User talk:Zocky/2005

Solution E) -- Country infoboxes
Hi, please come and talk about the specifics of what you've suggested; I understand, and like, what you're saying; can you point at an example? Thanks &mdash; Davenbelle 10:52, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up the syntax. I asked others who've voted for the inline-template approach to look at the examples and mostly I have not heard back. I think that this tussle has been too over the top for most, and they are champing at the bit to do a planet-wide changeover to the new template (ready or not). There seems to be a strong bias against subpages; some of it historical. Too bad they didn't get the moniker 'folder' &mdash; people grok that. The deep concern must be a namespace issue; this is an amazingly flat hierarchy and it must be by design. If you have some time come and talk over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries; it's not too vocal there, but, trust me, it's well read. Thanks. &mdash; Davenbelle 15:06, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Being prejudiced
Some of your remarks, besides being irrational and unhelpful, contain a lot of prejudice and sterotypical bias. How well do you know the Macedonians, either Greek or Slav? And how well do you know me? As an exercise, you may have a look at Rainbow Party and Ouranio Toxo. One of these two is heavily infiltrated by "Greek POV" and the "POV warrior" responsible is me. Found out which one. Etz Haim 12:23, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry you feel that way, but I really don't see why you do. My sole purpose was to try to contribute to an end of the eternal Macedonians/Macedonian Slavs revert war on dozens of pages, nothing else. If we establish a consensus on this editorial issue, we won't have to go into it on numerous talk pages. The whole thing wasn't a reaction to your debate above (that's why I put it under a separate heading).
 * On the other question: I know several Slavic Macedonians quite well (having shared flats with them), and I have travelled to both RoM and Greek Macedonia. I also travelled around Greece a lot and talked to people there a lot and made several good friends. The Slavic Macedonians I know are mostly rational about it and are simply tired by the whole thing. Nobody I know has territorial pretentions against Greece, the idea is treated as ridiculous and worthy of humorous invocation, like Americans calling Canada the 51st state. Of course, I tend to associate with non-extremists, so that might be biasing my view.
 * The issue is clearly controversial in Greece, but not as much as some Greek editors here would like to make us think. Some Greek people clearly find it offending, some find it unremarkable, yet others actively support the RoM point of view, going against the majority opinion in Greece. In the town of Benitzes on the Greek island of Corfu, there is a "welcome" signpost in several languages with several flags. One of the flags is the flag of RoM, and the sign says "Welcome to Benitzes" in Macedonian. A middle aged Youth Hostel clerk in Athens, who is a member of the Greek minority in Albania, told me that he, and many of his compatriots, who had to endure Enver Hoxha's opression, are quite unhappy about Greeks picking on weaker peoples, instead of being simply proud of their rich heritage.
 * So, I hope you see that I don't think these are simple issues of content, but the editorial issue of naming simply comes down to a few choices, and we simply need to pick one and then stick with it where appropriate. As I read naming conventions, the idea is to use the most commonly used name in English and that's the only thing I'm trying to establish. Zocky 13:56, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Honorifics and titles
I have posted a proposal on honorifics in my user space that I would like you to read: User:Ford/proposals. I believe it matches your sentiments on Talk:December 2004 in Britain and Ireland. Thanks. &mdash; Ford 22:43, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

Thanks for your help on the economy of SFRY article! :) Foant

Gallery markup
Over on Gallery of national flags you directed me to the talk: page for an explanation of why you reverted my gallery markup, and all I found was "it makes the page look nicer." Is that all there is to it? If so, I don't think I'm satisfied - the gallery markup has some very practical advantages over hand-crafted table code IMO, it's much easier to edit. Bryan 00:22, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that it's much easier to edit, it's just that so far it doesn't allow us to set the size of pictures, but rather makes them all of the same width, which as we seemed to have agreed is wrong, since it makes flags with lower ratios appear much taller and indeed larger, which makes them look more important. Once the gallery tag allows us to set the height or at least the width of pictures, I'll have no problems with your solution. Zocky 00:32, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Margaret Thatcher
Hello, you recently reverted my changes to Margaret Thatcher by labelling them as unnecessary. Would you care to explain that label, as it seems quite hostile without any discussion on the talk page. I believe that there is no need for such a complicated and indepth lead section, and I was attempting to trim it. I am reverting until you explain why you felt my edits "unnecessary".
 * No need for hostility. Some of your changes just made the prose sound more dull. However, some of what you removed really needed to be removed, so I went ahead and removed it in the next edit. Zocky 23:44, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Slovenija
A mi lahko prosim razložiš, po čigavem mnenju Bela Krajina ni del Dolenjske? Vsaj v šoli so nas učili, da je, tako kot tudi npr. Suha krajina. Hvala, lp! --Eleassar777 06:56, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Slovenia Heritage, for example, has expression like "Dolenjska and Bela Krajina". --romanm (talk) 10:39, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unlike Suha Krajina, where very few people live, Bela Krajina is a well populated region with clearly defined borders. Dolenjska is the part of Carniola south of Ljubljana. Now, Carniola at one time didn't include Bela Krajina and later (after the dissolution of the military frontier) it did, so it's not a very clear definition. If the 13-region solution goes through the parliament one day, Bela Krajina will be a region separate from Dolenjska. Plus, many people in Bela Krajina don't like being told they're a part of Dolenjska, so I think we shouldn't force it on them :) Zocky 11:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to talk to you about wikiranks. Email me at rrcaballo@yahoo.com. Thanks, Ron.

RfC
Hello, just to let you know, User:Islamist is on the RfC page. SeeRequests_for_comment/Islamist. Zscout370 14:05, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

COTW Project
You voted for Decolonization, this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article.

