User talk:Mav/archive 14

User talk:Maveric149 Archive for July 2003

Could use a suggestion where to PUT the Newberry NVM, or you're welcome to do it of course. Dmsar 01:44 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's already in the National Monument article so why not also have it in Bend, Oregon? --mav

good idea. thanks Dmsar 01:53 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

For the correction about the page in Romanian: In Romanian "Romana" should be replaced with "Român?" for everything to be perfect. Thanks a lot one more time for all the help!

Gebeleizis

Sure. Done. --mav

Great to see someone is on the ball....I totally screwed. Posted when I had not read all the info. Now I understand........sorry about that Mav.....won't happen again. In reference to the article you deleted after providing the redirect to B family. