User talk:Robert Merkel/archive 2

Sydney Nolan should be Sidney Nolan. We have lots of work to do on Art of Australia! Adam 17:14, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi Robert, please can you remember to update Protected page when you protect or unprotect a page. Thanks. Angela 16:06, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Why is this still needed now that we have a protection log? The only thing missing from that log is a way to indicate why something was protected. --mav 22:33, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Robert - do you have the access needed to get rid of the "support" message at the top of every page? There was a general consensus to remove this message when we are not having an official fundraising drive (such as now). I also thought it would be neat to have "A Wikimedia project" below the logo on every Wikimedia project. What do you think? --mav 22:33, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * I'm an administrator, so I've only got the same access that you have. If you can't change it, neither can I.  --Robert Merkel


 * Sorry, I thought you were a developer who had developer access. --mav

I wasn't expecting everyone else to clean it up - I was in the process of doing it myself when you moved it. However I understand and accept your point. Secretlondon 13:43, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)

"McAuley and Stewart, it turned out, had invented Ern and Ethel Malley out of thin air." I don't know what could be clearer than that. Adam 05:49, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * It's clear enough, but you have to read the whole article to find out. That's why I prefer to put the really, really key information in the first paragraph, in the manner of a news report.  Chalk it up to my scientific training, where the point of good writing is to make the key points screamingly obvious, and making writing entertaining is a very low priority.


 * By the way, I loved the Ern Malley piece. --Robert Merkel 11:21, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I saw your edit to open source. As the one who put that content there - Solaris to my best knowledge is under a "shared source" license, and the current version of PGP is also open sourced to allow community inspection - though I don't think it allows distribution of modified versions. As for Pine, I vaguely remember that it was open sourced to help in porting, but wouldn't swear by it. -- Pakaran 02:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Pakaran, as much of the article already discusses the confusion between free software and Open Source (in the opensource.org sense), which are different philosophical viewpoints promoting essentially the same software licenses, which allow the free distribution of modified versions of the software. Your edit used the term "completely open source" to describe software which, although the source code is publically available for review, is as you've pointed out not available for free modification, and confused terminology further when it's already confusing enough.


 * If you want to discuss the use of the term "open source" in the context of software like Solaris, you have to make clear that this is a different use of the term to that originally used by Perens et al.


 * If you can make your terminology clear and make the article more informative by doing so I'm happy for such an addition to go in.


 * By the way, next time probably discuss article-specific issues on the article talk page. --Robert Merkel 02:55, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * That's fine. Probably an article on shared source, as the term is used by Sun (most notably) is needed.  I also believe Linus (who is generally faily moderate about these things) has criticized Sun for their philosophy.  So maybe it's best to keep this stuff out of open source and move it to shared source or something.  -- Pakaran 03:00, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Robert, read my major update to the article on Kitsch. Some of my writing is a bit strained, so maybe, if possible you can loosen the grammar. Brianshapiro Dec 3, 2003

your lack of neutrality
Robert,

I noticed an edit of yours to Alternative medicine yesterday :


 * (cur) (last) . . 01:30, 7 Dec 2003 . . Robert Merkel (put a big fat "doctors think this stuff is bogus" sentence near the top of the article, where it belongs, rather than burying it at the bottom)

Ummm, this suggests an attitude which isn't even remotely neutral with respect to the admittedly controversial subject matter. Do you think you could try just a little bit harder to be impartial? Thanks. -- Viajero 14:44, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * We've discussed this on the mailing list. I don't think I have anything more to add - whilst my edit summary was unnecessarily inflammatory I stand by the substance of my edit.  I flat-out disagree that it was anything other an entirely good faith and reasonable contribution.  I believe it didn't do anything other than summarise content that was already present.   --Robert Merkel 23:37, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You have several times you joined the discussion of whether Brunswick or Braunschweig should be the home of the article on the German city. After a brief discussion, the question was moved from the Votes for deletion page to Talk:Brunswick. Quite a bit of fact-finding has occurred since then, but the decision appears to have reached an impasse. Could I ask you to take a few minutes to review the facts presented on Talk:Brunswick and share your current thoughts? Thanks. Rossami 22:16, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Robert, I just wanted to warn you. I'm going to move the article of James Wilkinson to James H. Wilkinson, to make room for a circa 1800 general. I will cross link the two articles. This (IMHO) is better than a disambiguation page or James Wilkinson (mathematician). It may take me a couple of days to sort the linkages out, so please be patient.

