User talk:Skookum1/Archive 18

Moose Canyon found
I think I found Moose Canyon near Jasper. Details are at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Canoe1967#While_I.27m_here..... The McBride one is still a puzzle.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It kinda looks like Robson, but it's not. Lots of errors in titles there, though usually transcription errors, that name seems pretty clearly what was tagged on the image....maybe it is the one in the Premier Range....or a mountain near McBride, BC?Skookum1 (talk) 03:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Mayors
I have, for the record, already seen and done a bit of cleanup on both Sharon Gaetz and Tara Teng. While both articles might need some attention in the longer term, every article on Wikipedia is always still improvable, and thus being less than completely perfect articles is not a failing. They do both pass on the basic criterion of notability and includability — and while Kovalak's certainly more of an edge case, the AFD has already been initiated as you know, so Wikipedians will be able to decide one way or the other (and even though her notability might be questionable enough to warrant an AFD discussion, I certainly wouldn't have considered it either speediable or proddable in its existing form.)

Unlike some of the smaller towns whose mayors I targeted for prod, Chilliwack is large enough for its mayors to be considered notable in principle. The notability criterion for mayors is not nearly as restrictive as the one for city councillors — the only cutoff for mayors is that the city has to have at least "regional prominence", which is commonly understood at AFD as a population of around 50,000 or more, and thus Chilliwack clears the bar. (And even in a smaller place like Trail or Squamish or Kitimat, the mayor might still qualify if the article is well-written, genuinely informative and sourced really extensively — the ones I targeted for prod were either single-sourced or entirely unsourced stubs, but even then it was that fact, more than the size of the town itself, that constituted the difference between a prod and a pass.) But for a city the size of Chilliwack, a mayor is a valid article topic as long as the article is validly sourced and says more than just "Sharon Gaetz is the mayor of Chilliwack" — I removed one sentence from the article that was a bit of an NPOV issue, but the article as a whole is perfectly acceptable.

In a nutshell, I'm not particularly seeing a pattern of negligence on Neelix's part here that would require an administrator to step in and chastise him for anything. If his behaviour ever actually goes in that direction, you can be sure that it will get dealt with — but based on the evidence you've given I'm not seeing any substantial evidence that he's been editing in bad faith. He's been around here for a long time (first edit 2006) and has built up a pretty solid record as a contributor (I don't think I've ever seen a userpage with as many barnstars on it as he has), so I'm not seeing any reason at this point to believe he's suddenly gone rogue on us. Bearcat (talk) 21:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Rogue, no, but heedlessly bold and promotional for certain individuals, all of a certain religious persuasion/network. That you've edited Tara Teng surprises me, there's still scads of junk in that article, and I fail to see anything in Sharon Gaetz's article that distinguishes her from any other councillor or mayor, other than she was the first female mayor of that city.  Cindy Kovalak is another such article, as is the "Mr World" one he's linked off the Tara Teng one.  You may have been unaware of the Heritage Grill and Five Stones Church and the other church in Surrey, all of which got snowball deletes on AfD, other than his ongoing protests that he felt they were notable; and were all "nested" with the Tara Teng article and related evangelical "celebrities".  What I see is a fan article, with endless small trivia and junk content, and a demonstration of over-cited garbage.  Not encyclopedic, just done up in Wikipedia style....Tara Teng was at least a contest winner, Sharon Gaetz a first female mayor...but do we need to know what she voted on and spoke on?  In re Cindy Kovalak, "not happened yet" applies to "scheduled to be the plenary speaker at yada yada"......why is a teenage Nova Scotian so hot on promoting obscure BC restaurants, churches, and people connected to them, is my question?  To me, informal COI is the obvious answer.Skookum1 (talk) 11:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * And given your invocation of WP:POLITICIAN on another non-notable mayor/politician article, why is Sharon Gaetz exempt from that?Skookum1 (talk) 11:19, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Re Tara Teng and the "Mr World" ("male beauty pageant winner", not a bodybuilder as that name is usually for), since when does "encyclopedic content" mean that articles more suited to Sweet Sixteen are the result? I'd say People Magazine, but their articles are never even 1/10 as long as Teng's.Skookum1 (talk) 11:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * And yes, though it's not personal, if it wasn't for his edit-commenting "get a life" during the "template wars" on Heritage Grill and Five Stones Church, I wouldn't have taken an interest in what else he's been creating articles for; and seeing too much of a pattern for "negligence" to not be quite the right word; "promotional contrivance" is more like it.....making someone more notable than they are, as in Gaetz's case or Kovalak's or the "male beauty pageant winner".Skookum1 (talk) 11:30, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Just to address a couple of points: firstly, to meet WP:POLITICIAN, a mayor does not have to somehow be more distinguished or more "special" than most other mayors — if a given city meets or surpasses Wikipedia's standards of regional prominence, then any mayor that city has ever had is a perfectly valid article topic, no matter how uniquely "distinguished" you think they were or weren't, as long as the resulting article is properly sourced and says more than just "Sharon Gaetz is the mayor of Abbotsford." She doesn't have to have won a "best mayor in the world" award, or be the first mayor belonging to a certain underrepresented group, or anything else that would make her some sort of special standout among past mayors of Abbotsford — if a city is large enough, which Abbotsford is, then all a mayor of that city has to do to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article is to be a mayor.

Secondly, regarding your question about "how was it he even knew about the Burnaby Now newspaper, and why was he reading it, if not for some COI connection and someone sending him the material?", Burnaby Now is not even the least bit hard to find in the age of this nifty little thing called Google. It doesn't require a vast conspiracy of somebody sending him encrypted propaganda by carrier pigeon; all one has to do is type "Tara Teng" or "Sharon Gaetz", or whoever else you're searching for sources on, into a Google search bar and Burnaby Now coverage will come up in the search if there is any. I've cited stuff to Burnaby Now before. Welcome to 2013.

And finally, I cannot find any firm evidence that Neelix has any personal connection to any evangelical movement or fundamentalist church or whatever. It's certainly possible that he does, for all I know — and even if he does, so the hell what unless he starts violating Wikipedia's conduct policies because of it (which as of today I can't see any evidence that he has)? I've gone back over the past couple of weeks of his edit history and virtually all of his last several hundred edits involve copyediting and cleaning up lists of Billboard hit albums and singles — and when I do finally get back to ones that are directly connected to Tara Teng, many of them are connected to her via either the beauty pageant circuit or her human rights work, rather than being connected via the same church. So I still have yet to see any evidence at all that he's doing anything except writing new articles about topics that happen to cross his radar while he's working on related topics — and that's the way a lot of people roll on here, so I really can't see any concrete reason to jump to the conclusions that you're jumping to about his editing patterns. If he ever commits a serious wikisin, then it will get dealt with when it happens — but as things currently stand, he's done nothing that would require a sanction from an administrator. Bearcat (talk) 18:46, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You missed my point about Burnaby Now......who did he even know to lookfor articles about the Heritage Grills and Five Stones in it, unless given a press kit listing the articles in some way? "Oh, I was reading this newspaper and this grill sounded like it needed an article because it had some screenings of a film on sex worker, and hey look there's this church right next door that's mentioned to....they must be really notable in New West, I better make the articles" was the logic he advanced, if not in so many words.  That there is a 'nest' of articles based around a certain group of people and most of them are non-notable ("yes they are, no they're not etc"), I'm just too old to be innocent.....what I'm seeing is a bunch of junk-content bios that are sole-authored and ridiculously UNDUE....if Columbia Street and New West had more articles about genuinely notable establishments and buildings, I never would have noticed these...and never would have been told to get a life for putting a notability tag on the grill article, at whicvh point rather than edit war I took it to the adminship...and why is it that nobody around here can see the harm in encouraging/tolerating "junk" articles....non-notable bios and the places those non-notable people eat and pray at.  Is that what an encyclopedia is? I guess it's because I'm involved in more serious/deeper/older topics I find trivia by trivial people so frustrating and a waste of time.....so much real content is needed, so few are out there who even have half a handle on things that need to be covered, so much junk (and often rank OR like Quadripoint on the one hand, someone else, another experienced editor, putting up major history articles for deletion as "fringe"...never mind, I know what the world is coming to.....has come to.  Anyways, about Nlx, that he's lost three AfDs out of this nest, and another one is on the go, and the remaining articles are UNDUE in extremis....you mean to tell me you don't see a pattern?  Because I do.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Category:Squamish people
Hi Skookum, you'll probably be disappointed at my closure of Categories for discussion/Log/2013 May 4. It required a considerable investment of time to read and weigh what you had written, and a little less for everybody else, so I hope some additional feedback will be helpful.

I've put my main reasons there and need not repeat them here, but in addition, IMHO you weaken your case – or at least make it less likely that the closer will find it persuasive – by going off in long essays. Feel free to write essays on sub-pages in your own user space, and linking to them in CfD discussions etc, but please try and stay on-topic there. Sometimes "Less is more."

It also seemed to me that you were sometimes taking offence where none was intended, and doing that at length too. See WP:AGF and meditate on it! (I learned more about that during my own RfA; see the discussion on the talk page, if you can be bothered.)

To me it's bizarre that you spend ages typing a long response and then leave redlinks within it, e.g.
 * ''"this is why there's Category:Tsuu T'ina, I think it is, for the Alberta Blackfeet...."

Well, there isn't, and never has been. You'd only have to type "category:tsuu" in the Search box, even while you're still typing, for the actual current category name to pop up.

I trust that you can see what I mean by "referring to forthcoming evidence that didn't materialise." Better not to mention it at all, than to say you are waiting to hear from someone or intend to look something up and then not deliver.

Hope this helps. Best wishes! – Fayenatic  L ondon 20:01, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't. We now have a category whose name's primary meaning is "people from the town of Squamish".  As for Category:Tsuu T'ina Nation I didn't have the name complete and that one's an aberration; with hte "Nation" on in wiki convention it means their government, not the people.  The arguments in the RM that led to this was that it wasn't English and so didn't belong in Wikipedia were clearly counter-evidenced by the series of non-English and atypical spellings I provided in my last post there.  This isn't over, t he whole "FOO people" namespace collision has go to be resolved, and it was caused by someone ignoring the established IPNA-derived consensus that endonyms for the peoples vs anglicisms for their governments without "people" tagged on, as was imposed by Wiki-homogenizers who knew nothing about the subject or the context.  Nobody in that CfD was making sense but me, other than saying "you write too much" which isn't a valid comeback.  If people hadn't been asking the same stupid questions and repeating the same stupid notions over and over, I wouldn't have had to respond as I did; this category is now not "synchronized" with the other Category:First Nations in British Columbia components, and it's been decided by people (a) not from British Columbia and (b) not involved in any of these articles.Skookum1 (talk) 04:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * For all the talk about consistency, what I see is conflicting guidelines invoked without any over-arching view/understanding, resulting in these categories now being not consistent, because of imposed "standards". WP:There are no rules, but people treating guidelines and applying them willy-nilly without context or conssitency has put what had been a well organized series of article titles and categories into disarray; one reason they were orgnaized they were, as I said over and over again, is that in many cases, the anglicism is a well-known place name that is the primary usage.  But noooooo, nobody acknowledged that; other than other people from the region who knew the truth, said so, and also were ignored..........

