User talk:Volunteer Marek/Archives/2010/September

I would like to invite you to...
...the WikiCup/2011 signups. Let the best editor win! :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Culture of medieval Poland
You appear to have added an incomplete reference that is causing an error. Could you fix it? Thanks ClamDip (talk) 04:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Jurek Wilner
 — Rlevse • Talk  • 12:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Rafał Wnuk
Hey there, Radeksz - Wow, that was a lot of work in one day, great job! I've removed both the unreferenced-BLP notice and the Proposed for Deletion notice. When you have the time, if you wouldn't mind perhaps adding an English-language reference or two, I think that would help English-speakers to know more about the subject's notability. Again, thank you for improving the article's references so much, it had been languishing with that blp template for over a year and I didn't know quite how to proceed to get the appropriate references. Shearonink (talk) 21:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you. In terms of English language references, all I can find is a couple of his works published in English and ; i.e. primary sources, though these should be enough to establish his notability and I guess could be used in the article as external links.radek (talk) 02:51, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

File source problem with File:Walrass.gif
Thank you for uploading File:Walrass.gif. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of that website's terms of use of its content. However, if the copyright holder is a party unaffiliated from the website's publisher, that copyright should also be acknowledged.

If you have uploaded other files, consider verifying that you have specified sources for those files as well. You can find a list of files you have created [ in your upload log]. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged per Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion, F4. If the image is copyrighted and non-free, the image will be deleted 48 hours after 06:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC) per speedy deletion criterion F7. If you have any questions or are in need of assistance please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced BLP help
Can you take a look at this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:56, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I presume you are familiar with this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, and it's as if you took a Sisyphian task, multiplied it by a Augean task, then squared the product. And while it's true that the appreciation of such work is positive, it's still just an epsilon. I'll chip away at'em as I find time.radek (talk) 02:50, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Enslaving students :)
A couple of years ago, I had two classes of advanced English students in Toluca, Mexico write articles for WP. Im going to do this again, this time with my Business English class, with an eye on having them write a B class (minimum) article as their final project. The last time I did this, I was a relative newbie on WP, and I went around willy nilly looking for folks to help out the class as mentors, especially in wiki-tasks like wikifying, categorizing, etc. as I have limited time to teach wiki skills. I would, of course, teach the academic English skills and citation. Might you be interested in helping out and/or spreading the word that I need mentors for my students? I'll have them look for mentors themselves (gotta remember to find the newbie pages), but any head start would be great due to the semester calendar.Thelmadatter (talk) 21:08, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'll help out. Just let me know what kind of help you or they will need (full disclosure: while I'm working on my Spanish it's still quite poor). You might also ask Piotrus for help as he has had his students write Wikipedia articles in the past as part of his classes and a number of those articles got GA status. He probably could give good advice on the nuts and bolts of such endeavors.radek (talk) 02:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Spanish is not a requirement. These students are all very advanced English learners. What I really need is for them to have contact with people in the "real world" instead of just me. They have to register and contact me with on my talk page by Friday, so I should have a list of potential "adoptees" then.Thelmadatter (talk) 13:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Dr. Dan
Given this conversation (User talk:Dr. Dan), I was wondering if you would be willing to co-nominate a Requests for comment/User conduct on Dr. Dan for his repeated pattern of violating WP:CIVIL. I already tried to resolve the issue at Talk:Tosca with only temporary success. If you take a look through his edit history, this is a problem wherever he edits. If I can't find a second nom, I will have to take it to ANI, and I would rather not do that.4meter4 (talk) 18:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm. Yes, reading the talk page of Tosca that's pretty much classic Dr. Dan. You get the irrelevant personal anecdotes (though you were spared stories about how he just spent 2 thousand dollars filling up his many boats up with gasoline or how he is too busy to respond to your comments because he has to drink expansive champagne with his friends), the multiple attempts at derailing the discussion, the unnecessary personalization of comments (this time he made fun of the fact someone has cats, in the past he has ridiculed people's User Page photos or insulted their grandparents), and the seemingly intentional attempts at inflaming the dispute. On the other hand, the discussion is missing Dr. Dan bringing up four year old diffs by long retired users and making demands that you explain them before you are allowed to edit the article, multiple invocations of completely irrelevant articles, or constant questions about non existent imaginary discussions for which you are somehow to blame. You got off easy in that respect.


