User talk:Michael Snow/Archive (Jan 2005)

unprotection
hi Michael. You seem to have summarily unprotected pages with the reason of "Happy New Year!". what gives? Not all edit warriors have made the resolution to behave, unfortunately, and I must say your action appears a bit unconsiderate to me. :o( dab (ᛏ) 12:59, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I suppose you are right, and of course it will be a little matter to reprotect the more war-torn pages. Sorry if I seemed grumpy & happy new year! dab (ᛏ) 07:51, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your vote...
...on RfA. -Rholton 13:43, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Call for AMA election
AMA Member Advocate,

There's a poll currently in the AMA Homepage about making a new AMA Coordinator election. Please, cast your vote there (though it's not mandatory). Any comments you have about this, write it on the AMA Homepage talk page. Cheers, --Neigel von Teighen 18:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

D'oh
I blame this one on poor user interface. I couldn't find it in the protection log (it shows up now, for some reason), and the unprotect page said nothing about being protected from page moves only. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:54, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposals for AMA Membership Meeting
As AMA Coordinator I am requesting that suggestions be placed on AMA Membership Meeting plans for our first membership meeting, to be held in the near future, (hopefully before any election occurs.) Since we have never had any kind of "official" meeting we need to discuss how this will occur (i.e. Wiki pages or IRC channel), how it will be structured (i.e. meeting agenda) and if there will be any "chair" to supervise the meeting and meeting "secretary" to write up minutes or keep some kind of official record of what transpires. Thanks in advance for your input and your continued work as an advocate. &mdash; ©   Alex756   19:51, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Blushing
Thanks very much for the compliment, Michael!--Bishonen | Talk 14:02, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

BrokenSegue RfA
If it is acceptable to challenge oppose votes, I think challenging the support votes is just as valid. Besides, you could have asked me to remove the extra comments, before removing my signed comments. -- Netoholic @ 05:57, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)


 * Yes, take a look at Requests for adminship/Fvw2 and other recent votes. Supporters of candidates will typically take great strides to respond to the Oppose votes (or "disrupt the RfA" as you call it). In this vote I would like the supporters to explain why they support the candidate, exactly the way Neutrality asked me to explain my oppose vote. -- Netoholic @ 06:04, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)


 * Well, I wasn't the one that reverted your change first, though in spirit I agree with you. In the future, I will make use of the comments section, as I do on a very routine basis.  -- Netoholic @ 06:20, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost
Maybe you can do a write up on the Administrators' noticeboard? Seems like an important development. I'm not really that well versed in journalism, so I'll practice before I consider helping out in your endeavor. I've enjoyed the first issue, very informative. :) Mgm|(talk) 09:41, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

I can help write sporadically; I feel I can write well, but don't have the topics to cover. Maybe I could help out taking care of the FAC section, since I have it on my watchlist and follow it closely. I can write about other stuff, though, and I'll try to keep an eye out for things to cover. Johnleemk | Talk 16:01, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've done up a draft at User:Johnleemk/Signpost FAC, but I find this first draft to be of poor quality. Well, I can always try again later. Johnleemk | Talk 10:36, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As usual, Michael, I must commend you for your excellent work and significant dedication -- the Signpost idea is a fine one, and preferable (to an old prose addict like myself) to Goings-on. One wonders, though, if NPOV will be as easy to maintain on the Signpost....well, time will tell. I, of course, have no time at all, but I like the idea so well I'll try to make time. If there is a beat I could work reasonably sporadically (i.e., an area where events occur every few weeks, not every few days) I would happily take it on, and do a little extra on weeks where I have time (alas, this is not one of those weeks). Drop me a note whenever you like and perhaps we can sort things out. Best of luck, Jwrosenzweig 22:53, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Alas, I'd say the odds are very much against my presence at the meetup, but I'll attend the next one (I swear, I'll never voluntarily pile essays on myself in this fashion again). Talk to you later, Jwrosenzweig 23:25, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey, Michael, just wanted to let you know I've done a rough writeup regarding Fvw's recent RfA. It's located at User:Blankfaze/Fvwpromoted. BLANKFAZE | (&#1095;&#1090;&#1086;??) 06:43, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi Michael, I find the idea of the Signpost simply great, and I am considering trying it out on the French Wikipedia. A question though. I am wondering how you intend to "accept" articles. Can anyone add an article if they feel like it, or do you retain the right, as an editor, not to accept some of the articles ? Thanx notafish }<';> 12:52, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I never got a chance to work on anything this week. Sorry. I'll let you know if I'm able to come up with something soon. RickK 09:54, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

I just want to commend you on your efforts with the Signpost. It's very good indeed, and already I'm looking forwards to each new edition :). Dan100 22:59, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

As everyone else has said, the Signpost is a great idea and I found both of the editions so far very informative. I would like to volunteer to help. I could probably write 2 or 3 articles most weeks. I could write an article about the results of the speedy deletion poll, and I could also possibly write about Wikipedia's press coverage, arbitration committee proceedings, and or requests for adminship. You can discuss this with me on my talk page. Academic Challenger 05:08, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That sounds good. I'll write articles about Requests for Adminship, press coverage and the CSD vote results. I should have those done by Saturday night. I am not sure how you want me to send what I have written. Should I post it on a talk page, user subpage, or send you an e-mail? Academic Challenger 02:22, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OFFICIAL AMA MEETING NOTICE
The first AMA Membership meeting will be held on Sunday January 23, 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 2 PM Eastern NA (Miami/Montreal) Time, 11 AM Pacific NA (Los Angeles/Vancover)Time, and 8 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend. &mdash; ©   Alex756   19:48, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Michael, sorry you cannot make the first meeting. We had a test meeting last Sunday and Sam Spade was the only other member that showed. Wally suggested the time, but as it turned out he could not make it due to late plans. What Sam and I discussed (if you could call that a meeting) is to have ongoing meetings. He suggested every week, I suggested once a month. I would really hope we can get you to come to a meeting (if not the first) because your input would be greatly appreciated; what you wrote about the Arbitration Committee at the "Signpost" is the kind of thing that I see advocates doing on an ongoing and more systematic basis, though if you are planning on making that a regular thing maybe just editing such articles into a history of ArbCom would be a useful project for the AMA. Regarding the IRC thing, I also did not use before Sunday. I downloaded mIRC onto my Windows XP system (you can find out more about it from the Wikipedia article) and it took about 5 minutes to set up and then I just logged onto the #AMA channel. Really very simple and straightforward to use. If you have any problems getting it to work, let me know. There is also always someone around on the #WIKIPEDIA channel. Let me know if that time is always going to be bad, it might make sense to schedule some weekly meetings at different times, and I am going to suggest that we post the transcript somewhere on a AMA/subpage (without links) so members who don't come can read the proceedings and then comment on the talk pages; really I hope this starts creating some dialogue between AMA members and maybe this group can really take off. If you have any suggestions, comments, or want a topic brought up, please feel free to let me know on my talk page. Thanks. &mdash; ©   Alex756   05:24, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Gandhi
Hi Michael,

I responded to some of the comments that you made at Featured_article_candidates/Mahatma_Gandhi. Could you take a look? Thanks. --ashwatha 05:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi again,

I have responded to your latest comments at Featured article candidates/Mahatma Gandhi. Please take a look - thanks. --ashwatha 16:47, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Template:Blacklist
As a wikipedian, do you accept this template? Cheung1303 06:48, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost/Fvw
Heya, nice job on the new signpost. I'm not sure what your current policy is on modifying articles on the current edition, but if you're willing to edit them I'd appreciate it if you'd clarify that I was not suggesting myself as mediator (as it doesn't seem appropriate while I'm making a likely-to-fail bid for the MedCom), but only suggesting other dead-cert MedCom-members to be. --fvw *  15:47, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)
 * Not quite as clear as I'd hoped for, but I suppose it'll have to do.
 * I agree there's nothing wrong with ad-hoc mediation, I just want to avoid giving the impression I'm going to go into the mediation "business" on my own because the MedCom didn't want me: I do think using the MedCom is preferable to using a non-MedCom random strange who has no ties to the content or the editors. --fvw *  17:21, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

Signpost comments
Hi. Thought I'd let you know that the Signpost is much appreciated. I've been largely absent lately because of internet connection or lack thereof, so the Signpost is really useful in keeping some idea of what's going on. I'd like to help out with it eventually, but for now my situation will keep me a grateful consumer rather than a producer.

I did come up with a good idea for a regular column. Lots of important issues have context that a newer Wikipedian couldn't learn without hours or days of poring through page histories, archive pages, and old mailing list posts. Each week, someone could dig through the history of some part of Wikipedia, or some piece of Wikipedia policy, and write an article tracing its development. A few things I thought of whose history might be interesting or informative:


 * VfD
 * Adminship policies/procedures
 * The Main Page
 * Interlanguage policies and history of the non-English Wikipedias.
 * Meta-wikipedia
 * The mailing lists
 * IRC channel
 * Ban/block policies, along with a summary of the important precedents
 * formation and history of the Arbitration committee

Some of these are fairly recent, but still might be good. Anyway, keep up the good work. Thanks, Isomorphic 21:32, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Servers headline
Faster, servers! Faster! Neutralitytalk 22:23, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Signpost Drafts Ready
I have written drafts for my articles for the Signpost. They are at User:Academic Challenger/RfaArticle User:Academic Challenger/csd and User:Academic Challenger/presscoverage

Feel free to edit them, as I wrote them somewhat in a rush. Academic Challenger 01:21, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Article on Wikipedia
Hello. First of all, congratulations for the Signpost, I hope it keeps on improving. Second, I don't know if this is of interest for the paper, but the article about Wikipedia being featured on the media reminded me of an article on leading Brazilian magazine Veja. The unsigned writer is doubting of Wikipedia's reliability, and he/she claims to have made a test, inserting sneak vandalism on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva which remained uncorrected for two days. I've added all this to the Veja (magazine) article. JoaoRicardo 18:41, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Logs of first AMA Membership meeting
You may view the log of the first meeting on the following two pages: AMA IRC Meeting log (1-23-05) (first hour) and AMA IRC Meeting log (1-23-05) Pt II (remainder of meeting). If you are interested in commenting on the agenda of the meeting please do so here:AMA Meeting (suggested topics).

OFFICIAL SECOND MEETING NOTICE AND REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

 * "The second AMA Membership meeting will be held on Sunday January 30 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 2 PM Eastern NA Time, 11 AM Pacific NA Time, and 8 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend."

The coordinator is requesting that members submit the following information for the upcoming coordinator’s report:


 * How many individuals did you help as an advocate
 * What is the maximum amount of time you put into a case
 * Do you feel your work as an advocate was successful?
 * How can the advocacy program of the AMA be improved?

Thank you. Please submit your responses here: AMA Coordinator/January 2005 Survey


 * &mdash; ©   Alex756   23:10, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC) (The Coordinator)

Signposts
Just a suggestion -- maybe the next issue could contain something about Olliepratt's blocking? I'm too close to the sobject to do it a neutral job. RickK 06:55, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

The arbcom has forbidden him from editing anything except to his arbitration page and User Talk pages. See Requests for arbitration/Libertas. Ollie is also Libertas. RickK 07:03, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

re: Ollieplatt; I had a part in this tale and will answer any questions you might have. I'd be interested in seeing an account of this from an outside perspective. &mdash; Davenbelle 08:09, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppets
Hi Michael: First, let me say that I'm not anyone's sockpuppet and I do not have any -- I said this on the evidence page, too. I expect that Ollieplatt bandies the sockpuppet allegation about freely mostly to cause trouble and to parrot the same terms used about him. He's called a lot of people vandals, too. Much of this probably amounts to playing to the audience; casual readers who know nothing about the larger picture these event were playing out in. The extent that he actually believes his charges, I would chalk-up to them being easier to swallow than the idea that multiple people acting in parallel with minimal or no communications between them are consistently opposing him.

Instead of a publicity piece about Ollieplatt's spree, I like to see a piece about the whole POV-Warrior Syndrome on Wikipedia. It seems to me that they're enamored with the idea that POV-tweaking articles here somehow advances their POV when logic would lead one to conclude that if the truth about something is not flattering to a particular POV then there may well be something wrong with the POV. &mdash; Davenbelle 18:54, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * See also: Blair's comment on your question on my talk page: User talk:Davenbelle; &mdash; Davenbelle 00:21, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Reply
''Author of news, you ''praise me highly; with my deeds, I will study deserving.
 * --Jwrosenzweig 22:30, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mitsubishi companies
Ok. Christopher Mahan 01:55, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC) ( you can remove this anytime )

signpost
Hi. I think that your Signpost news paper is pretty good. I happened to find out about it, only because I put a message on someone else's talk page, and happened to notice signpost was mentioned in the message above mine. So, I don't know how other people are finding out about it (which is appropriate, since one of your points is that there is more going on with wikipedia than anyone can keep track of). Maybe a brief note on the Village Pump pages (policy? misc? all?) would help people find it. I think that a lot of people watch those pages, because there are many people who answer questions there. Best wishes, Morris 02:55, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * The exact same holds for me. How is the Signpost marketed?   &mdash; mark ✎ 11:59, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Signpost contrib
I don't know why I didn't say so before, but I'd be happy to do the weekly thing on Requests for Adminship, which I pay close attention to. I also follow Request for Undeletion (the only non-swamped deletion-related page on Wikipedia), Goings-on, and Bots. But the first would make a short article, the second is already included, and I may be too involved in the last. &mdash;Ben Brockert (42) UE News  04:13, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost
I'd be happy to volunteer for the Signpost as a writer for a "police blotter," listing all of the recent 3RR blocks and the like. What do you think? Neutralitytalk 15:33, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Extra! Extra!
Tim Starling banned from Wikipedia by Jimbo Wales! LOL -- I'm still not sure what the whole story is, but check their user pages for more.... Catherine\talk 06:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * That and the cold turkey thing are both newsworthy, I think. It would behoove Wikipedians to be more aware of the men and women behind the curtains. &mdash;Ben Brockert (42) UE News  01:38, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Steve Dalkowski
Thanks for the updates, not sure if I agree with the American spelling but... alright (I guess I'll have to stop resisting and get used to Webster's method one day, it just seems to wrong though...). The article is a current FAC, so your comments there would be welcome also. :-D Zerbey 20:56, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Milestone for the Signpost: Fifty arbcom cases.
Just a milestone you might want to write on for the Signpost: the Arbcom closed is 50th case earlier today. Another pointless statistic: 30% (15/50) of those cases have been closed since or on January 1, 2005. Do what you will with this info :) -- Grunt 🇪🇺 03:01, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

OFFICIAL AMA MEETING NOTICE
The second AMA IRC Membership meetingwas held on Sunday January 30, 2005 at 19:00 UTC on freenode.net IRC channel #AMA. Attending were Wally, Metasquares, Anthere, Sam Spade, and alex756 (coordinator). The log of the second meeting can be found here: AMA IRC Meeting log (1-30-05).

"The third AMA Membership meeting will be held on Saturday February 12, 2005 at 17:00 UTC on freenode IRC channel #AMA. That is 12:00 Noon Eastern NA Time, 9 AM Pacific NA Time, and 6 PM Central European (Amsterdam/Stokholm/Warsaw/Venice) Time. All members are invited to attend.

Suggested Topics and Specific Proposals

 * MEMBERS PLEASE REVIEW


 * Suggestions for topics/proposals and agenda to be discussed at the next meeting are to be found at: AMA Meeting (suggested topics). All members are requested to make proposals there and respond to proposals on the talk page there before the beginning of the next meeting so discussion can be held forthwith concerning such proposals. Thank you, your Coordinator.

The coordinator is requesting that members who have not done so already submit the following information for the upcoming coordinator’s report:


 * How many individuals did you help as an advocate
 * What is the maximum amount of time you put into a case
 * Do you feel your work as an advocate was successful?
 * How can the advocacy program of the AMA be improved?

Thank you. Please submit your responses here if you have not done so already. &mdash; ©   Alex756   23:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Signpost: good work!
Michael, just a note to say how much I appreciate Wikipedia Signpost, and what a good job you're doing with it. I've read every issue, and I wanted to tell you how much it makes the increasingly difficult task of keeping track of what's going on Wikipedia a little bit easier. Thanks! Paul August ☎ 22:15, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Yes - great work. I read every article. --mav 23:23, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)