User talk:Sunray/Archive08

EF
Were the major content-kill edits reversed? Belg4mit 05:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * See your talk comments on the page linked in this section header. -- Belg4mit 14:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I was waiting to see if things had been fixed before tackling anything. - -Belg4mit 15:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Community
...You are a brilliant individual. If you don't join WikiProject Community, I will hunt you down and make your life a Living Hell. • CQ 00:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh crap! did I type that? I think I had a bit too much rum! My apologies. What I want to say is that I've had, since I been at wikipedia this notion of a "sense of community". I thought a community writing about "community" would be a popular idea, and catch on, but if you look at the project page history and even the talk page, you'll see that I'm the only one there. Look at WikiProjects like WikiProject Michigan it's like a beehive! WikiProject The Beatles is probably the most innovative and productive organized group at Wikipedia. It's silly that the "community builders task force" is really just one guy. I feel like deleting the whole thing, sometimes. User:Sj was interested and encouraging for a while, when we first started it, but he's doing wikimania and many other things.


 * Anyway, the community article is coming along very well now. I've created a list of sources at the bottom of the list of community topics and I'm listing more as I find them. CQ 07:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[the following is copied from CQ's talk page]

Ah, rum. Here I thought wow, somebody finally recognizes my unique brilliance! Oh well... I don't think that two makes a community either, but I've been meaning to sign up. I've been involved with communities of various kinds for many years. Community is an ephemeral thing, really. It is the oxygen we breathe and most of us don't stop to think about it. I guess that's why there isn't a stampede. It is like the way that people avoid talking about process. But let's see, Michigan = community of place. The Beatles = community of interest. Hummm.... something topical. Well there is interest in intentional communities of all kinds... and, of course, ecovillages. So maybe that is an angle to begin with... Anyway, I'm in. Sunray 07:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Now you're talkin' Sunray! :) Two heads are better than one. I think once Sj and the others see progress on Community articles by quality, they may rejoin the effort. I'm heading over to Virtual community to start shaking things up over there. It's an attractive topic and the article is nearly as big a mess as community was. Hopefully I can recruit a few members from over there.


 * Now that the tools are in place, we can approach the list as a series based upon importance and public interest. Feel free to drop the tag on as many articles as you like. Do you know of a tool that tracks "hit counts" for wikipedia articles? I suppose talk page activity is a pretty good indicator. It would be nice to have a tool that can quantify that.


 * Talk:Virtual community has a tag on it, so I think it's a good next focus. I'm threatening to bump that article down to 'stub-class' and stick a  tag on it. Maybe that will furrow a few brows. I'm also thinking of bumping Community up to A-class but i would like to find another article that can get quickly to B-class. (Take a look at Vital articles) Any ideas? &bull; CQ 09:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * P.S. I meant the brilliance comment :)


 * The brilliance comment certainly got my attention. Seems to me that the next step is knowing what the individual's unique brilliance is, hence you begin to get at motivation. Positive feedback would then reinforce that motivation. I'm learning to watch not only what people contribute to, but how they contibute. Sometime, you might tell me what it was you saw that made you say that.


 * There should be lots of action on "Virtual community" and related pages. The trick will be distinguishing the serious contributers from the drive bys. Wikipedians are browsers and grazers; they keep moving through those links; watchlists grow and grow &mdash; all of which add up to a short attention span. Some things I've noticed about effective projects:
 * They have good project tools to draw people in (e.g. COTF).
 * A menu of tasks that is active
 * Reminders: "You voted for this topic, it is now COTF."
 * A challenge: "We want to produce 100 FAs and 1,000 GAs by September 15." (Well, actually that wouldn't work, because, while it is challenging, it is not achievable).
 * Standards. Once people cottoned onto the GA idea, it became a way to guage success.
 * A core group to drive it.
 * A nice tag to put on your user page (status).


 * WP:1 has all of these features and is driven forward by a dynamic duo Walkerma and Maurreen. They manage to rope me into working on articles in my areas of interest ("you voted for Community for collaboration of the fortnight, guess what..."). So my involvement with this project tends to be a lot stronger than the other projects I participate in. Sunray 15:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

