User talk:Mbecker/Archive 2

Check out Wikipedia:Wikipedia and Religion. --Dante Alighieri 08:57 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hallo Michael: I appologize to you if you felt insulted. I did not mean it that way. You have great pages. If I can be of help to you as a professor anytime, let me know - Uwe ("sailor") Kils 13:48 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Re: the Viking situation. Glad to contribute my opinion on the situation. I had no idea I was under any suspicion of actually being Viking }:-) Anyhow, hopefully the situation has resolved itself. -- Wapcaplet 15:19 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Congratulations, you have just been made a sysop! You have volunteered for boring housekeeping activities which normal users sadly cannot participate in. Sysops basically can't do anything: They cannot delete pages arbitarily (only obvious junk like "jklasdfl,öasdf JOSH IS GAY"), they cannot protect pages in an edit war they are involved in, they cannot ban signed in users. What they can do is delete junk as it appears, ban anonymous vandals, remove pages that have been listed on Votes for deletion for more than a week, protect pages when asked to, and help keep the few protected pages there are, among them the precious Main Page, up to date.

Note that almost everything you can do can be undone, so don't be too worried about making mistakes. You will find more information at Wikipedia:Administrators, please take a look before experimenting with your new powers. Drop me a message if there are any questions or if you want to stop being a sysop (could it be?). Have fun! --Eloquence 18:46 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Reverting edits is a lot easier if you check a user's contributions list ("User contributions" on the user page) and click the rollback link. It is only available if the edit is still the most recent one, and you cannot accidentally rollback twice. --Eloquence 20:36 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Did you and I talk about Micheal problems on another page at some time not long ago? Or am I thinking of someone else? Senility has obviously set in, I can't remember. No matter, I just dropped by to say that your edit summary just now - fixed spelling error by Michael. Checked validity of everything he added - is a really good idea. That makes life so much easier for people cleaning up after the factually-challenged one, and also avoids any risk of your edit getting caught in the crossfire. Hey - you know this stuff already, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Cheers -- Tannin

Welcome to the Friends of Michael :-) -- JeLuF 20:25 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Heya,

I think you've done an excellent job as a sysop so far, and I'm telling you this to get you to do some work for me :-). I'll be gone for four days starting Wednesday, and it would be nice if someone could keep the list of "new pages" on the Main Page up to date in that period. What this basically means is checking Special:Newpages once a day and adding four to five links to articles that already look good. Would you do this for me while I'm gone? I'll do an example update in a few minutes. --Eloquence 22:18 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Argh, look what you've started! :-) Evercat 22:34 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Banning user accounts and seeing users' IPs is restricted to developers only at this point. Since this is just more idiot vandalism I've gone ahead and banned that account. --Brion 05:23 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

meta:Wikipedia:RainCloud doesn't exist.
meta:bans is the meandering thoughts of a reprobate and has no official status
Have you seen wikipedia:accuracy dispute?

Martin

Smaller done (lavender_small.jpg) ¿Is enough or you need smaller yet? Guillermo 15:12 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That is a good size :-). I tried to favor the creation of m:wiki:raincloud; but it didnot work :-( you are welcome to give it a try :-). WikiLove User:anthere

I did an article text search on "8217" to find all the Microsoft-generated cruft (apostrophes first; there are 413 articles with this type of apostrophe in it, and hopefully that will be the largest count I get). I'm planning on doing double quotes, dashes etc. later.

It keeps me occupied. ;-) - Hephaestos 02:16 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

thanks for the advice. Will know now :-) Ant

Re question on my talk page - Like I tried to report back, I changed that image inadvertently (clicked on a wrong link). Thanks for changing it back, I couldn't figure out how to do it. Enough already. Espen

I like my version better, without the Wikipedia: namespace visible -- Rotem Dan 19:48 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Please read my comments on Talk:Main Page -- Rotem Dan 19:51 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I changed the voting list in takepage of inheritance (object-oriented programming) so that the course of further contributions can be clear. -- Taku 03:44 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up about Inheritance etc... Mintguy