Skookum1 (talk) 04:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I get really tired of hearing that *I* am the reason things are decided against what is right. yes, I'm long-winded, but that's because of the repetitious non sequiturs that get fielded over and over in such discussions; Kwami even tried to bait me on the RMs so that they would be decided in favour of his own arbitrary and unjustified speedies.....TLNDR is insulting for those of us not raised in the point-form education system.  Yes, I did say that about "I could live with Squamish people" that did not mean I endorsed that; I can see that working up the guidelines in sandbox that eluded me in searches of IPNA archives (many of those discussions took place on individual talkpages and on user talkpages), and once again, the notable lack of anyone in the discussion familiar with the topic and/or from British Columbia or familiar with BC placenames - other than those other people who agreed with me, who were also ignored, themselves deluged by rubbish from the uninformed and rule-happy........following such a consensus of fools (and that's what it is) we might as well roll back all the modern indigenous/authentic terms and call everybody what the Catholic Encyclopedia uses, and move aboriginal articles to "redskin" (still a common term)....sounds extreme, but that was the upshot of the RM debates against using the endonyms, that ti doesn't matter what the people call themselvs or what is culturally correct, it's Wikipedia's Tyranny of the Ignorant that prevailed. I don't include you in that, just think that the actual material should have been considered, instead of blaming it on me, the proponent of a simple attempt to rid a category of cumbersome-to-use diacriticals.  Instead we now have a category that, just you want, "people from teh town of Squamish" will get added to....and yet another reason for indigenous contributors to turn their noses up at Wikipedia (which OldManRivers, who is Skwxwu7mesh, has done because of the disregard shown for the talkpage discussions long in advance of the RM; all of which that RM ignored, even saying "well those people aren't around anymore so we can do what we want".  Why not just delete history altogether and just write some nice-sounding fiction that goes by "most common" terms from the last century?Skookum1 (talk) 09:40, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Just scanned your RfA and talkpage a bit; what I see and hear, all too much, everywhere, is Wikipedia's own internal policies and wiki-culture influencing content and article naming wrongly, and rather peremptorily, with the effect of Wikipedia influencing reality, rather than reflecting it. I have no interest in being an admin; the process strikes me as somewhat like the Spanish Inquisition's search for heretics. I see no reason to be conciliatory to those who are wrong and who pass judgements on subjects and topics that they have zero real interest, and are more interested in rule-flogging and wiki-careerism.Skookum1 (talk) 09:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, well if you've given up on winning friends and influencing people, I honestly suggest you spend your time on content rather than naming. The naming can be changed again in the future, and your content will be there all along. Think how much improvement you could have achieved in the time spent bashing your head on the wall! – Fayenatic  L ondon 19:18, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

YOu don't get it. It was because I was working on content I started to see all kinds of text-changes resulting from the renamed articles, and also because I was going to create a lot of St'at'imc and Sto:lo articles and more that I ran into the diacriticalized categories and then discovered what the consequneces would be if Kwami's chauvinist imposition of anglicisms as supposedly "most common" and more led me to have to launch RMs and then found out the packthink that was going to make the categories renamed like Squamish has been and all of this would play over into article content as people by passed redirects and so on and so on and so on. A child came into the sandbox, moved the blocks to where he thought they should be, didn't give a shit what it affected, didn't even change the ledes, then a bunch of "I'm going to apply this rule across the board" groupies came along and without any regard for context or purpose etc etc etc. All I see is people moving and changing names, or opposing same, and few of them, if any, have even a tiny grasp of the content that they're affecting; those that did, familiar with BC or Canada, supported my moves. Those that did not were from beyond the place, one even denounced me for being locally parochial, when really what was going on and is going on is cultural colonialism/imperialism. "Wiki knows best" = no, it doesn't. Yes, it's taken up a lot of time I wanted to create an expand articles for. But creating those articles without resolving the nomenclature problem I was already encountering problems and "WTF?" material. Don't you get it? And what I saw was years of previous work and discussion thrown in the trash bin by a group of arrogant younglings; lazy ones, too, changing category names they don't even use by imposing standards created for other categories; Yes, unlike people who are here to become admins and otherwise use Wikipedia as social media and a coding club, I"m not here to make friends and influence people. I'm here to write geography and history, but find myself hobbled by the half-knowledge and rule-happiness of a bunch of half-educated children obsessed with guidelines.Skookum1 (talk) 01:48, 17 July 2013 (UTF

For example, all that stuff about Cree nations and my vociferous and culturally/politically clueless opponent there, He's done nothing in that topic area except stand in the way of an obviously correct move of a government category to a name that reflected that; I can't remember who the closer was, I let him know the problems once it was closed; i.e. that what was in the category were band governments specifically, and that's why the name change. But no action to change his mind, he's gone off to close other discussions he doesn't know f-all about either, and my opponnent has yet to show his face on a Cree-related article.Skookum1 (talk) 01:50, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