W. Edwards Deming
Hi Sunray,

An editor created a number of internal links for obscure people and other references in the article. It is unlikely that an article will be created for these people. I corrected one link to a person with the same name but not the person in the Deming article. Several of these potential links should have articles. Leave the ones that might have an article someday and remove the rest? Thanks. Leaders100 02:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It will be difficult for me to do much right now. I just started investigating business social networking. The response I got was unexpected and I am having trouble keeping up the pace, fun though. I think this will quite down over the next two weeks. I can put some time in now. If you would like to email me when you can work, I will log in here at that time. jim [at] thefreesite [dot] com Thanks Leaders100 01:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I am central time (pure white sands of the Gulf of Mexico coast). Monday and Thursday mornings are not good. Tuesday afternoon is not good sometimes. Most other times I have control of my schedule. Send me a note when you have a convenient time. Leaders100 22:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I am logged in Leaders100 20:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I am logged in Leaders100 23:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Sunray That is an interesting question. The article has had a "peer review" by several Deming scholars and consultants who were in Deming's inner circle. They like the article and had few suggestions on issues/problems of content. One is looking into several minor details and will report back to me. If we move sections of the article to sub articles it may help the article become a GA or FA but will make the article less educational because the sections we will move to sub articles are the most important for understanding Deming's philosophy. So the question is should we do that or leave it and polish areas of the article through copy editing? One Swedish Deming scholar intends to translate the article for Swedish Wikipedia and encouraged others to do the same for their language versions. Leaders100 23:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The quotes and concepts section is important for someone trying to get some understanding of what Deming taught. This section is also useful for correcting some of the misinformation about what Deming said. Sometimes I think there must be a cottage industry devoted to creating and distributing "Deming misquotes" and making up things he never said. There is a lot of that on the Internet and few accurate Deming quotes. Leaders100 23:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is not difficult but the question is how many readers will do so? Leaders100 23:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The quotes section is really an introduction to most of the key points of Deming's teaching which is a system. This set of quotes is working as a system of thought which is what many people miss when they first take a look at Deming's ideas. I think it would be better to move the "profound knowledge" and the "14 points" to sub articles and leave the quotes and concepts. More people are familiar with the 14 points and would probably me more inclined to click on that Leaders100 00:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a problem with mark up in the bibliography section. I coped the mark up from an article but ran into a problem with more than one author. I don't know how to make this mark up work for multiple authors. Could you take a look at it and see if you can fix this issue? Leaders100 00:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you sir, I'll have another
Sunray, Thanks for joining the TaskForce. I've created a "spot" for you at Sunray/TaskForce and provided an explanation for my "experiment" at Communitas/pivital sources. CQ 15:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey User Community is a rough draft. Let me know what you think. CQ 03:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Society's demise?
If you nominate it for WP:AID, I'll vote for it. I'd rather not nominate it myself, because I already have one nom and have others planned.

By the way, the past two Core Topics COTF that you have worked on got GA. The last core COTF was biotechnology, and it hardly got any work. So, you are instrumental. Thanks.

Oh, and that's a cute photo you have up top. I never noticed it before. Maurreen 02:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Tommy Douglas
Thanks for the comment. Sometimes it's the little things that matter. Actually I was thinking more about the characterization of eugenics itself than about Douglas when I changed it. =) --JGGardiner 00:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking for sources
Hi. You wrote on 15:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC) at Talk:Squamish, British Columbia, "The convention is, generally, to refer to people as they refer to themselves." Their name in their language (usually written in IPA) or their name, Anglicized? --or both? Have you any leads toward sources? Please see also "Talk:Native American name controversy". Thank you. --GoDot 21:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

In exchange, re. your "All things are connected"—attributed (incorrectly) to Chief Seattle", (The Gospel of Chief Seattle: Written For Television?) at your User:Sunray. Rather like much between Natives and Whites, the reality is more nuanced than simple judgements.  The more Chief Seattle is researched, the more enigmatic he becomes, and the more remote from an actual si'áb Si'ahl.  Re. The Speech, these are the two best I've found so far:
 * Insightful, critical analysis by a scholar and second-generation native Seattleite. One of the best sources about the life and the speech, placed in historical and modern contexts.  Seattle Public Library Call # 979.70049 FURTWAN 1997
 * Hilbert is a highly-regarded Lummi elder, Lushootseed language teacher, and author. Seattle Public Library Call # 979.70049 T482

If you ever look these up, I'd be very interested in your critique.

--21:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Michael Ignatieff
Note: Items copied from User talk:Tyrenius are marked [c] and are reproduced here for ease of reference.