Hey, Mbecker, I'll bet you want to talk me through the creation of a bot or two, don't you? Also, do you have AIM? --Dante Alighieri 20:57 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake, User:Bender isn't operational yet. ;) --Dante Alighieri 21:03 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't know Python, but I am interested in learning. It's been one of those things that I was going to get around to at some time or other. Let's talk over AIM, it's faster. ;) Check here for my AIM name. --Dante Alighieri 21:18 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

er...sorry. I usually try to think of using the full sig on user talk page. Not often on article or meta talk page, as I consider answers and comments are likely to be put there. I put my name by hands for uneasyness to do the thild on my keyboard. No, I wont use an official short name for I specifically asked some users not to call me ant. So, I do not sign in the same way in all places. Did you have something to tell me ? :-) user:Anthere

Re: Wikipedia:Favorite pages of banned users - I did notice this. Good idea! Most of us who have been here a while have a pretty easy time spotting Michael's edits, but this will definitely be quite useful. If only all vandals were as consistent as he is :) -- Wapcaplet 23:31 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

MB, it seems the content disclaimer has sorted itself out. I still think a couple of examples would be useful, but otherwise I think it covers the consensus position quite nicely. --Robert Merkel 00:45 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

con·sen·sus Audio pronunciation of consensus ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-snss) n.

1. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole: “Among political women... there is a clear consensus about the problems women candidates have traditionally faced” (Wendy Kaminer). See Usage Note at redundancy. 2. General agreement or accord: government by consensus.

There is no consensus about what to do. Don't pretend that there is. Thanks. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 00:49 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Subpages are definitely out. Mintguy 15:12 10 Jun 2003 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Do not use subpages Mintguy 15:27 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. Well then, I don't see any compromise. MB 15:36 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think, and hope, Taku wil buy my argument about genetic algorithms. BTW have you looked at subprogram. It's a disaster. I didn't want to get involved in another dispute with Taku but it's a right mess because Taku decided that everthing that resembled a subroutine should all be on the same page. At one point it even said something like "an abstract method was a subprogram without any code in it." Also I rarely contribute to articles about software on Wikipedia, I get enough of that in my day job. I made an exception and I wish I hadn't. Mintguy 15:53 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Re: Subprogram. It isn't a proper term. At least not since the 1950s. But as I said above I don't want to get into another conflict. Mintguy

Wrongbros probably is not Michael, but is adding some articles regarding a record label that might not exist, see Messed Up Wreckords and the associated talk page. -- JeLuF

Hi there. Whilst I agree that QEII made an interpretation of the facts, but it remains a fact that this was her response to a request made direct to her by some Rastafarians when she visited Jamaica. I think "In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain refused to make a public apology for the long history of slavery under the British Empire on the basis that it was legal." is a fair summary of her response. So I don't really see where the problem of this arises. I might think that her argument is specious particularly in light of the legal and political chicanery which Edward Coke involved himself, but this is not what I say - I leave the reader to make whatever inference they feel the evidence warrants. Harry Potter 00:35 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Please don't give three sided football any legitimacy by adding stuff about "London Psychogeographic Association" into the football article. As far as I can work out the London Psychogeographic Association, only exists as a concept in a few pataphysic artists heads. Take a look at http://www.deepdisc.com/space1999/archive/11.html to get some idea and then read Luther Blissett Mintguy 08:07 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This is the whole point - is is deliberatly hard to understand in order to confuse. At its heart the concept of three-sided football is absurd. There are some facts, some pseudo-facts, and some fantasy all mixed in together. They call it pataphysics some might call it art, but I call it nonsense. Luther Blissett never organised and games. The AAA doesn't exist. It is a name invented for the sake of art as the ostensible organisers of an art exhibition called space1999. At least that's the best that I can make of it. Mintguy