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Your reversion to British Columbia Highway 33
Are you saying that BC has no second-level administrative divisions whatsoever? Regional Districts are a very reliable way to establish a geographic position relative to the whole province. Sure, Environment and Forest Districts are not well known in BC, but that is not the case with Regional Districts. --  Denelson83  06:38, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * What do you mean Environment Districts and Forest Districts are not well-known in BC? There's more signs for Forests Districts than there are for RDs, that's for sure (there's only RD signs at their boundaries, not throughout their regions).  As far as tiers of power, second-level administrative divisions are things like the Mining Districts and Forest Regions, RDs have only scant power and while relevant/necessary for census divisions, they have nothing to do AT ALL with highways.  The best way to described BC geography is by the historical geographic regions, whose names are what all the administrative divisions are largely built upon.  Using RD names gives the false impression that, say, the Similkameen and Boundary are in the South Okanagan, which they are not, or that the West Kootenay's proper name is Central Kootenay.  Interpolating which regional district something is in, when it's not citable as such, is in fact original research and there's far too much of that going on.  Look up a lake or a mountain in scientific texts; they'll name the region or mountain range, or the Forest District.  Mines of course are classified by mining district, and are far beyond the not-very-strong municipal zoning relevance of RDs.  And the primary cites for all places names, whether in BC Names or in CGNDB, are Land Districts.Skookum1 (talk) 07:57, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "a very reliable way to establish a geographic position" - a not so reliable way, and considering that Wikipedians have to research such things, as they are not ordinarily citable as just noted, means that presuming that they are "reliable geographic descriptors" is just not right, and it IS inherently original research. i.e. "who does that 'reliable establishing'?  Certainly not any major sources (otehr than things that use Wikipedia's mistake classification as if it were relevant to British Columbians (e.g. Googlemaps has done that, and others, but nobody thinks of, say Revelstoke Canyon Dam as being in Columbia-Shuswap B or D or whatever.Skookum1 (talk) 07:59, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you think regular people care about "scientific texts"? Do you think regular people have been frequently exposed to "Environment", "Mining", "Land", or "Forest" districts?  I've never even heard of Environment or Mining Districts.  I am exposed much more to the Regional Districts.  Besides, look at the exit lists in the articles for some of the other highways in BC, such as 19 or 1.  Do they list the Environment, Mining or Land Districts that each highway passes through?  No they don't; they list the Regional Districts. --  Denelson83  22:31, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Do those exit lists say that you're in such-and-so regional district? I see Forest District signs all the time, big honking ones, not those little 24" RD signs....in any case, if a citation doesn't have the regional district in it, then researching which one it's in is original research; knowing that it's in the Okanagan or Similkameen or Cariboo is a completely different, intuitive matter.  The citations for geographic items invariably say LAND DISTRICTS.  Research papers on geology and mineralogy for mountains talk about Forest Districts/Regions, for provincial parks, which aren't governed by RDs, it's Environment Regions, for tourism items it's Tourism Regions.  Mines in BCMINFILE make no mention of regional districts but talk about mining districts, geographic things like ranges and terranes, and so on.  Hospitals also are outside regional district government definition, and are classified by Health Region; schools by School Districts, and so on. Regional districts are used statistically, by StatsCan and BCStats, to define the boundaries of census subdivisions and things like the Development Regions (which are composites of three-five regional districts.  They are not counties and should not be treated as if they were.Skookum1 (talk) 03:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Talkback
Michaelzeng7 (talk) 03:50, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF project
Have you got a decent camera? If not you may wish to keep an eye on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Cameras_for_Commons_photographers Your input seems to indicate that you could provide some good images depending on where you are. You may also know others that are worthy of a good camera.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hm, interesting. I bought a Fuji Finepix HS30 in Bangkok which I've barely used so far, my old film Pentaxes are in storage in Nova Scotia and of course were expensive to use anyway (I used to do all my own black-and-white processing and printing...left my processing equipment in Burnaby years ago though)......if I ever get back to Lillooet and such, the thing to have, even as a digital, is a medium format at last....big scenics in that scale of country (monumental) need large negs/scans, partly so wide-angles don't have to be used to the same degree.....there's other things I'd appreciate wiki-grants for though LOL.Skookum1 (talk) 03:05, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought about upgrading to larger format DLSR but then I discovered Gigapan. A robotic mount that makes huge images from many smaller ones. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Created_with_Gigapan has examples. http://gigapan.com/gigapans/116906/ is one of the largest at almost 16 gigapixels. The unit only costs 299, 449, and 895 depending on how big your camera is: http://gigapan.com/cms/shop/store There are probably cheaper knock-offs though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:13, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Mine actually has a pan function....works best with a tripod probably, I haven't had much use for it. think I paid 10000 baht, that's about 333 dollars......mostly got it for the zoom and it has video too.  Not sure of the megapixelage at the moment, it's decent....lens doesn't detach but it's a wide angle-to-telephoto anyway.  Not much real scenery here, vegetation and building pics would be what it is.  Here anyway; most snaps I take with my Samsung Galaxy Cooper (which is the local name for a Galaxy Ace, roughly equivalent to an iPhone 4 I think....my 4s got stolen in December, miss the two-way camera on that one...).Skookum1 (talk) 04:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

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re:Cree "nations"
I respect your concern to have NPOV category names. If that's the problem, then I suggest we nominate the whole category, or help create clear inclusion criteria and put them on the category namespace, rather than removing individual articles from the category. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 14:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * What had been in there wasn't band governments only, it was a random category; I'd just seen enough band governments in it and had wanted to get the name to conform to the existing standards/conventions...and wound up in a catfight with someone over that term. It's not just "nations", if you've been following my discussions with CJLippert you know that the term in USian categories "tribe" has wound up used both for peoples and for federally-recognized tribes.  The unrecorded consensus from years ago was that conventions on such usages needed to be established and respected; our bad for not codifying them.  I think you probably see my point that "First Nations" is not generalized as "nations", and that that term has complicated meanings in Canada and not just to do with FN peoples or governments.  Clarity is my aim; instead I'm thrown obfuscations with poeple who just don't know the material, or have bought into one side or the other...of many.Skookum1 (talk) 16:55, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of article title of Whitebark pine
You are welcome to join the discussion at Talk:Whitebark pine. —hike395 (talk) 04:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Question
How did you find that recent edit by AnomeBot? Kirothereaper (talk) 02:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In the page's history, easy enough.Skookum1 (talk) 02:06, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