I noticed you made this revert. I wonder if you looked at what you had reverted? There is a specific structure on this page at the moment in order to resolve an edit war. It has a number of different statements from the article, under each of which involved editors are discussing whether that statement can be verified to be kept or not. The post that you reinstated was very disruptive as it was placed under one of these statements and had nothing to do with it whatsoever. I am assuming good faith on the part of the original poster, and that he was simply completely careless, not bothering to study the page or notice how inappropriate it was to post what he did where he did. Talk is there to improve the article, not as something sacrosanct which must be preserved at all costs. You have put it back where it is now interfering with the work to improve the article. I would be grateful for your solution to this. Tyrenius 08:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * [c] You seemed to misunderstand why I restored the comment by Terryeo. It wasn't that I thought that Terryeo's comment was particularly apt, nor whether it was disruptive to the flow of ideas. Simply put, it is not acceptable to edit another user's comments on a talk page if they are neither libelous nor obscene. I've put a note at the bottom of the talk page refering to the relevant section of the Talk page guidelines. I trust that you will find this helpful. Sunray 15:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your note on my talk page explaining why you reverted a deletion I had made on the basis that it was "inadvertent vandalism". Did you see the edit summary?


 * You say on my talk page as part of your explanation for making the revert "It wasn't that I thought that Terryeo's comment was particularly apt, nor whether it was disruptive to the flow of ideas." You did not consider these factors when making your decision, which was made on the basis of an extract from Talk page guidelines that "it is not acceptable to edit another user's comments on a talk page if they are neither libelous nor obscene."


 * However, a guideline, as stated clearly at the top of that page, "is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." A talk page guideline is there for one reason, namely to help the talk page to fulfil its function of improving the article. A comment which is placed arbitrarily, off-topic, in the middle of a sensitive discussion, which it has taken a lot of effort to keep focused (rather than going off in a tangent) is disruptive and does not help the talk page to fulfil that function.


 * You quoted rules, as if they were set in stone, and decided that you would be the arbiter that this "rule" should be followed regardless. This is not a commonsense approach. It is known as Wikilawyering, which is "Asserting that technical interpretation of Policies and guidelines should override the principles they express."


 * I have become involved in a mediating role on this article, because the talk page had become chaotic with completely off-topic, and sometimes very nasty posts. I am determined that the page will not regress to this again, and I will delete anything inappropriate that jeopardizes the good progess that is now being made. A completely inappropriate post in the middle of a sensitive discussion threatens to do just that. I am willing to attribute the initial insertion of this to carelessness. I will consider the deliberate reinsertion of it, with the knowledge of its inappropriateness, to be vandalism. If you wish to contribute positively to this article, I suggest you read the archive and the "storage" page, as well as the current debate, so that you will be fully informed. Then your assistance will be welcome.


 * Tyrenius 00:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * P.S. you may like to check out ArbCom's ruling on Terryeo here. Tyrenius 01:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * [c] You said: "I am determined that the page will not regress to this again, and I will delete anything inappropriate that jeopardizes the good progess that is now being made. A completely inappropriate post in the middle of a sensitive discussion threatens to do just that." The problem is that you are not the sole arbiter of this (or any) talk page. The post was innocuous and did not violate the conditions of the arbitration decision. Nor did it affect the flow of discussion on the page. In fact the most appropriate response would have been to just ignore it.  By removing it you just encourage a reaction.  You accuse me of wikilawyering, which is absurd. The guidelines are there to help us all. However, not only do you violate that guideline, but also several policies.  It is this kind of heavy handed action that encourages people to persist with problem edits. It is a long-standing convention that we do not remove other users posts and in my three years here I have never seen it done when it wasn't vandalism.  Unless you can give me a much better reason for not doing so, I am going to reinstate the deleted text. Sunray 04:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

As you seem very keen to keep this post, it has been archived as part of the record of the talk page.

Regarding your other comments, I did not at any stage make any claim to be the sole arbiter of anything, nor do I regard myself as such. This makes an unfounded personal accusation, which it is best to refrain from. The fact is that at the moment I am mediating on this page, because somebody needed to. Nobody else has offered to join me or I would be happy for them to do so. I'm acting for the best interests of Wikipedia, and indeed I am determined that the page will not regress to a chaos of POV statements and personal attacks, so, if necessary, I will delete material that threatens that. Material that threatens to disrupt is vandalism. I trust you are equally determined that the page will not regress to chaos.

I did not say that the post violated the conditions of the arbitration decision. I was merely giving you background information. But it most certainly did interrupt the flow of discussion, being posted in an entirely inappropriate place and inviting a response which would distract from the disciplined, focused discussion which I have been able to steer the page to.

The only reaction its removal engendered was yours. None of the involved editors has reacted at all, because they're too busy getting on with the job of addressing material to improve the article. I think you might bear in mind your own advice as regards ignoring things. If you had ignored things, then it would have saved a lot of wasted time and energy. I think it's quite clear that wikilawyering is putting the rule before the spirit, and in employing the rule, there has not been any benefit to the activities taking place. I'm not sure what you mean by persisting with problem edits. At the moment we are gradually reaching a solution to problem edits.