COTW Project
You voted for Culture of Ancient Rome, this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article.

Hmm... Spam links
As a programmer, you must know that it is difficult to determine a link is definately spam... It's not like we should remove all external links from the sandbox... after all, some people do need to test how an external link works...  Is there anything specific you had in mind? -- AllyUnion (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Do many people use the public sandboxes for large-scale tests? Zocky 20:54, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
 * A few... you do see it every so often.
 * So you want to basically sweep all external links every so often?
 * As a suggestion, before I implement it, if that is indeed what you have in mind, that you discuss it with some other Wikipedians. As well leave a note at Wikipedia talk:Bots. -- AllyUnion (talk) 00:01, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

WP:POINT
Hi there! You said that a 'running poll' is absurd... I wholeheartedly agree. Would you happen to know of any other running polls, so that I can take a look at them? Radiant_* 20:25, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Roman culture
Hi Zocky, I just made a proposal re your thoughts on the section on the treatment of Roman government and politics in Culture of Ancient Rome. I would like toknow your opinion on what I wrote on Talk:Culture of Ancient Rome. Regards --Thomas Ruefner 11:11, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth II
Please note that I have disputed the neutrality of this article. Jguk reverted my NPOV template, claiming that the NPOV dispute is just a personal campaign of one person. Whig 09:50, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

QEII
You know I'm all for getting rid of styles but there's no immediate hurry. Leave people some time to think about what recent events mean. People are generally more likely to change their mind if you let them do it in their own time. So, please, in the interest of keeping everybody's wikistress down, slow down a bit. Zocky 10:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll pursue it at a more leisurely pace. Thanks Zocky. Btw. If you want to vote on Jtdirl's gratuitious and spiteful VfDs, that would be good. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:06, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

Lulu
I agree in theory that it is wrong that Lulu is blocked while there is an RfC going on. The problem is that this user can on past evidence be guaranteed to go straight back to the same pages again to enforce his opinion on styles. He has a bee in his bonnet about styles for popes and is convinced that everyone favouring styles is some sort of pro-Catholic lackey. Unless all papal articles are locked before he comes back, I think it would be difficult to allow him back. His behaviour in breaking the 3R rule twice is no surprise to those who have had to deal with him. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 00:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, if he's unblocked he can be re-blocked at the first violation of the conditions, so I see no harm in trying it if he's explicitly told what the conditions are. Zocky 00:47, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

He has been unblocked. I hope he behaves himself this time but I do not expect it. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 00:50, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

RfC signature removal
It's OK of course, it's your account. But I would have thought that I notably have not engaged in any more shouting matches despite that rancor directed at me. I apologized on the RfC talk page for my overzealous edits. I encouraged Whig to let the foolishness go. And I expressed support for your effort at a less contentious interim solution. Paint me conciliatory and all. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:23, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Honorific Styles
Thanks for volunteering to propose and mediate a new poll - like you I think this is the best (only) way that this can be resolved. Trödel| talk 02:32, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

MoS change
I certainly agree with your intention in inserting a neutral interim policy. However, I think the way you worded it is not quite right. You have:


 * There is a long-running on-going dispute about this section. There is a proposal to temporarily replace it with an interim policy.


 * If the person has honorifics, these should be used in the initial reference and/or elsewhere in the article where appropriate, but not in the entry title. For example:
 * ...both styles and non-style examples...

I believe leaving in the pre-survey form with only a side note to your interim suggestion is not clear enough. Instead, I think you should included a few words that say "The prior disputed policy was ..." (then the "If the person has honorifics..."). Maybe intend the old policy to set it off, of something like that. (obviously I am not going to make the change myself, since certain people would jump on it and start a flame/revert war if my name was newly in the edit history). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:18, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Invitation to Inquiry
Zocky, you are cordially invited to join the Inquiry project. Adraeus 10:48, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Sam Spade took over the project, and twisted its purpose. Unfortunately, the project can't be deleted; however, I'm moving it offsite so I can exhibit more control over the documentation and membership. Adraeus 14:02, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Policy shuffle
It's requested on WP:AN, since that's where the most experienced users (arguably) are. I'd say the wording makes it obvious - 'proposed' is anything under discussion; 'guideline' is anything adopted by consensus or situation in fact; 'rejected' is anything rejected by consensus; 'historical' is anything abandoned or dropped out of discussion for whatever reason. Finally, 'policy' is rare, for those very few pages that we are very strict about. Please feel free to reword any and all of the relevant templates (or cat descriptions) if you don't understand this at first sight. Radiant_* 13:39, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * I've added descriptions to Project namespace, and a quick note on its talk page. If you see other places where this might be usefully documented, feel free to do so. Yours, Radiant_* 09:56, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ratification
I know you are exhausted trying to work out a compromise between the parties - I put together what I hope is a neutrally presented view - would appreciate if you copyedit it to make it more neutral where possible. I hope that pointing out the issues will help avoid them in the future. However, I am frustrated with the changed presentation of the vote from the Survey to the Ratification and doubt I have been as neutral as I should be. Can you take a look? Trödel| talk 23:34, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Pie
Yesterday on IRC you answered by rhetorical question where I said anything could be found offensive if you put your mind to it with "pie". I was just wondering whether you were aware of the past dispute on "apple pie" where a big NPOV dispute raged for some time, leading to accusations and a filing before the ArbCom before one editor left in a huff. You really couldn't make some of this up! As I say, you really can make yourself offended about anything, if you really put your mind to it, though I find it better to spend my energies on something else:) Kind regards, jguk 19:00, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