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August 2013
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=569588629 your edit] to Eulachon may have broken the syntax by modifying 2 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry, just [ edit the page] again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/BBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/BBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=BracketBot%20-%20&section=new my operator's talk page].
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 * Category:Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest
 * Oh BracketBot, go back to Robotland, if you can't robot-yourself to fix stuff like that, and aren't smart enough to pick up the unneeded categories there, don't expect me to do your work for you. I nkow you're not programmed to do any better, but your author should be the one fixing those little bits instead of bugging people....if he can program you to find them, he can program you to fix them.  I wonder, does he /she even write any articles or is he just into writing code?Skookum1 (talk) 16:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Map
I thought you may appreciate this: http://maps.fphlcc.ca/ I think you may be able to find appropriate places to infuse this link into various appropriate articles. CJLippert (talk) 17:01, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Precious
  indigenous common sense and knowledge

Thank you, hacker of Beethoven's 3rd concerto, for quality articles for projects British Columbia and Thailand, especially caring for indigenous peoples and their languages, for the factual moving story of Endre Johannes Cleven, for having picked "up the garbage too often", and for leaving us "Consensus does not mean that stupidity and ignorance be given equal weight to common sense and knowledge." - You are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Professionals - notice of discussion
You may be interested in the deletion proposal related to Category: Professionals. Regards, XOttawahitech (talk) 17:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

wikibreak - so much garbage, so much twaddle, such a waste of time
Skookum1 (talk) 03:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC) And no, the boilerplate on that template says I'll be back soon; again, a robot putting words in my mouth. Have fun with the future, I'm glad I'll die before the rest of you have to live in the insanity you're creating around you.Skookum1 (talk) 03:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry I didn't know you sooner: what you say makes so much sense, - enjoy the future. I started the year with "letting go of past". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I am sorry to see you go as well. I have considered it myself a few times but decided to stick around and keep fighting the battles. Many we will lose but those can be fought again another day.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:21, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Logging in briefly to post this link which User:Pfly posted on FB. Some of what he says about how the place has become process driven rather than content focussed hits home with a hammer.  Myself, I think he's been overly polite.  It's not just OR/SYNTH that's bothered me, it's overt COI/POV issues and inane misapplication of MOS and more that I won't bother elaborating on, I'm only meaning to drop in to post that link.Skookum1 (talk) 08:08, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * We've never talked but I've seen your work/contributions and I sincerely hope this is a well-deserved Wikibreak and you'll return one day when the time is right. Liz  Read! Talk! 21:48, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I got your email but my hard drive was recently lost due to a corporate attack. I will respond here because I lost your email. I agree that your break/retirement has valid reasoning. I may retire soon if I get cash from similar corporations that hacked me, or they just decide it is easier to simply drop a hammer.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I have a copy of what I sent you in my own email, I'll resend it. Been pondering adding a section here on the particular articles and issues that led to my frustration with this place....seems like a waste of energy, my writing powers should be applied to my survival and self-advancement, not hobbled by the rules and haters and defensive/passive-aggressive behaviours that infest this place.  UNDUE, OR/SYNTH, COI/POV and more are so rife here it will always be a sisyphean battle with irrelevance and arrogance and ignorance and more.  I may continue to help out with the Commons and WikiVoyage and the like.  But yes, the corporate witch-hunters are out there in force, and here as I explained to you elsewhere.  That alone is the subject of a book or a news article...but "we" are not allowed to discuss Wikipedia in the press are we?  And why is that, exactly, I wonder?  Hm?  This place has been "played" by the pros, I see so much evidence of it it's beyond troublesome to me now, I'm very matter-of-fact about it, but know better than to waste my time fighting a dragon without a magic sword and a ring of invisibility......never mind more than one dragon.Skookum1 (talk) 05:51, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

time better spent
The following are the spaces I've been getting myself going on lately, which I should have spent much time on when labouring here with the pointlessly frustrating. Canoe1967 and Pfly already have these, might as well share them for those interested in who "the other skookum1 is". My choice to "out" myself, I was disastrously and meanly outed by User:Sunciviclee during the Talk:Adrian Dix affair anyway in the newspaper he works for (he should have been censured by the adminship but was not, and continues the pretense of his lies, including on scribd where his slanderous comments about me, and about Wikipedia, remain, and any effort to comment/criticize there is censored by teh Sun's editors, who did not report on the sabotage attempted on the BC Liberal Party article after that, either. Claims of neutrality from him were completely bogus.Skookum1 (talk) 06:12, 21 September 2013 (UTC) I don't know which of the following mainstream social media/musicians websites is blocked by Wikipedia, the nowiki I just added should solve that problem.  I'm tired of being net-nannied, whether by bots or by guideline-crazed wikipedians. twitter: @bigskookum What you can't say in words is best said in music; so many of my songs are songs-without-words, or speaking in tongues. "What has not already been discussed here I must pass over in silence" - paraphrase of the conclusion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Skookum1 (talk) 06:12, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Reverbnation profile
 * SoundCloud profile
 * Fandalism profile
 * Myspace profile (one of seven myspace pages, none of them updated recently)