Mintguy seems very bold in making assertions about things which they clearly know nothing about. Space 1999, Tendays that shoke the universe was a "Festival of independent and community-based space exploration" held in London, Earth from June 18th 27th 1999. It included a conference, performance, astral travel, music, film, discussion and training. The festival explored "the new possibilities that open up when we form autonomous communities in outer space". In fact the Association of Autonomous Astronauts was an world organisation with events in Italy, Austria as well as London, with branches in New Zealand as well as across Europe. The idea that Space 1999 was an "art exhibition" is what we call Absurdist. Harry Potter 11:13 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Mbecker. I've seen a lot of your edits here and there and generally, as far as I recall, there are generally pretty good and make Wikipedia better. :) However, today I've seen you adding redundant links to the bottom of articles (usually in the See also:) sections. They are generally links to subjects which are covered in the main article, which usually have a link to the subject already. While I don't think there is any formal style guideline on this, redudant links in articles are generally discouraged (I know, I've had several of my own mistaken redundant links reverted). Therefore, you might want to reconsider creating the redundant links as they are already covered in the articles (and might just be reverted). :) —Frecklefoot 13:56 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for my WikiLove flower! Angela 12:20 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Actually, Impeccability was perfectly accurate. I assume you deleted it because you weren't familiar with it? Would you mind terribly if I undeleted it? -- Someone else 21:29 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I made the assumption you wouldn't and went ahead and recreated it since I had more to add. -- Someone else 22:04 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah. I hope you're happier with the current version then. I'm not complaining, there's entirely too much nonsense here that doesn't get deleted (like a library that consists solely of references to itself!), but I think generally definitions go onto the "votes for deletion" page. Sometimes (like (I hope) here) they have the ability to be expanded to something more than a dictionary definition. -- Someone else 22:19 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I removed your phg from Finch. Although this article might benefit from more finch photos, I didn't think this hopefully serious article benefited from a cartoon finch (if that's what it was!) jimfbleak 05:28 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I am reluctant to get into edit wars, so I've left the Finch png for the time being; the first time round I thought it might be a little joke. Although images, even poor ones, often add greatly to an article, this parody really doesn't. To me, it detracts from the serious nature of the article and adds nothing. I'm off-line for a couple of days, so I'll give some thought whether to delete again. Can't you photograph a Chaffinch/House Finch (sorry, forgotten you nationality) instead? jimfbleak 05:15 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Jim, that this picture is inappropriate. Please remove it or find a better location for it. -- Cordyph 10:06 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I haven't accused you of being a troublemaker, if you check my talk page, and I wouldn't do so. The fact is that, apart from myself and Tannin, who might be considered to have a vested interest, both Cordyph and Arpingstone have supported the deletion.

I'm sorry if you found the words cartoon or parody offensive, but the fact is that in that in an article about birds for adults, you would expect either a photograph or a properly drawn illustration. If you look at Brittanica or on-line sources, you will not find images like yours. There are other photos I could add to the article, but it might then be too cluttered. There are drawings on some pages, see skua, but the standard is much higher.

I'm sorry that you have taken umbrage at this, but I think the consensus is clear. jimfbleak 14:52 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Michael. It's a pity to disagree over a matter like this, as I have always found you an easy person to cooperate with and respected your edits, and the more so as you took the time to create that drawing. (Something I could not do in a year of trying - the average four-year-old draws better than I do!) As I see it, the best illustrations for articles about the natural world are usually photographs. Where a suitable photo cannot be obtained, then a drawing must suffice. At present, a lot of the bird and mammal articles are illustrated with drawings from out-of-copyright encyclopedias. I don't like them much, but they are nevertheless a whole lot better than nothing. To me, your drawing and those drawings fit into the same category: if there is no photograph available, then they are the fall-back. I admit to finding your finch a little twee, but then I have exactly the same feeling about many of those old encyclopedia drawings too - and some of those are more than likely painted by very famous nature illustrators of their day! Over time, I would love to see a quality photograph for every fauna entry (and the flora too) replace all the drawings. To this end, I've taken quite a few myself of late (not all of them posted yet), and have been traveling all over the state. Just the week before last I got really carried away, and lashed out on a massive telephoto lens so that (I hope) I can get lots of good bird pictures. (Not one of which will wind up in finch - as our Australian finches are not finches - they are in their own family, but closely related to the sparrows.) Anyway, let me put it like this. I think my language was a little strong on Jim's talk page (speak first, repent at lesiure!) and I apologise for that. On reflection, I think that I would be in favour of retaining your drawing if there was not already a decent photo. Best -- Tannin

PS: Speaking only for myself here - others may or may not agree - I would certainly welcome drawings for the birds (or mammals) that we are unlikely to be able to get photographs of. The reality is, for anything that doesn't happen to have a photo somewhere on a public domain US Government site, we depend on Wikipedians with cameras. Over time, it is reasonable to expect that we will accumulate good pictures of all the common species in the places where most Wikipedians live or visit: Europe, North America, Australia, and so on. But we are unlikely to get many photos of the creatures of (e.g.) South America or China, bar those few that we can talk pictures of in zoos.