 * Having said all that and having learned from experience, I just don't think that an RfC will accomplish anything here, nor do I have time to waste on being... purposefully aggrevated... by him. I see that you've already asked Wehwalt about this and he, like me here, has ducked the issue. Another person you might want to consider is User:Kotniski who has also had many problems with Dr. Dan.radek (talk) 03:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I was confused
Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having read your comments I am still confused. But on a higher level. Most people dont have the time to read many of the long winded monologues on those Wiki battleground pages

In any case I do have the Cambridge Polish, Medieval and New Cambridge Medieval Histories if you have any questions--Woogie10w (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately these issues are intrinsically complicated. While shorter statements may be more "reader friendly" they are also more often misleading and usually argument-free, consisting of one editor or another repeatedly making the same assertion without providing convincing proof. This is a weakness of Wikipedia; it's almost pointless to ask for outside opinion from uninformed parties (hence the term "lottery" to refer to the essentially random outcomes of these 3O's, RfC's and other "dispute resolution" processes). In academia one has the benefit of easier access to folks who are knowledgeable on particular subjects.radek (talk) 00:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * In the business world, one should be concise and to the point.--Woogie10w (talk) 00:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * When writing an article, yes. When discussing a topic, well, that depends on the topic.radek (talk) 00:49, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, I prefer a thorough in-depth analysis rather than a "sounds good to me because someone said so" impression.radek (talk) 02:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * A further thought: the "business world" is all about nicely worded "sound bites" and vapid shallow catch phrases which appeal to emotion and are even explicitly constructed to short circuit critical thought and application of reason. It works for them and it makes them money. That is not however a model I want Wikipedia to follow.radek (talk) 03:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Notification of ArbCom request
I opened a request for amendment concerning you. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

No Soup for You
No Soup for you, come back in one year. ONE YEAR!! 

--Woogie10w (talk) 22:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW this the reason why you get no soup The Soup Nazi--Woogie10w (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Business English students in Mexico
Hi! You offered to help out with some of my students get oriented on WP. I have a partial list of students on my userpage, if you'd like to contact one or two. Thanks!Thelmadatter (talk) 12:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

AE
--Jacurek (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia research
Interesting, please keep me updated on the progress. You may be interested in some of my insights here. Perhaps we could collaborate on this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, it's a work in progress though.radek (talk) 21:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Basically I want to:


 * Finish the working out the case where the game is repeated between players who "know" each other
 * Consider the evolutionary case with more than 2 types/strategies. In particular I want to put in a "Tit-for-tat" Type in there. This gets pretty messy algebraically pretty fast though.


 * Some other issues to consider:

and some other things.
 * "Preference formation" - here the preferences of the individuals are taken as given. "Good" players behave badly not because they've become embittered or burnt out but simply because that is the rational response in certain situations (and the whole trick is to figure out how to make the "bad" players behave goodly, rationally and on their own - but that's difficult). But things like "burning out", "becoming more bitter" or "radicalization" obviously occur on Wikipedia all the time and should be included in the analysis. But this is hard to model.
 * Reputation
 * Endogenous disputes - right now it just assumes that there are some topic areas where disputes just occur "naturally". And obviously lots of issues, like Climate Change or whatever are in some ways "inherently controversial". But then there are also other "inherently controversial" topic areas which don't have these kinds of problems, and some of these disputes are about quite silly things. So the model should incorporate the development of these disputes and predict where, why and how they occur.
 * Evolution of the whole population of editors. Right now in the evolutionary game theory section, population is normalized to 1 (i.e. constant) and everything is in terms of shares. This is just for convenience. A separate issue is whether the dynamics might lead to complete abandonment of certain topic areas in a sort of environment-destruction kind of way; bad editors first drive out the good editors, then they drive out each other. The topic becomes a "dead topic". Or maybe it winds up being some kind of cyclical predator-prey situation like in the Lotka-Volterra model.