Category:Nass Country
Category:Nass Country, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. BDD (talk) 18:21, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * More at CfD, of course, but this largely hinges on there being no indication of what Nass Country is. If you feel up to making an article explaining that which could be linked to the category with a cat main, I'll likely withdraw. --BDD (talk) 18:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I mean to have retired from this place, but all the BC historical geographic regions categories (which are far more relevant and current than subdividing the province by regional districts, whose names are often compounds of the traditional regions) were created by me. There's this funny thing on the internet called Google, so this and this and some of these will get you started.  "X Country", whether capitalized or not, is a common BC English term for a region.  Category:Lillooet Country, Category:Similkameen Country, Category:Nicola Country, [[:Category:Omineca Country......often seen in print with small-c, but always meaning region, sometimes (but not always) synonymous with "X Valley".  The Lillooet and Omineca and Cassiar Countries for example all span more than one river basin, as does the Boundary Country; others like the Nicola Country are more or less identical with the namesake river e.g. [[:Category:Nicola Valley is the main article's name (now) and note quite often the main article and category do not match nor shoudl they have to.  the Category:West Kootenay and Category:East Kootenay categories are subcats of a category Category:Kootenay Country which is nearly synonymous with the Kootenay Land District though that also includes an area known as the Category:Columbia Country .  The Category:Shuswap Country, though, is only the lower part of the Shuswap basin, the upper part is known as the Monashees (or Monashee Country, and once again that term includes areas south of the upper Shuswap River basin).  This is breaking my vow of silence and my effort to break my addiction to this place, which has cost me some of my health. But rest assured "Nass Country" or "the Nass country" is a common term in BC historical and geographical and political writings; it is not quite synonymous with the Nisga'a Lisims, or the Nisga'a Lands (the former term is also that of their government) but means much the same thing "Land of the Nass (River)".  I won't come to the CfD, I don't have the time or energy, nor to browse through more googles or various books....the fishing books by Rod Bell-Irving (or one of the Bell-Irvings) are often about this area, which is why oen of the Nass tributaries is t he Bell-Irving River.Skookum1 (talk) 10:35, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Note also that this category is a great-great-grandchild category of Category:Geographic regions of British Columbia in which you will find its "cousin" categories. Not all have categories yet, and some have no main article as of yet; the time-consuming nature of erratica in Wikipedia prevented me from completing or sourcing all this; not original research, and all documentable...one reason I've pulled out of Wikipedia is so as to get my own books published on things being lost to modernization and forgotten by newer generations.....and then y'all can cite me. I must stress thsi is not SYNTH or OR, but simply reporting on what I know to be the case from growing up in BC...See some of the Talk:Lower Mainland discussions....Skookum1 (talk) 10:49, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you
I just really wanted express my gratitude for all you do. I don't know if a barnstar or a badge would even be appropriate to express my heart-felt gratitude, so I decided just to say "Thank you!!". CJLippert (talk) 15:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

High horses for your consideration
Here's a few more. --Pitke (talk) 20:14, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Categories on redirects
All I can find about placing redirects into categories is this discussion: Village pump (technical)/Archive AP. Whenever I find a redirect with categories, I remove them. Could you direct me to any WP protocols that encourage them? -Uyvsdi (talk) 04:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * I'll have to remember where I first saw someone doing this, and why. It makes perfect sense to me to have the titles in a category match teh type of category it is.  An organization being in a geography category, for example, makes no sense at all.  It's also my opinion that a lot of what would be stubs if sections were moved right now, don't have to be in the long run, as they're about places that often have notable land history and other placename content that's just not been added yet. Where does it say that categories can include titles that don't have anything to do with the type of category that it is?Skookum1 (talk) 04:45, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:There are no rules is the Fifth Pillar.Skookum1 (talk) 04:46, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I still can't recall where I first saw this practice, after noticing some italicized titles in certain categories, but note Nae'blis' comments and the ensuing discussion in that six-year-old VP discussion, which underscore what I've been doing. starting at "While not all redirects should be categorized".Skookum1 (talk) 04:51, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no idea why you are doing this. There are so many crappy stubs that need fleshing out and plenty of redlinks at Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and elsewhere. The article has all the information; the category has no information. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Finally found the protocols at Categorizing redirects. Geography cats are not maintenance cats. All the information about the reservations are in the articles not the redirects. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:30, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi]]
 * I know exactly why I'm doing this. Because something called a "tribe" (government) is not the same thing as a piece of land.  Something called a reservation does not belong in a category called "tribes" or vice versa.  Something that is a government is not a geographic object; and there are many reasons why one government may have many pieces of land, or why many governments may share one piece of land. The information can be all in one article if need be, or if there is no substantial reason for there to be a reserve/reservation article independent of the band/tribe article. But when e.g. the Dog Creek Indian Band has reserves that are nowhere near Dog Creek, British Columbia, or when multiple bands share a single reserve like Peckquaylist or there are multiple bands on the same reserve as is the case on many of the big reserves in Ontario, or there are multiple communities on one reservation as is the case with Colville or multiple reserves/communities within one band government, as with Seton Lake or Squamish or Nicola, it makes completely perfect sense either to use redirects in the appropriate categories; so that categories don't have titles that don't belong in those categories.  Even in the Nevada categories which I guess maybe you have been seeing me active in, not all the tribe's communities are even in the same state; I don't see the reason for your objection to this, to me it makes complete sense from a classification and categorization system and reduces confusion about what belongs in which category.  There are also compelling geographic and political realities in many cases, of which |I could provide a host of examples and show some benefits including  the way Geogroup works even on redirected titles in various categories.Skookum1 (talk) 05:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Is the land of the state of Illinois separate from Illinois? No. The legal status of indigenous peoples is entirely based on our connection to our land. There is no information about reservations in the redirects; all the information about reservations is in the article. If there isn't enough about reservation lands in the articles for your liking, then why not contribute more cited information to them? Obviously, US tribal situations are very different than in Canada. It doesn't matter if tribal lands span states. If an article is named Yomba Shoshone Tribe of the Yomba Reservation, then yes, the reservation is part of the article's subject matter. Why not write an article? -05:50, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * I don't see your reason for opposing the category redirects the way I've been applying them; and in the protocols you just sent me there's this section which underscores what I have been doing. And I note that many of the tribe-governments in question are those of the Shoshone people so there's a case where the government and people do not directly equate as they might in some cases like the Crow.  There are multiple Shoshone governments just as one Shoshone government might have multiple communities.  I note in many of these the latlong of the communities are given in the article; if I understand/remember GeoGroupTemplate correctly, and think I've used it this way for Tsilhqot'in bands, placing that template on the category for the reserves will display the reserve latlong markers even though they are on the target article not on the redirect.  This would work with the Ta-Moak Tribe, whose reserves/colonies are about six, in two different counties and also in California, and not geographically contiguous.  How all this began, by the way, is because sometimes a tribe/government would only be present in a language or reservation category, or a reservation would only show up in a tribe/government category or even only in a language category.  Mostly the language articles have now all been split off, and for the most part so have the people articles from e.g. the Tulalip Reservation which has about six different peoples on it, though only one government...and some of those peoples also have other governments... clarity in the category system is all I am trying to accomplish..... and re the Yomba Reservation government....and your infobox issue, what should that have then "infobox country", "infobox reservation", "infobox community"?? And know from certain WAshington and Oregon and Montana situations, what I'm talking about re Canadian reserves/bands/peoples in'st just a question of native political geography in CAnada...and I'll note again that it was as much American indigenous editors that evolved all these concepts way back when....and that there was an effort to come up with a system that worked on both sides of the US/Canadian border.....Skookum1 (talk) 06:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

