07 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Re: Droop Quota: If a student wrote the formula as adjusted by him they would get an F-

Really? I don't think the brackets are strictly necessary, since they don't actually disambiguate anything (though I would probably keep the outermost brackets, but drop the innermost...) Evercat 23:35 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Heh. I didn't mean to provoke you into an enormous defense of the brackets. :-) For me this is such a tiny issue that I don't think you should waste your time arguing with me about it. :-) I myself see no problem with the formula in the article either way. Indeed, perhaps it is best to avoid any possible confusion.


 * As for Michael, my comment wasn't related to that matter at all. It was just a minor technical query... Evercat 00:43 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Re: ChuckM and Joe Canuck (etc.) being the same person. I had the same suspicion myself, but I am giving ChuckM the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, whoever they are, the entire discussion is wearing a bit thin. I'll be glad when the images are deleted and (hopefully) the controversy over with. -- Wapcaplet 01:09 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

-- You said in an edit summary reverting another user: "moved to correct spelling after some idiot screwed it up"


 * JT, you're an Admin now and the user in question is not an "idiot." You know the rest. --mav

James,

I hope we can return to a more pleasant level of conversation after that whole date discussion is over. As I said, I do not really have strong feelings on which style is used, my primary concern is consistency. But I could even live with an inconsistent solution, as long as it is approved by most users (right now it actually looks like the "Day Month" style will become our new standard). I think it's important that we remain open about our decision making process and leave a track record whenever possible.

You do get too aggravated on wiki. Try to relax, man! --Eloquence 04:56 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yeah. I know exactly what you mean, JT, and how you feel. I got so fed up a while back that I just walked away from it, and discovered that there were in fact several other things that I liked doing with the vast number of hours I previously devoted to the 'pedia. I was about a 16th of an inch away from just quitting for good, but (since I love this place so much) I decided to say and do nothing at first, just walk away and do something else until I felt either (a) that I definately didn't want to come back, or (b) that it was worth another try. This is why I dissapeared for a couple of weeks a while back. (BTW, I popped in and read your previous message only a day or two after you posted it, and still feel guilty for not replying. I should at least have emailed you.) I'm back now, but only for the time being and on a part-time basis (i.e., about one-third as many hours as I used to spend here, with quite a bit of time devoted to the new hobbies instead). I have no fixed intention about the longer-term. I'll just continue (rather more slowly) with my self-imposed task of helping Jim knock the fauna articles into some sort of decent shape and play things by ear. Anyway, a while ago when each of several other contributors were about to spit the dummy (one at a time), I tried hard to talk them out of it. (No need to name names, there have been a few.)

Then, when I reached the end of my own tether, I realised that it didn't really matter what anyone said, I was either going to feel like working of the 'pedia again or I wasn't. So, in short, I'm not going to try to persuade you to stick around, nor on the other hand, to hurry you on your way. I would miss you, of course, that goes without saying, and the 'pedia would be a poorer place for not having your depth of knowledge and professionalisim around. But in the end, you will either feel one way or feel another way. Walk away if you want to, take a break, and don't visit unless and until you actually feel positive about the Wikipedia experience again. Time heals all things, and - who knows? - perhaps the passage of time will help the bureacrat types loosen up a bit and ease off on the backseat bloody driving.

There needs to be a sea-change here; a renewed commitment on the part of 'pedia contributors to writing quality content, and a good deal less buggerising about micro-regulating the content that other people create.It is easy, very easy, to consider the common urge to fiddle with existing content and bugger up (or improve, as the case may be) the work of other people and attribute it to plain, old-fashioned character flaws: easy to regard the non-contributor and semi-contributor bureaucrats as anal types who want simply to control everything and cast it all in their own image. And, doubtless, there is an element of truth in that. However, I believe that we would be making a grave mistake in attributing the cause of the behaviour to the person in that direct fashion. Nor should we forget that in most (but by no means all) cases, the person themselves is genuinely attempting to do something good for the 'pedia, however antagonistic they may be and however poor their knowledge of the field in question. (I shan't trouble to mention the dishonourable exceptions - you know who they are as well as I do, and they are few in number.)

The primary cause of backseat driver syndrome is much simpler and, once you think of it, much more obvious: it is simply that creating new content from scratch is a great deal more mentally demanding than tinkering with existing content. Most of us here have other demands on our time and energy: we have jobs, families, all kinds of stresses to deal with.

So, when we come to the 'pedia, we have already expended a good deal of mental energy, and it is just so much easier to react than to act.

One can edit someone else's article in a very relaxed, rather passive frame of mind. One simply scans through Recent Changes and changes a capitalisation here, spots a spelling error there, deletes outright a bit of graffiti. It is, psychologically speaking, simply a matter of comparing a new or changed entry with one's mental "template" of what Wikipedia article ought to look like. If it doesn't fit the template&#8212;which is largely composed of an assemblage of individually trivial things like bolding the article title, and putting links around every word in a sentence that might just possibly ever turn blue instead of red&#8212;then one can make a little edit with a minimum of mental effort. (And, what's more, add to that misguided numerical status symbol called an edit count - which in itself is a powerful encouragement to short and relatively mindless edits.)

When I'm tired, or I've had a stressful day, I do exactly this. I look at my great pile of textbooks and think "I really ought to do something about the gaping hole in the mammals section by writing a short, fact-filled article about the Indian Elephant". After a few minutes staring at a blank screen with a heading that starts "You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. To create the page ...", and trying to organise my thoughts enough to make a start on it, I sigh, and flick over to Recent Changes. Inside five minutes I've added some punctuation, bolded a heading, deleted some obvious graffiti, shared a joke with someone on a talk page, and bumped my post-count up another 10 or so. It's a nice, relaxing way to spend an evening. You can even do it with the TV on.

Working on real content is a great deal harder. You have to think, organise, research, make notes, type long sentences, check your facts, wonder if you are skipping too much detail on the one hand, or making it too technical on the other.

In this distinction, we are all the same: creating is so much harder and more mentally draining than simply editing that the natural temptation is always to drift towards doing the easier task - and it is a natural consequence of that drift that we Wikipedians tend always to gravitate towards the bureaucratic, editorial end of the style-content spectrum, and it is hardly surprising that some of us wind up getting obsessive and anal about it, and others of us wind up getting pissed off at all the back-seat driving and stop producing the content that makes it all possible in the first place.

I'm not sure what can be done about this. Largely, I think it's inevitable. However, social norms can do a great deal to alter human behaviour. Jimbo, with his extraordinary commitment to cooperation and respect for other people, sets a great example here. Without it, I do not believe that this international project would have ever got off the ground. I guess in the end, it comes down to respect. Wikipedians generally need to become more able to respect one another's work, more prepared to say "I don't know anything much about this subject, perhaps I better have enough respect for James to assume that he knows what he is doing and leave it alone", more prepared to contribute articles on things that they do know about, and less prepared to buggerise in areas they don't know anything about, messing up the work of the people who did the hard yards and created the article in the first place.

I learned my lesson in this early on: I changed an obvious misspelling in an article about explosives to correct it. I soon discovered that it was not a misspelling at all, but a technical word I had never heard of, and that I'd completely messed up the sense of the paragraph just by changing a single letter. So far as I recall, I have not tried to edit a chemistry entry from that day to this.

Tony