COTW Project
You voted for Ancient Rome, this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. Phoenix2 19:51, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Lulu
Please see Requests for comment/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters. A new issue has arisen. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 20:14, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Pitch accent
I noticed that you were involved in a discussion on pitch accent over at Talk:Serbo-Croatian language some time ago. Your observations there mirror my own. I'd just like to inform you that I've now written a draft new version at User:Alarm/Pitch accent that tries to adress the different meanings of the term (as well as incorporating the current melodic accent article. If you have the time and energy to take a look, I would appreciate any comments, especially since I assume you are familliar with South Slavic languages (which I am not, which is painfully obvious from the draft version). / Alarm 13:20, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Flag Images at the Commons
I have started to build up a list of flags I sent to the Commons. There are more, not only from me, but from others that will/have already been added to the Commons. My list: Enjoy. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 03:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Image:Flag_of_Belarus.png
 * Image:Flag_of_Vatican_City.png
 * Image:Flag_of_Uruguay.png
 * Image:Flag_of_Hong_Kong_SAR.png
 * Image:Flag_of_Palestine.png
 * Image:Flag_of_the_United_States.png
 * Image:Flag of Finland.png
 * Image:Flag of Mongolia.png
 * Image:Flag_of_Kazakhstan.png

Islamic calendar, Western bias
I happened across your statement on the Jguk RfAr (the one about anti-BCE/CE vandalism). The couple examples you gave were good, though I think in the RfAr evidence you're really supposed to provide more specific diff links, rather than general discussion. I was absolutely floored by the comment of Gene Nygaard, and then even more so that of RickK. It's hard to believe that anyone with any education or intelligence has the degree of blindly ingorant European/Xtian bias that they exhibit there. It's really both shocking and disheartening... well, I guess that bias is kinda the basis of both RfArs Jguk is in, but I hoped it wasn't quite so widespread among Wikipedians (though after the style thing, I shouldn't be so surprised, I guess). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 12:46, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

Your Sandbox...
Just curious, do you plan to keep the Wikipedia WikiProject template in your sandbox forever? -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:40, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Possibly :) Zocky 06:07, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lee Kuan Yew
Even if my edit summary had been misleading (which it wasn't, and I'm puzzled as to why you think that it was), that's not a good reason to revert my edit, which involved a careful and painstaking overhaul of Mr Tan's English (as the edit summary explained). If you think that what I did was incorrect, then you might revert, but don't revert again for such a trivial and irrelevant (and incorrect) reason. Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 12:01, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * But even if you'd been right, and I (and others) hadn't asked for citations for his claim, the change regarding the placement of "Harry" was a tiny part of the edits that you reverted &mdash; hence my annoyance. Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 13:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * But even if you'd been right, the thing to do would have been to draw my (and other editors) attention to it &mdash; not to revert my changes. I was going to say that you should have just reverted the change to "Harry", but I don't even see that that's justified unless you think that the change was wrong. I don't agree that reverting should be used as a punishment or as a rebuke; it's part of editing, not the Wikipedia penal code. Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 14:24, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:Lee Kuan Yew; there are a lot of problematic users involving this dispute of the name. I believe that we share the same viewpoint, and so I need a bit of arguement from you.

TanMr Tan 14:53, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations!
Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I would also like to congratulate you, "Zocky." --Anglius 18:53, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Macedonians (yes, I know you're tired of this:))

 * I know that you are getting tired of the "Macedonian Slavs" article, but would you mind seeing the latest discussion developments? I have made some naming proposals for this article, followed by a list of arguments (which I consider quite rational) The point is that the term "Macedonian Slavs" is considered derogatory, even racist by most inhabitants of RoM (I'm lacking a good example but it's similar to calling an American a Yankee), while most of the historical and practical arguments for calling them with the addition of the suffix "Slavs", are rather weak, and are also a violation of some human rights issues. I realize that several other nation live in the region of Macedonia, but none of them uses "Macedonian" in terms of ethnicity. I've also added a few other naming proposals, if confusion with the name "Macedonian" is about to be avoided - Macedonians (ethnic group), Macedonians (ethnicity), Macedonians (nationality), Ethnic Macedonians.


 * Because I'm a Macedonian (I'm also an admin of the Macedonian Wikipedia), myself, so everything I do linked to this article might be considered a POV, even propagandist, I would appreciate if you take part in the discussion, or at least tell me what to do you think about the naming proposals (agree/disagree, further actions, etc.). Thank you in advance. --FlavrSavr 13:44, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

About the Macedonians, again
Ok, some of the text was added after I have started editing my comment. There was also a dose of emotion in my commenting, since I was very suprised about the chosen way of solving this disputed. I can see that you and the other admins are quite exhausted, and I understand that completely - whoever wins I guess the admins would be blamed by some individuals on both sides, the Macedonian Wiki administration was considered a "traitor" by some Macedonians (people X), when we had accepted some non-Macedonian POVs. I kindly apologize if I had somehow offended you. However, I'm still concerned what happens if the "Macedonians" option is outnumbered on ethnical basis? There are simply more Greeks and Bulgarians than Macedonians (people X), and we carry around our POVs, often not conciously. I have never participated in a Wikipedia poll, and I don't really know how relevant they are - I hope that this poll won't end with Greek, Bulgarian, or even Macedonian POVs dominated, while neutral users remain indifferent and avoid participation in the poll. I also have several other reccomendations for a slightly more neutral introduction, I will post them on the discussion page, I hope you don't mind. Sorry for being such a bore, hope this ends up well for everybody. --FlavrSavr 03:33, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Doppelgangers
I noticed your comments in the "Pre-empting impersonators" section on Village pump. I wanted you to know I created a template for these accounts: Template:doppelganger. Check it out! Essjay ·  talk 12:37, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

krill
hallo Zocky! can you take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates#Antarctic_krill maybe help with some editing / formatting - best greetings Uwe Kils 20:28, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Re: intro in Yugoslavia
I don't think there's much anything wrong with the current intro, although I agree that it's ugly because of too much bold. It's customary to bold phrases which are redirects, but I guess we can look over that in the interest of lead section readability. I'll go remove it. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   14:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New popups features
Hi, I thought I'd drop you a note to say thanks for those suggestions, and I've had a go at implementing them. Check out my talk page for the details. Lupin|talk|popups 22:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