And on that same set of protocols if there weren't good reasons for categories to be used this way, it wouldn't have been set up so it was possible at all.Skookum1 (talk) 06:11, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I really hope you two can find a way to chill out here; I think you are both good editors.  We might not be able to work out a continent-wide solution, so let's each let the person with the on the ground knowledge take the lead in their areas... can that work?  Montanabw (talk) 08:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Geography is my area, as are political/organizational articles. It would make no sense at all to see Government of Canada in Category:Geography of Canada.  It would make no sense at all to see Sto:lo Nation (a tribal council) in Category:Indian reserves in the Lower Mainland, nor to see Crow Tribal Administration in Geography of Montana. Putting government names in reservation and geographic categories makes no sense at all especially when the simple solution of properly-named redirects is available. Nevada categories cannot be treated in isolation, or they will be used by someone else for somewhere else.  Consistency matters.  And I'm offended, still, that my efforts to improve categorization for the easy use of other people not clued into Uysvidi's particular perspective were treated as though I had vandalized the articles or changed them in someway other than fixing categorization.  The redirects exist, and it's perfectly legitimate to categorize redirects so that the categories have properly-named links in them, not POV-driven obscurantism which is what claiming that because the government is the reservat that any effort to use the existing reservation/colony redirects for category sorting is somehow a violation of native culture.  That's pretentious rubbish, period. The protocols that Uysvidi himself raised agree with and mandate what I have done; his position is not even supported by the protocol he himself raised.  Why not just merge all the reservation and tribe categories altogether then?  For Nevada only maybe??Skookum1 (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Canada is a nation-state of 35,158,300 people. Of course it will have more articles than any tribes. I'm not a him, as I've occasionally pointed over the years, and my user name is "Uyvsdi." In Muscogean languages the "v" is a nasalized "uh." My sole interest here is getting basic and accurate information about Native peoples to the public. When people are clicking on links in categories, they are looking for more information, which is in not redirects. The protocol link I gave you absolutely backs up my view, because all the categories used pertain to the articles. Many comments you've made disparage our tribal governments and reveal that you aren't very familiar with the sociopolitical structures of Alaskan villages or our reservations, Indian colonies, rancherias, and tribal jurisdictional areas. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:46, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Man you are reading things into my other comments in completely a reactionary, paranoid way. Disparaging?  Um, I don't know what the F**K you're talking about; I helped straighten out the kwaan content in teh Tlingit article and made sure Tlingit content in BC-related articles like those pertaining to Russian America and the HBC was fair and complete; and though I haven't had time to continue the contact and develop the missing material on the Kaigani Haida, it's not like I've been out to "disparage" native content in any way; my only comment that was even half-disparaging is the point that in Alaskan terminology even a hamlet of 50 people is legally a "city", and that includes non-native settlements.  I helped wikify the Chief Shakes article and have worked to make sure that the clan articles were not deleted because they have 'non-English' names, and undertook to make sure various BC chiefs have been included, and called for more, and penned the Nicola's War content and Fraser Canyon WAr and more....  I've worked sympathetically on nearly every BC first people's content and sorted out the confusing political geography and terminology of overlapping  tribal councils and ethnic groups and edited the anti-native content or pejorative cowboy-attitude on a lot of articles; I came back to Wikipedia after a long hiatus because of the racist cant that had overtaken the Idle No More and Theresa Spence articles, and long before had made sure that various incidents in the history of white-native relations in BC got included; I also kept a Sinixt activist from removing Ktunaxa history and placenames and vandalizing the Ktunaxa articles, and more and more and more.  So you can take your paranoid defensiveness and shove it.