See 1. This is a 1905 German encyclopedia; look for Pomarine Skua. I have inexpertly edited the image to isolate the species I wanted, but the drawing original dates from before electronics. You should be aware that digitally editing an in-copyright photo and using that in Wikipedia would still have been a breach of copyright, if that is what I had done. jimfbleak 15:14 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This isn't important, but for the sake of completeness, the pix are from a German field guide ("Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vögel Mitteleuropas", 1905). Cordyph gave me the links http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/birds/naumann.htm. and an English index on : http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/birds/regengl.htm. Bizarrely, although the second one opens for me, it does so in IE, which is not my browser. I've no idea why, having no computing background at all. jimfbleak 15:53 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi from Adrian. Please have a look at Talk:Finch. Thanks.
Adrian Pingstone 16:18 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, that's a photo of lavender you posted at user talk:Anthere? It reminds me of liatris: thin purple flowers blooming on a stalk from the top down. Know of any others like that? I thought liatris was the only one. best, Koyaanis Qatsi 05:15 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It looks too tall and thin to be liatris, so I'll trust the gimp contributors that it's lavender. I just never knew what it looked like, and was surprised that it bloomed purple flowers from the top down. Koyaanis Qatsi 05:15 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Michael: the only woodpecker finch images uploaded were the ones you deleted yesterday, so I'm not quite sure what you're asking (unless I missed your message then). The other uploads were various goose/duck photos taken by Adrian. If I've misunderstood, get back to me. jimfbleak 06:10 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I said (or meant) I would write some articles to go with various duck and goose images Adrian had taken at a wildfowl collection. AFAIK, there are no good-quality images of any of the Darwin's finches that we can use, and unlikely to be so for a while, since these birds are restricted to the Galapagos, and are not common in collections. However, there are images of several other finches, so until the Darwin's finches get an article, that's not a problem.

Hello, sorry for replying late, but I was offline for the weekend. Jim, Tannin and Adrian have already explained, why the image is inappropriate in my and their opinion. Just this: No offence was intended, and if I would have known, that the image was drawn by you, I would have been a bit more diplomatic. So I apologise for that. Cheers -- Cordyph 06:47 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, I would gladly have answered to you. But I don't know how to do it now if you have flagged my emails to be rejected. I use the same email address from everywhere. That is a yahoo address ! (you know, the disposable type :-)). You can't select them by ip either. I am on dsl both at work and home. This is the same set of addresses which is likely used in both places. Non fix ips. Sorry I can't answer you then. User:anthere

Hi Mbecker! Thank you for asking for my input regarding U.S. occupation of Iraq. I would prefer U.S.-led occupation of Iraq on the principles that 1) it should be strictly accurate and U.S. occupation is not strictly accurate, and 2) we should convey as much important, useful information as possible. The fact that it's US-led is important and isn't controversial and that should be reflected in the title. (For example, when the occupation gets linked to from Military history of the United States, it would be good if the title reflected the U.S. role in it.) However, I don't care enough about it to break my current policy of working only on Voting systems pages; I'm only giving my opinion out of respect for you because you asked. Peace, DanKeshet

Hey, MB! Why are you replacing British English in Current Events with Amerucan English? Organisation, Labelling etc are correct Brit Eng. Wikipedia has a policy of treating the use of both forms equally and it is against wiki rules to Americanise British english. And it is particularly wrong when you are taking British english out of references to Britain, and putting in American english. I presume you just made a mistake. That sort of stuff almost invariably triggers off edit wars and revertions, and is one of wiki's biggest no-nos that should never be done. FearÉIREANN 21:13 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi! Please don't think I was making any sort of a threat or anything. All I meant was that changing BE spellings to AE spellings is one of the surefire way of triggering of revertion wars. From what I could see, only one word was spelt incorrectly, The rest were absolutely correct BE spellings. The issue of Spellchecks is a nightmare because most use only AE spellings and judge all BE spellings to be wrong. I have spent months adding in BE spellings to my spellck command but it still drives me made insisting that correct BE spellings are incorrect and offering a AE alternative 'correct' spelling. (It is so infuriating I now no longer use the spellcheck, because 90% of the mistakes it finds are simply words spelt differently but correctly to its default AE) S instead of z, ll for l are standard correct BE versions of words spelt with a z or one l in AE spelling. BTW, as an example of the complexity, a British TV quiz show Countdown yesterday (Monday), in which spellings is a crucial component, refused to accept an AE spelling of a word. In academic circles in Ireland, AE spelling is marked as wrong, and AE style capitalisation (where almost everything is lowercased) is judged illiterate on this side of the Atlantic. (Hence the rows on wiki between a few people who insist on lowercasing almost everything AE-style, to the fury of BE users who use their standard capitalisation when writing articles and take high offence when their spelling is changed, their capitalisation is lowercased, etc.