You are under the impression that anything posted on a talk page is sacrosanct and should remain unaltered just because someone's put it there. This is not at all the case, as is clear in Refactoring talk pages for a start, which "can include removing superfluous content." I'm not saying this is a refactoring issue; I'm simply pointing out that talk does not have to be preserved in its initial state, if that is not helpful. You have obviously been very fortunate in your 3 years on wikipedia by being engaged in articles with purposeful discussion. I have been involved with some rather more problematic pages. A sample of talk deletions which might interest you, some vandalism, others simply inappropriate can be found here, for example.

There are two good reasons why not to reinstate the text. Firstly it is archived. Secondly to deliberately reinstate the post in a completely inappropriate and unhelpful place is vandalism.

Furthermore, you have made an additional personal attack in this edit summary, and you will be blocked if you persist in such behaviour.

Tyrenius 05:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Your threat
[c] To clarify: My edit summary, "talk page fascism," was not a personal attack. It was, (and is) a statement of my concern about peremptory actions taken by you on the Michael Ignatieff talk page. It was a warning to all who read it. I do not appreciate you threatening me with a block. Your blood seems to be running hot. Be careful. Be civil. Sunray 07:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for violating Wikipedia policy, by making personal attacks. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by replying here on your talk page by adding the text. You may also email the blocking administrator or any administrator from this list instead, or mail unblock-en-l@mail.wikimedia.org. I warned you following this personal attack in an edit summary. You made another personal attack at the end of this post. You also denied your first attack, whilst simultaneously confirming it was aimed at me. You are blocked for 1 hour to give you some breathing space to think of less inflammatory ways to communicate. Tyrenius 07:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I have rarely seen such flagrant abuse of an administrator's power as this series of actions by Tyrenius.
 * First he removed an edit by Terryeo from Talk:Michael Ignatieff (see this diff).
 * When I restored it with the edit summary "restore [User:Terryeo|Terryeo's]] comments: pls. do not delete comments on talk page", he again reverted me here, calling it "inadvertent vandalism."
 * I reminded him of the guideline on not removing text from talk pages, which he also deleted here.

He then accused me of personal attacks because I referred to his actions as "peremptory" and left an edit summary referring to "talk page facism." When I disagreed with him, he blocked me. I know that he is a relatively new admin, so could someone please explain to him that he should not block someone he is in a personal dispute with. Sunray 08:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Note to admin
Note to any admin re the above: there is no content dispute. All the material that Sunray is referring to can be found in the talk page archive where it has been since 04:24 and 07:14 for the two posts mentioned. Tyrenius 08:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

PS I have been extremely patient trying to explain to Sunray the bad state the article talk page has been in, and also very lenient in only imposing a 1 hour block. However, in light of his comments above and repeating his attack (now mis-spelt) for the third time, I would be happy if you wished to extend this block at your discretion. Tyrenius 08:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for violating Wikipedia policy by repeating the words of the personal attack you were blocked for in the first place. To contest this block, please reply here on your talk page by adding the text along with the reason you believe the block is unjustified, or email the blocking administrator or any administrator from this list. You are blocked for a further 1 hour. I suggest you use diffs in future to refer to such things, if you feel the need to, and not state them again, thus intensifying what you have already said. My note above to admins still stands. Tyrenius 08:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Ignatieff
I'm not sure that my advice will be all that helpful to you. But since you asked... I'm hadn't really thought of Tyrenius as a mediator but I suppose that you could describe his actions as amounting to that. His initial actions were really just to tidy up the discussion that Ottawaman had started. The format is pretty much the same but Tyrenius was asking for some sort of finality. I suppose you could say that he was "self-appointed" but I had really thought that he just was making a suggestion about structure and that the other editors could say "no" but had been happy enough with his format.

As for the comments, I personally found them extremely unhelpful. Firstly, they claimed that we were not working well together which I think is not the case at all. There are a lot of issues but it is good to discuss them and I think we were making good progress. There are always readers who would question an article, Ottawaman simply had the courage to speak up. Good for him. I disagree but I think debate is often lacking here. Secondly, suggesting bad work was pretty much inviting a comment of "I'm working well but the other side won't AGF" or "are paid organizers", etc. (why do organizers always accused of being paid anyway?). And finally I thought that the delayed edit war idea was, well, not a good one. That said, I had always thought that it was bad form to remove a comment if it wasn't truly offensive or threatening, etc. I certainly wouldn't myself. On the other hand, I'm not really familiar with the relevant policies, guidelines and conventions. And I suppose that it is the administrator's burden to know them. If Tyrenius moved the comment rather than deleting it, I can see his point.

Obviously a balance has to be found between allowing open dialogue and restricting disruptive comments (I mean disruptive to the flow of that particular dialogue, not WP in general). I really don't know where WP finds that balance in this type of circumstance. --JGGardiner 17:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I endorse JGGardiner's observations, and would like to say that there is currently a high standard of work being carried out by the editors. The comment left, "Sheesh, I thought I had problems where I'm editing !", is frankly insulting and an attack on them, which serves no constructive purpose. That you are so keen on keeping this amazes me. I would also suggest that your time could be spent a lot more constructively than going around asking editors if there is a problem, when there isn't one. If there were, I am sure the editors I am working with are quite capable of telling me themselves. I am essentially acting as a clerk to co-ordinate the discussion from an outside stance, which has left them free to concentrate on the particular aspects they wish to examine. If you want to help, then join in this discussion, adding research where appropriate. Tyrenius 18:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Core topics COTF
Hi, Sunray.


 * Maurreen 15:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Sunray. Sorry to pull out, but I decided I need to try to take a break to catch up on some things I have been neglecting. I'll see you later. Maurreen 18:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Michael Ignatieff
Wonder if you could turn your attention to new edit contents. 'Prestigious' seems to be POV. I can't edit because it would compromise me. Tyrenius 06:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * As you're already embarked on the article, I wonder if you'd like to take over as co-ordinator/clerk of the talk page? I would prefer to hand it back to article editors to work through. You can probably see the system for putting "consensus reached" sections into the Ancillary page, due eventually for archiving. If so, I would be available for back-up, if required, and meet any recommendations for (un)protection as far as possible. Tyrenius 00:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

By participate do you mean get the assent of the other editors for the role? The idea is not to be a participant in the editorial discussion of things, but to be a third party. Tyrenius 02:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggest I simply introduce you as volunteering to do the job on my invitation, unless anybody objects to this. Tyrenius 05:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure. I will leave a note of intent on the page to see the response. I am thinking of removing all protection, but would like your feedback as to what you think would be most helpful for you (it can always be reinstated of course). One has to bear in mind that there is a leadership campaign in progress, and wiki is likely to be a target. Tyrenius 18:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * PS Also feel free to organise in whatever way you see fit, re. archives, warning notices etc. Tyrenius 18:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * How's it going? My procedure, as you have probably observed, was to mark in red when there was consensus, leave a short time, transfer content to the article, and transfer the concluded talk to the Ancillary page for temporary storage. Eventually the content of Ancillary can be transferred to an archive. Let me know if you need any assistance or change to protection level. Tyrenius 02:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

geography wikipedia project
hello, I thought you might be interested in helping WikiProject_Geography If so, just add your name to the page. Thanks AlexD 00:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Alexander Edmund Batson Davie
Thanks for the work on AEB Davie but I have a feeling that there is a name missing from the sentence: "Davie was married December 3, 1874, to Constance Langford, daughter of Maple Bay, British Columbia." KenWalker | Talk 22:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I Ching
Nice girl on bus/tram/train photo by the way.

'There is a rather interesting story to be told about the reach and influence of the I Ching. I'm researching that right now and plan to add to the new article' - Please update me on anything you come up with I would be vey interested in this. --Drgs100 16:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Energy portal
Hi! As a contributor to WikiProject Energy development, I thought you might like to be aware of the opportunity to contribute to the new Energy Portal, now that there is one... No need to reply. Gralo 17:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ignatieff Discussion Page
The discussion page on the Ignatieff article has been dead for over a month. Since you're the current admin watching it, would you mind archiving it so we can start fresh?

WikiProject Vancouver
This is an important message being sent out too all participants. We are currently recalling our list of participants. Any one who is inactive in the project will be moved to the "inactive" list respectively. See the project talk page for more details -- Selmo  (talk) 20:53, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Doing something about the ridiculous date autoformatting/linking mess
Dear Sunray—you may be interested in putting your name to, or at least commenting on this new push to get the developers to create a parallel syntax that separates autoformatting and linking functions. IMV, it would go a long way towards fixing the untidy blueing of trivial chronological items, and would probably calm the nastiness between the anti- and pro-linking factions in the project. The proposal is to retain the existing function, to reduce the risk of objection from pro-linkers. Tony 05:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)