CSS menus
Thanks for your email - it looks pretty good to me, and it's very helpful to have as a guide since my CSS skills are so rudimentary. The CSS menu would be a great idea if we got the wrinkles smoothed out. The main problem with the sample you sent is that it's very dependent on the font size being just right: if you change the font size then the menu becomes displaced away from the mouse pointer and so it becomes impossible to click it. Do you know how this might be fixed? Also, at the moment I've got shortcut keys which I find extremely useful. I haven't tried yet, but do you know if it's possible to expand one of these CSS menus from javascript (ie in response to a keypress)? Lupin|talk|popups 04:15, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * So.... I think I have a working system now. Check out the latest version and don't forget to set popupStructure='menus';. There are a few things you may have suggestions for: can we get the menu to start just below the bottom of the link you hover over to get it to pop up? At the moment there's an arbitrary dimension in there which looks a bit off. Also, could we get the menu coming out of the left or right hand side? It'd be great if you could try this version out on windows and IE for me too. Lupin|talk|popups 03:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Too late now. I'll be away for holıdays for two weeks. I'll sure take a look when I'm back. --Logged-out User:Zocky typıng on a turkısh keyboard 85.96.47.115 11:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Need help for my multilanguage project www.cucumis.org
Hi, I need help for my translation help project. It's a community of translators that help each others. The translations value is evaluated trough a system of points that allows to avoid abuse of the system. The user interface has been translated in many languages with this system, but it's very hard for korean, chinese, vietnamese, Hindi and north of europe languages. It's a young project and I hope you will like it! Thanks for your help! JP

thatcher cult
I have found in my short time in wikiland that certain entries, particularily right wing politicians, are guarded by a small but virulant coterie of mostly young zealots who will not in anyway allow criticism of their 'idol' which is sad as it distorts reality--however fortunately there are other sources-but they tend to be print based. Thatcher is a classic example of this. Check out John Howard as another example. I can only encourage you to make rational fact based editing to thwart them. Eric A. Warbuton 05:09, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

please help
I believe that the WP:IAR attitude of certain users who are also involved in an Arb. case with me, and the fact that the agreed facts are still not included, is at least unfair. +MATIA ☎ 10:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Image:46V.jpg
I'm quite sure it is a fake because of the typeface and spacing. Furthermore, and as suggested by you, german officials would not talk about "Allierten" but "Feind" (enenmy). German user observing Hadhueys page.

Jguk 2 Arbitration request
Since you were involved / gave evidence in the first arbitration case involving User:Jguk and date notation, I thought you would be interested in a new arbitration request that has been lodged, again regarding User:Jguk and date notation. Please see WP:RFAr if you would like to comment. Sortan 19:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

date crusades
I didn't check the rest of that RFArb but that "The whole thing is trivial and can be easily solved by a minor extension of software: just make 30 AD display as 30 AD or 30 CE or whatever according to user's preferences, exactly like we do now with dates." seems brilliant to me, and shouldn't be hard to code it (perhaps it would be a little hard to convince them to implement it). +MATIA ☎ 10:30, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Heads up
I just wanted to let you know, someone was editing your comments on RFAr. They also tossed in a personal attack, but I'll leave a warning on their talk page. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 10:31, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks and altering other peoples' comments
Personal attacks and changes to other peoples' comments will not be tolerated on Wikipedia, under any circumstances. Specifically, I'm referring to this edit. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 10:31, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

IRC
Sorry about that outburst. If you have any problems with my blocks please leave reasons on my talk page. &mdash; BRIAN 0918 • 2005-10-31 14:32
 * I haven't seen you much on RC patrol. Are you active there? The blocking policy states that dynamic IPs can be blocked for up to 24 hours, so I don't know what I did wrong. &mdash; <b style="color:black;">BRIAN</b> 0918 • 2005-10-31 14:50
 * Are you active in RC patrol much? &mdash; <b style="color:black;">BRIAN</b> 0918 • 2005-10-31 15:03

195.194.131.172
I reblocked User:195.194.131.172 after he continued to vandalize. It's only for an hour, so the college shouldn't be harmed too much. By the way, on your user page, he posted this: "thanks for unblocking me, comrade" Ac  e  tic  ' <sup style="color:#FF8247;">Acid  15:41, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

User links
You can add custom links to your toolbox in the sidebar. I have something similar in my User:Brian0918/monobook.js file that lists a link to my sandbox, and various other tools. &mdash; <b style="color:black;">BRIAN</b> 0918 • 2005-10-31 20:34

58.105.24.50
I reblocked User:58.105.24.50 after he continued to vandalize. This is not biting newcomers since he is hardly new. You probably should have checked the article in question that was being vandalized before unblocking. This guy has continuously come back with different IPs to vandalize James Bond. He's been warned several times in the past on those other IPs and I didn't see the need to do it once again especially only for a 24 hour ban. K1Bond007 21:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. These things can be easily avoided by providing more meaningful reasons for blocking, like "Repeated vandalism on James Bond from various IPs", so that when people check the blocks, they have some idea why somebody was treated like that. Zocky 22:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject User scripts
You look knowledgable. Join us! Alphax τεχ 12:14, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * one of us, one of us... gooble ggggchkkk ∴ here…♠ 10:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Picture popups
That's pretty sweet! It's a great idea. Some feedback:

Heh, it's fun to comment on someone else's script for a change :-) Now if only I could write code as clean as yours... Lupin|talk|popups 01:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Dragging doesn't work very well for me if I drag near the edge of the popup. It goes all "jittery", so something is getting out of sync. In fact, I just managed to drag a popup and make it so jittery that it disappeared completely off the screen! It's odd though, I don't see a significant difference between your code and the code I've used for dragging.
 * 2) *This seems to be an issue in firefox on linux. I'm guessing that it's caused by too much css. I will try to make it less complex.
 * 3) When images are being slow to load, you can end up with a large blank image for a long time. It would probably be better if the image size wasn't displayed until the image finished loading.
 * 4) *I'll investigate this. I was also considering alternatives: maybe popups should start minimized, or maybe they should display the thumbnail until the larger version is loaded.
 * 5) Did you try using ctype=text/css when loading the image description page? I think this may help opera to do the right thing as it has (had?) a bug which caused it to not decompress the gzipped data wikipedia sends if the content type is the default, text/x-wiki.
 * 6) *I've assumed that Opera problems are also due to too much css. I haven't played much with http headers, I think that I'm getting text/html without the images, at least that's what I wanted :)
 * 7) My preference would be for the popups to scroll with the page, not to float over it. That way you can scroll down to read another part of the page without worrying about moving the popups out of the way.
 * 8) *That's how they worked at first, until some people commented that it's odd. Obviously user preference material :) I was thinking about (another) button to "stick" them to the page. And I'll obviously have to provide some mechanism for user settings for the default.
 * 9) A "minimize all" button would be great. Maybe it could also position the popups in some meaningful way, like shove them all out of the way in the corner of the page, or move each one by the image it belongs to.
 * 10) *I've thought about this one already and I think that the best way (with popups floating like they are now), would be to arrange them at the top or maybe bottom of the window.
 * 11) Maybe you should enforce a "one image, one popup" policy, so that if the user clicks on the same image twice, the existing popup is prominently positioned rather than creating another one.
 * 12) *Good idea. Will do.
 * 13) For small images, the minimized popups can be larger than the full size ones, which seems odd to me.
 * 14) *Yeah, this one looks strange to me too, I'll fix it.
 * 15) The images should have titles (normal tooltips), probably the same as the titles on the source image (i.e. the caption, if applicable). The links in the title bar should also have explanatory titles.
 * 16) *Extracting the caption from the html can be pretty hairy because it seems to be provided in many different ways. I'll see what I can do. Will do title bar tool tips, of course.
 * 17) Could the data that's downloaded be cached on a per-page basis? I don't know, maybe the browser does an adequate job here anyway, but it would be quicker (you could skip the loading... stage completely).
 * 18) *I've decided not to download any data until the user requests it, out of considerations for server resources.
 * 19) To make it a little less monobook-dependent, consider changing <tt>document.getElementById('content')</tt> to <tt>document.getElementById('article') || document.getElementById('content')</tt>.
 * 20) *Will do.
 * 21) The license icons are clickable and link to the image pages. This feels a little at odds with the philosophy of this script :-) Maybe the links should just be disabled, or clicking it could dismiss the popout containing the license info.
 * 22) *Hmm, I can't recreate that effect. Do they lead to the image page of the image or of the icon itself?
 * 23) The license icon is cool, but can be ugly, distracting from the image itself. You could copy IE's idea for image icons which are only displayed when the mouse is over the image.
 * 24) *I tried that, but didn't like it. Another user preference, probably.
 * 25) Clicking on a minimized image should unminimize it. Maybe double-clicking the title could do the same as clicking the (un)minimize button. And it'd be nice if that button looked different when it'll do a  minimize to when it'll do an unminimize. Or you could just make clicking the image do the same as that button and remove the button completely.
 * 26) *I'm not sure how to combine this with dragging. Maybe if double-click minimizes/restores it?
 * 27) On my cluttered and not overly large screen, the link to the full size version is often lost off the bottom edge of the window. Could this link go into the top bar instead, with the image dimensions in a tooltip, or in an icon which only appears when you mouseover the image (like my suggestion for the license icon)?
 * 28) *Sounds reasonable. Will look into it.
 * 29) The reason I have that "please don't delete this line" comment in my installation instructions is so that I can see who's using my script. If you want to do the same, you'll need ... around the page name.
 * 30) *Heh, I thought I escaped them. Thanks.
 * Glad you like it. Feel free to reuse, of course. Zocky 01:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Stop standardizing image templates
Why are you doing this? They're fine the way they are, and your version takes all the personality out of them. You also are supposed to have them centered. --Hottentot
 * I'm primarily doing it so that they provide machine readable information about licenses. These are just copyright tags, I wasn't aware that they need to have personality. We can make them colourful, if that's what you mean, but I see no reason to have them formated and coded in dozens of ways.
 * The problem with having them centered is that it doesn't really work, because they clash with the metadata table, (at least I couldn't get it to work on various sizes of the window). Plus, the images on the image pages are flushed to the left, so I though this makes sense. Zocky 02:15, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

request
Could you check this Talk:Macedonian_%28disambiguation%29 and explain (there) the diff between ethnicity and nationality (I liked your previous explanation about nationality-citizenship). Thanks. +MATIA ☎ 19:04, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for helping with User:Karmafist/Wikipedians' Political Perspectives! It'll be interesting to see what it's like when it grows, but it's well on its way, and you took it one step closer. karmafist 04:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Black pepper (white in Europe)
My God, the hypnotoad! I've forgotten my question! I love the hypnotoad.

Oh yeah, my question. My source for white pepper being more common in continental Europe wasn't that great. I think it was this, which says "In Europe, however, white pepper is traditionally preferred over black pepper for household and restaurant use." I also recall finding finely ground white pepper on the tables of every restaurant on a trip five years ago to Vienna and Salzburg. I'd appreciate more input or sources from you.

I'm more confident in my source on East Asian use which says "the pure, only mildly aromatic pungency of white pepper has also become popular in Japan, where white pepper is often used as an alternative to the local variety of sichuan pepper in marinades for meats. Although Chinese cooking does not use pepper very much, white pepper (sometimes also black pepper) is the chief source of pungency in hot and sour soup". &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Good enough for me. I'm not even confident that the "white" pepper I claim to have seen wasn't simply a finer-ground version of black pepper than the one I am used to in the U.S. Thanks for your help. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Bad/Good Edit Study
Hi, just wanted to say I loved your study of new pages from 2 December 2005! (The fact that you did it at all and even presented your results in a nifty table with a clear explanation of how you came up with those numbers, not the dismal conclusions one must infer from the results you found.) As a great believer in making informed and rational decisions, I hope the WP Board will find time to make even more solid statistical studies along these lines to guide their future policy decisions.---CH 02:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

My sig
On the day that there is policy against it, I will change it. You can read up on my talk page about the kind of people who have complained about it in the past, and why I have zero respect for the suggestion, however offered. Stirling Newberry 03:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

No English language sources
Hello, I'm interested in your comment. I thought not having any EN sources made it an obvious delete. How can it be verified? You may be right. Help me understand your view.--FloNight 17:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Country
Hello Zocky I've some comment regarding your edits to country, at talk:country. You may want to take a look and respond. Thanks. :-) &mdash; Instantnood 07:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Statistics
I loved the statistics you and Netoholic did at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales. Have you moved this to a better page? There is a question about similar subjec at Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus <sup style="color:green;">Talk 01:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

signpost subscription
thanks,I tried to set it to default to the right but I couldn't figure out how to do that while keeping it customizable so thanks for doing that. Jtkiefer T 03:10, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Stirling_Newberry
He's still at it. I've temporarily blocked. Please unblock if he states on his talk page that he has removed the link from his signature. &mdash; <b style="color:black;">BRIAN</b> 0918 • 2005-12-11 15:25 15:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Arabic numerals
Hi Zocky. I perfectly recognize that the symbols (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) are colloquially known as Arabic numerals, and appreciate your effort to avoid any confusion to readers, and hence I am not pressing for a change in article name. However, in my opinion, saying This article is about Arabic numerals. in the disambiguation line is of little help. That is already evident from the article title. To distinguish it properly from the numeral system, I think we must say This article is about Arabic numeral symbols. This is the way disambiguation lines are always done, isn't it? Also, please read my response at Wikiquette_alerts to see an example of how the version that you have reverted the article back to is not NPOV. Thanks. deeptrivia (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure, Zocky. Thanks for your reply. You're right about "numeral symbols" looking a bit weird. I will also prefer glyphs. We can always wikify it for those who want to know what exactly does it mean. Historically, the Arabs always acknowledged the Indian origin of the numerals, while the Europeans called them Arabic numerals. However, in the current world situation, we are seeing obvious attempts at overglorification of Arab history in many different ways, and what's happening at this article is not unrelated to that. Thanks again! deeptrivia (talk) 22:01, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi again! I am perfectly willing to work with you to come up with a completely verifiable and accurate history of the numerals. I must point that the main reference user csssclll is using can be summarized as: "some historians claim to use of zero in India to be 17,000 years old, many put it starting 200 AD, but some doubt it. Brahmagupta (7th century) describes at length mathematical operations involving zero. The oldest existing inscription that all historians recognize is from the 9th century." If from this, someone claims that "There is *no* evidence accepted by the scientific community of the use of zero as a number in India before the 9th century" (sic) and continues describing how Arab invaders might have introduced zero into India, the discussion would be hardly worth carrying out.

I think many people who commented on this understandably did not have the time or inclination to go through the references he had provided, and just assumed that they were properly quoted. I hope in a month or two, order will be restored and we can work on the article in a positive and civil environment. Thanks for your support! deeptrivia (talk) 01:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Quit inserting ridiculous versions such as the latest version which "does not equate arabic numerals to indian numerals". I suspect that you are very confused on the topic and you should refrain from further edits as this is obviously an area where you lack even rudimentary knowledge .--Vertaloni 13:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

n:template:Iff template
is there anyway to use your template to display an alternate message if a template doesn't exsist instead of a red link? n:user:bawolff 08:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

My RFA
Hello, I'd like to thank you for having taken the time to vote and make those many comments on my RFA. Izehar (talk) 15:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Harassment on RFAs and AFDs
Hi Zocky. I just thought that I'd comment on what you said about feeling like its wrong for people to challenge your vote. I thought it was great that you said that, and I think its great that its someone other than me saying it lol.

Anyway, I thought that I'd say here that I am all for people trying to reach consensus, which, from a philosophical point of view, is all of us agreeing to make peace. I think that that's a wonderful idea. However, the problem is that when someone makes a vote, people who disagree feel that they have a right to criticise you for it, and start hurling abuse - *ESPECIALLY* if their view is the majority view. Whilst they will probably hush up if they are the only person who feels that way whilst everyone else agrees with you, if you are the only one against 65 others voting "support" then they are going to feel like they have a right to abuse you.

On AFDs, I have on many occasions voted "Keep" giving quite valid, yet unpopular, reasons. For example, on one case I wrote "Has 79,000 google hits - that's enough interest to be notable in my book", and in response I had a user (I won't say who, but suffice to say that he's an admin and usually quite a nice guy) write to me in 4 different AFDs saying "The google test is not useful in determining if something is notable". Then on the 4th, he went further on to it and said words to the effect of "You know, I've said this to you 4 times now, yet you won't get it through your thick skull. You can't vote keep just because it gets a lot of hits.  Its not useful.  If you are going to vote for stupid reasons, then people are just going to ignore you". And you know what? The criteria for notability actually DOES include a google test, as a valid method of determining notability. So, in short, I was breaking no rules by doing it - it was my opinion for how to determine notability. Yet he was trying to push his own personal point of view across, and pretend that it was fact, when it quite simply wasn't. And so I said to him that I considered what he wrote to be a personal attack, and that he was right, that he shouldn't have to be writing it to me 4 times - once is enough. I heard it the first time, and now its just become harassment. But that wasn't enough either. I got 3 or 4 people write on my talk pages about how I shouldn't go around accusing well-respected admins! I wasn't flipping accusing someone of something! I was saying what they'd done! The absurdity that people could say something, which is right before their eyes, and say that its an accusation when its actually a statement of fact just makes me boggle. But yet they did it, as they said, because he was an admin, and their friend.

So I got this kind of abuse a lot of times. And I think that I've figured out why people vote "delete" so much on AFDs. Its because if you vote delete all of the time, then you don't get bullied. People rarely bully someone who votes delete 100% of the time. You only get harassed if you vote keep - and really only if you vote keep while everyone else votes delete. If I vote keep and its 50/50 nobody harasses me. If I vote keep and its 90/10 then I get praised. But yet if I vote keep and I'm the only one, then I'm in for a world of hurt.

I even went so far as to put a total of 4 articles up for deletion review, and this is perhaps the worst thing you could possibly do. Now, I'll just summarise what happened with the 4.
 * False claims of sock puppetry steam rolled a vote that ended up 6/6 but was winning 5/1 before the false claims came in. The closing admin said that he was going to disregard the 6 keep votes on the basis that they weren't sensible arguments.
 * An article ended up losing 4/1 on a second nomination after winning 4/0 on its first - with 0 of the 4 people who voted "delete" writing a single reason why. The nominator had said a lie about the page, and the other 4 voted "delete per nom" or just "delete" without checking a single thing.  The claims were quite simply a lie.  Yet nobody checked.
 * An article was deleted 1/0 after a whole week in there, and I was the only person who voted delete. I went back to look and it said that the article had been fixed up, yet I hadn't seen the new version.  It was deleted after 1 vote!  Why not relist?  I asked to look at the new article but they wouldn't let me.
 * An article was deleted after a 5/3 vote in favour of delete - but in fact almost everyone gave the alternative of "redirect", and there was actually a consensus to redirect. Not only that, but 4 of the 5 delete votes were based on the original article, not the rewritten version.  I recreated the article as a redirect only (since that was the consensus) yet the guy who nominated it for deletion speedied it as "recreated previously deleted article".  I advised him that it was not the same article, but he insisted that that was irrelevant.

Now, in all of those claims I had enormous abuse hurled at me. How dare I suggest that an admin of all people is imperfect. How dare I. And even though these were about as obvious as you will ever get, not a single one of them was undeleted. The first one got 2 votes to undelete but 15 not to. The redirect one got the first 6 votes all to undelete, but ended up losing, primarily because they were all patting themselves on the back and saying well done - in spite of the proven fact that it was the wrong decision. And what was really stupid was that someone said "Google shows no hits - its not in use", yet they didn't even display the google hits. Google hits actually showed 19,000 hits, if they had actually looked properly. But they all just took their word for it.

And then we get to the RFAs.

So I wrote on someone's RFA "Oppose - he is too new, and he talks about how much he loves to fight vandals and loves it when they attack me - this worries me". And apparently this criticism was not taken well. Now, in my mind, that says that he is likely to abuse his power. But guess what? 30 people voted support stating "Vote support because of the stupid oppose reason". I got 10 comments in my talk page, quite abusive ones, because they said that I didn't have a valid reason to oppose. They asked me to prove it, so I did. I proved that he loved to abuse people. I proved that that was a very valid concern. Yet the guy got promoted 69/2.

And this is just how they do things. They try to bully you, to squash your opinion, to try to force their way.

And I say "they" because its basically a mindset that to survive you have to do what the majority are doing. Whose opinion it originally was is lost somewhere along the lines. You must conform or else.

And of course the ridiculousness over the Vilerage issue is that he confessed, its proven that he did it, its proven it was his account, there's logs that say that its not just Daniel Brandt's word - yet - INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY! Huh? No no, he's proven guilty already. The question should be what to do about it.

Taking Brandt's word? No of course not. Check out the facts he's got on his page. Its indisputable evidence.

And that's just the stupidity of the whole thing. They are not disregarding it on merit. They are doing it because someone somewhere has decided that anything Brandt is bad. So they don't listen, they don't look through things critically. And it doesn't matter what happens, he is disregarded.

Indeed, I am being pressured to "turn" on Brandt, and otherwise they are trying to attack me. I think I heard someone somewhere accuse me of being controlled by Brandt or something. I dunno. I believe he is in a whole other country and has totally different views to me. We share a few things in common and I think he's a nice guy. I agree with what he is trying to do. I am not sure if I agree that CIA is really on Wikipedia or any of that though. And I don't think that he should print people's full names in there - but I do think that he should be quoting them. I think that it is a very good idea for him to do that. Wikipedia does it about him, and its the only way to defend himself. And the whole "hivemind" idea is right. They do work like a group. I've never seen anything like this anywhere. Never seen so many people working as one. Whilst I think that communism is a great idea, I've just never seen it actioned like this before. Its kind of scary.

If you want to know what I think about Brandt, I wrote a piece on him here: User:Zordrac/Daniel Brandt. Anyway, thanks for everything. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy  Darwikinian Eventualist 16:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Zocky
I have listed deeptrivia under Requests_for_comment/User_conduct, please visit and comment. csssclll (00:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC))

Welcome
Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. Welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you enjoy your stay here and continue to edit. Just so you know, User talk pages can be blanked at random by that user as he pleases, so in the future, dont revert anonymous or registered users blanking their own pages. Dont bother trying to get an administrator to block them, it wont happen because it's their page. Thanks for the outside view on my RFC, but in the future, before posting on Wikipedia I hope you review the policies pertaining to your post. freestylefrappe 04:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Freestylefrappe RfC discussion
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. The point is, the discussion section of the RfC template says there's no discussion on the front page, and it all goes on the talk page. I picked a general topic to move all the discussion off to the talk page; I'm sorry if it wasn't the right one. But nevertheless, you should either move your comments to the talk page, or to your own outside view section. -- SCZenz 06:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Heh, no problem. That wording is confusing.  And your points are certainly valid, at least in my opinion. -- SCZenz 06:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: Well?
Zocky, I understand that you want our discussion moved back to the main page. I moved it to the talk page mostly for the following reasons: While I understand you wanting the reasons for your vote to be near your actual vote, I did leave a clear message stating that a discussion was formerly on the comments section. From what I can gather, you seemed to think that the user who commented on your vote did not see it, but as far as I can see, he stood by what he said after you directed him to it. Therefore, I can't see how my moving the discussion would affect people's perception of your vote in any way. It doesn't seem to have so far. To get to the point, I can't see any good reason to move it back from the talk page. After all, that's what the talk page is for.
 * you seemed to disapprove of RFA pages being used for chatting about what we think of each other;
 * The presence of the discussion on the main page makes the page too hard to read;
 * The guidelines at the head of the page seem to direct that lengthy discussions be made on the talk page;
 * The shorter the WP:RFA page, the easier it is for it to load for users with slow connections.

I would like to thank you for the interest you have displayed in my RFA and tell you that I hope that we remain friends whatever the outcome. Izehar (talk) 20:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

PS I apologise for taking so long to reply to you, but this is a busy time of year. Izehar (talk) 20:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Re : User:Regforafd
Zocky,

Thank you for unblocking and allowing me to explain. I'm made my statement at the noticeboard.

- Cheers, Mailer Diablo 22:02, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

<br style="clear:both;">

Re: License display in picture popups
Thanks for the reply on this. I've had a look at the template and it looks like a good idea to me. I'll join in and try to substitute into some of the unfinished image license templates. Off to vote on the TfD page now :) -- Cactus.man ✍ 15:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Zocky, good to see the nomination to delete has been withdrawn. I have started working through some of the image licence templates, and have done the Creative Commons ones that are not protected. As these contain multiple images, you may wish to have a quick look to make sure these are still compatible with your script. It seems OK on my browser though. Cheers. -- Cactus.man ✍ 19:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Flags
Hi, I predicted someone would complain about them, but I can't see what's the big deal. They certainly don't make the page load slower, and there's no way they're controversial. Also, I'm not a new user - my internet browser is screwed up and not letting me log in. 72.144.68.229 11:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

You reverted all of them? Come on man, what's the big deal seriously. Why are you specifically picking on this? 72.144.68.229 11:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh my god. Why did you revert all of my edits on Poles and other pages? This is ridiculous. 72.144.68.229 11:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

If I do not get a GOOD explanation for why you're doing this I'm reverting all of them back. 72.144.68.229 11:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

''First, a technical advice. Try to remove all cookies from your browser's cache and restart the browser, that should allow you to log in.''

Hi. Thanks for the advice.

About flags: They do slow down page load and produce additional unnecessary overhead for servers. They're not easy to get right - the way you had them on Germans, Swiss flag was twice the height of the Austrian flag, which is bad style for displaying flags. They can be controversial - not all countries and peoples have uncontroversial definitions and symbols. We can't provide good, correct and uncontroversial icons for all links, and since we're not making a windows explorer folder listing but an encyclopedia, we don't need to.

The flags are 25px. I know you don't want them on the page because they're just there for vanity but about them slowing down the pages significantly; come on, don't insult my intelligence. I honestly can't see how they're controversial - each nationality has their own flag - even minority ethnic groups usually have their own flag - so there's no reason for anyone to be insulted. Also the Swiss flag is a square instead of a usual rectangle; that's why the formatting was screwed up. I'll leave the flags out but if you're gonna pick on my additions then at least also get rid of the ones on List of Hispanics. 72.144.68.229 11:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

No. I'll just do it. Thanks for the offer though. 72.144.68.229 11:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Slovenians and Serbs lists
Hey, I see you can speak both Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. I'm gonna start working on some articles for the List of Slovenians, cause it's badly needing it. From a quick scan of the list, I'm more than certain that some of these people are gonna have articles almost exclusively in Slovenian. If I need a quick translation, is it ok if I stop by the talk page and post it?

Also I tried your advice and it worked. Apparently my username has been temporarily blocked for a 3RR. Go figure. For some reason I can still edit on the IP though. 72.144.68.229 11:32, 27 December 2005 (UTC)