 * I started a discussion page. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 22:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks!radek (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Update re Adamowska/i
Hi Radek. I've been able to ferret out a bit more information on Helenka Adamowska Pantaleoni. From talking to my MIL, I realized that Guido volunteered for the Special Forces, and that his death in action "behind enemy lines" left Helenka with 5 children (3 from Guido's previous marriage--he was a widower). Helenka was quite the hero herself in the career she subsequently had. I am still on the lookout for more about Timothee and Tadeusz, but don't expect to find more anytime soon.~Mack2~ (talk) 20:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is a remarkable note about Guido written by Anthony Pantaleoni -- Helenka and Guido's eldest son (and also a close family friend of my in-laws):


 * Guido Pantaleoni
 * By Anthony Pantaleoni


 * Even after graduating Harvard Law School and being offered partnership at White & Case, my father could never rid himself of wanting to be part of a smaller organization where he could play a more prominent role. So in 1935, he joined an old Harvard friend, C. Frank Reavis, and started the firm Reavis & Pantaleoni, a predecessor of Reavis & McGrath.


 * Even though my father was exempt from service in World War II, he still wanted to join the effort. So in 1943, he went to war, charged with control over the whole Italian and southern French area of operations for the OSS.


 * On one of his missions behind enemy lines in Sicily, he was captured by Axis forces. Being the consummate lawyer he was, my dad tried to convince the German sergeant who captured him that the Axis cause was hopeless, and it was only a matter of time before the Allies would triumph. As the story was told to me, the sergeant came very close to surrendering. Before anything like that could happen, the vehicle my father was travelling in hit a land mine and exploded. My father was killed instantly.


 * After the war ended, this German sergeant began searching the United States for my father’s survivors. He located Helenka, my mother, in New York and paid his way to the United States to see her. Upon meeting my mother, the sergeant told her that he wanted to be able to look her in the eye and tell her that even though he only knew my father for two days and was his enemy, he regarded him as one of the most outstanding people he had ever met in his life. He also presented her with a note that my father had written that said, “To whom it may concern, in the event that the German sergeant is captured by the Allied armies, I would request that he in turn be afforded the same courtesy and consideration he has shown me. Signed, Guido Pantaleoni, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army."~Mack2~ (talk) 20:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, maybe Guido Pantaleoni is notable enough for a separate article. I'll have to look into it - but won't be able to do so until the weekend when I have more time.radek (talk) 21:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * BTW, for Helenka's article to be eligible for DYK as an expansion, it would have to be about 6000 characters long, or about three times as long as it is now. While I think that'd be great I'm not sure there's enough time or info out there to make it to that point. Again, I'll try to look around.radek (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a picture of Guido in the source that I cited above. Actually, I didn't cite the source, and now have to go find it. BTW my father in law was in the law firm that Guido founded -- Reavis & Pantaleoni, joining it in 1938 or 1939. And it was in this connection, as well as his own service in the OSS, that he helped in the rescue of Helenka's brother Tad from Italy in 1945.~Mack2~ (talk) 03:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the testimonial -- the html version, which itself has back link to a .pdf file: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cX6XaVE9jZQJ:www.fulbright.com/pdfs/FJ0446_FINAL_Mag_combined.pdf+guido+pantaleoni&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a ~Mack2~ (talk) 04:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: EEML
The word limit is 1000 words, you are at almost 4500. Please cut back to the word limit. Thanks. On behalf of the Arbitration Commitee Dougweller (talk) 09:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)