 * Furthermore, this bit about there being nothing in the redirects is true because that's what redirects ARE. You claim that the protocol you cited mandates your reversion of my work but you're completely WRONG.  The protocol says straight out that redirects can solve problems associated with titles in categories not matching the type of category.  And a government, a sociopolitical organized body, is not the same thing as the territory it governs.  An organization is NOT a geographic item.  In your biased edit comments, yuou indicated that I had done something required the articles needed to be "restored" after, which is insulting and NUTS.  The content had not been damaged; but you put those articles back in categories where they do not belong.  A government, doesn't matter whether it's a tribe or band government, does not belong in a geographic category; something called a Tribe does not belong in a category called "Reservations".  In BOTH the things you found, the Village Pump debate from 2007, and the Protocol from the guidelines, there is ample material underscoring and mandating what I did and that does NOT support your reversions, nor your invective against me as if I were some kind of racist pig out to undermine native content.  Your views are ideological and not logical and not in accordance with the protocols you claim support you.  You are talking backwards, like that character in Little Big Man who does everything backwards..... you are making no sense at all, and being an insulting prick in the process.  I'm done with being painted as Big Bad Whitey.  You sicken me, and have picked open a wound in my impatience with "people with agendas" on Wikipedia wide open over somethign so obvious, and then taken it upon yourself to attack my motives, and my whiteness, that I can only adjudge you back as you hvae judged me; that you are an ignorant racist who will not listen to reason, and who believes that ideology is more important than logic.  Or civility.  I'm done with being civil.  I should have known better than to come back to Wikipedia. What a waste of Q@#$%Q@$#%Q$# time and good-spirited energy.  Sickening.Skookum1 (talk) 04:33, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * OK folks, here's my thinking: if we take an article such as Montana, it covers both a geographic region AND a governmental entity as an overview, with many spinoffs later created for history governance, geographic features, etc.  Same will be true of many tribes and tribal governments.  So it isn't the end of the world if some articles will be categorized as BOTH a government and a geographical region.  So let's all stop sniping at each other and if something is categorized in multiple areas, let's focus on navigation and helping people find related items, if that means some redirects, that's fine, and if it means we have multiple classes of categories in an article, that's fine.  I'm normally kind of an anal-retentive person here, but both of you now have me so confused that I don't even really get WTF is going on any more.   Montanabw (talk) 21:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Ease of navigation was exactly what I was trying to do; instead I was fed obscurantism, insults and a denial that what a protocol says is what it says. I'm done, I thought this was all simple and obvious, but I've been painted as Big Bad Whitey and don't need any of this shit. I don't get what is going on here EITHER and it's clear to me that not-making-sense is now an unofficial Wikipedia credo. This isn't the first line of stubborn nonsense I've encountered around here, from all sides. I've done so much to defend and further native content and indigenous sensitivities across the board on countless articles, many of them not even in IPNA topics, that what I've just been calld and accused of is grossly out of line. And nobody ever gets MY name right either (it's Skookum-one, "Skookum1" not "Skookum"). You and I get along, you are obviously a thoughtful, tolerant person; this isn't the first time I've encountered knee-jerk anti-white/anti-anglo intolerance from ideologically/ethnic-pride-driven editors (certain Chinese and certain French-Candian "contributors" come to mind); but it sure as hell is going to be the last. Fewer and fewer logical, broad-minded people are to be had around here. People toss protocols and guidelines around without even knowing what they mean, to defend asinine stupidity. I'm too old for this shit, life is only so long. You're welcome to touch base with me outside of this charnel-house of the mind, I'm going back to the real world. I also note that Uvysdi or whatever also voiced an ideological agenda in the Indian reserve RM, completely opposite to the facts on the ground, and there also said that what is not actually the case is supposedly the case. That RM is why I came back, to make sure content was correct and not biased, same as I did because of Idle No More et al, and the same reasons I fought tooth and nail to keep the colonialist names from rewriting all the Canadian FN articles because of some amateur linguist in the southeastern US deciding that native people don't have the right to assert whta they want to be called. For that huge amount of energy I lost my livelihood and wound up stressed out to the point of the stroke you know I had, partly as result. I do have a short fuse for stupidity and ignorance, and with good reason. I don't like my time being wasted, or ideologically-rewritten content being present as the truth and the only truth. That for the simple act of trying to make the category system more sensible and navigable, I got portrayed as some kind of destructive racist is just such utter horseshit is just not tolerable for me. Try to do something constructive and sensible, get painted as the White Devil. Fuck it I've said my piece....and will try to resist the temptation to bring common sense into Wikipedia ever again....let the revisionists and the ideologues hvae their way, and all the people who want to make drama out of the guideline-spewing and wiki-lawyering all they want. Scholastic people who understand teh point of an encyclopedia and the need for inclusion for everyone, not using it as WP:SOAP which is implicitly U-person's motives here, more and more of us have left or are leaving....... hell the world isn't going to last all that long anyway, all this will be stray kilobytes on a few microchips rotting in the radioactive brine by the end of the century anyway....... yes I'm ranting but the ridiculousness of what has been thrown at me, directly at me here, requires more than a simple "I'm done".....it's clear to me that common sense isn't welcome in Wikipedia; rather the opposite. Over and over and over again. What could have been a great thing has now become maddeningly frustrating. Instead of telling me to write articles, why didn't U-person go and write some about Wells Colony and Campbell RAnch himself? If he knows so much more, why isn't he expanding that content instead of pissing off someone who wsas making sure those titles were represented in the right categories properly. Done, done, done....so much more to say, but why the f**k bother anymore?Skookum1 (talk) 04:56, 3 December 2013 (UTC)