P.S. You might want to consider moving 25K or so of this pageto an archive. It has gotten rather large. Thanks, Lou I 22:48, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Why not a disambig page? 1. JHW often used his middle initial in articles and publictions. 2. Current links were reference to the general (JW) over twice as often as the computer scientist (JHW), so fixing links was easier by moving him. 3. There are only two JWs, so a disambig page seems like overkill. (I'm skiping the US football coach, since everyone knew him as 'Bud' Wilkinson). But, no heartburn if you think we should set it up that way. Thanks, Lou I 23:31, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

FYI, you may be interested in the changes made to SA80 where I moved the better history to Assault rifle. -- Fuzheado 01:13, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, just haven't gotten a chance to reply yet. Stan 07:43, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hello. I've added some material to Gian-Carlo Rota that at least partially answers your questions on the discussion page. Michael Hardy 18:11, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I moved the Bush quote down near the bottom cos I agree with you but did not want to cause offense! Kpflude 18:17, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Press contact
You still want to be the press contact for Australia? If so, please add your name and contact information to Press releases/February 2004. --mav

Re Kim Jong-Il: thanks for your comments. I fear I am being painted as some sort of CIA-funded cold warrior here, which I'm not. I try to be a consistent social democrat, which as far as I am concerned entails opposition to oppressors of all kinds. Adam 22:18, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Re Kim again: I could use some help in dealing with Comrade 172. Adam 23:29, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

fire department alert
We're having trouble tonight with a vandal, see Block log. Some suspect it is the same user as User:Bird....if you have any way to help us stop this individual, it would be much appreciated. We are in IRC. Kingturtle 08:18, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks so much for your kind words, Robert. I too didn't know exactly what to say, but I felt something that would be reassuring ought to be said, on the off chance that she should return in search of help. I was sure I'd botched it, and so your comment was especially welcome. Thanks for taking the time to make it, and thanks in general for your intelligent and positive editing style here -- I always appreciate your comments and suggestions. Jwrosenzweig 17:32, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi Robert No your deletion didn't offend me - I was just annoyed that I had done all the work of "touching up" the cutting and pasting, as well as making links for the 39 articles direct from the primary source. I wasn't aware of the policy so it was pretty much my own stupid fault really!! Thanks for edumacating me. One Salient Oversight 12:10, 6 May 2004 (UTC) --

Hi Robert, The image of Laurentien Brinkhorst I got from Corbis. I took the image off because I was unaware that it was not public domain until I recieved your message. I checked, and it said it was Rights Managed. I had just right clicked, and saved it. I then posted it here. I removed the image because I was not sure if it was public domain. In the future, I will check to make sure if it is public domain or not. Thanks.

--

Hi Robert Hope you don't mind but I have taken the liberty of removing a small section of your revision to the article about Johnny Young. I've done this for several reasons.

1. Aside from any other considerations, I feel it's *highly* tendentious to describe public concern about paedophilia as "hysteria"

2. I think it's **totally** inappropriate to even mention paedophilia in the context of an article about Young Talent Time. I am well aware of the bad-taste jokes that have circulated in Australia about Johnny and YTT for many years but they are just that -- bad jokes. There is NO place in any public forum, let alone in a reference work like Wikipedia, for this kind of imputation, or for any inference that there may be paedophilic overtones to YTT.

3. Following from point 2, I am also concerned about the possibly defamatory nature of the comment.

Consequently I have removed it. Hope you are not offended and I'm more than happy to discuss the change, but I hope you will understand my reasons for doing so. Johnny is not gay, he is not a paedophile, and I think it's very wrong to raise such issues in this context

Dunks 15:22, 17 May 2004 (UTC)