"lowercase" is itself AE; BE is "lower case", two words (BE does not have the German style approach of allowing any word combinaions to be compounded at will). Also, "lowercased" is an example of the AE tendency to assume it is safe that "any noun can be verbed". PML.

I am going to go through the article and reinsert the correct BE spellings. As it was written that way, it should be left in that format. Hope you dont mind. wikilove. FearÉIREANN 00:40 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

BTW, I just noticed another change. How tos is correct, how to's is incorrect. I see Eloquence has already changed it back. FearÉIREANN 00:43 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This comic may be useful to you. --Eloquence

Thanks for the heads up on the Clitoris debate. RickK 01:02 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Fighting stalin with flower-power. Nice one! :-) (PS: I reverted Paektu's vandalism of your page. Maybe you have planted the seeds (!!!) of change on his page!. wikilove, FearÉIREANN 06:23 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why religion is different from race: people strongly identify with their religion and choose it. The ideal for most non-racists is a world in which race just doesn't matter (however difficult it might be getting to that world). The ideal for almost nobody is a world where religion just doesn't matter--except those who are actually somewhat hostile to religion. They want that world. --Tb 06:34 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

From expierence with previous vandals, we've learned your line of (partly politically-motivated) attacking only encourages them to act in an inappropriate manner out of vindictiveness. In addition, if he were offended, this might encourage him to be even more aggressive in advancing his views in an inappropriate manner. I myself found the inslut "twisted" offensive, and especially your defense of your own inappropriate behavior.

Ad hominem attacks against those with unpopular views don't have a place on Wikipedia, where users are supposed to be thinking critically, not casting emotional aspersions against personalities. For one, the ad hominem distracted the focus on vandalism and made issue of his views, with which we are not concerned. And if you were interested in debating him, this site deserves a rational response backed up by complex arguments if your counter-points are going to be posted.

I know that there are no restrictions on intellectual fallacies on the talk pages; I'm just recommending that you refine your debating skills. Moreover, I'll encourage your to try to combat vandalism in a prudent manner that doesn't encourage vandalism. After all, if he feels as if he's been making personal enemies and has been persecuted for his political views, he could go to the extremes of Michael or Lir/Vera to extract retribution.

I'm well aware of the reasons why anti-revisionist Stalinists admire Stalin, and you calling Paektu "twisted" for admiring a "killer" doesn't counter a single one of them. They argue that at the very end of the 1920s a sharp struggle started over the ways of putting the peasantry on the socialist road. They argue that the concrete conditions at that time, both at home and internationally, necessitated a considerable increase in the rate of socialist construction. Most do not shy away from admitting the human toll, but argue the necessity of charting a previously unknown method of industrialization: to begin building a heavy industry at once, without reliance on external sources of finance, and without waiting years for capital to accumulate through the expansion of light industry, which was the only possible way in those conditions. They agree that his was incredibly difficult for the country and the people, but argue that it was an innovative step in which the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses was taken into account as a component of economic growth and that industrialization raised the country to a fundamentally new level in one jump.

The Stalinist line isn't mine, of course, although much of what I mentioned above has a strong basis in reality, but I counter it in a more refined way than calling neo-Stalinists "twisted". To counter some of the arguments that I summarized one could point out the rigid centralization, from which a system of administrative command and bureaucratism in Party and government evolved, contributing to the Soviet Union's later stagnation. Or you could point out that the abandoned NEP was a far more humane and realistic system. Combined with the human toll, these are my arguments.

So, in short, you should apologize for calling his views twisted or perhaps express yourself more effectively. 172

No, I am more intolerant of vandals than you are. Your attacks are only going to encourage him. Don't you think that he was trying to provoke an ideological confrontation? The issue was vandalism, not Stalinism; and your vandalism of his page with the flowers and name-calling just diverted the issue from his obnoxiousness to his ideology. If he makes a comeback, you should apologize for calling his views "twisted" and keep your focus on vandalism apolitical, direct, and effective. That's our best chance of encouraging him to go away or become a productive user.

If your concern, however, is crusading against Stalinism and not vandalism, then make effective arguments. 172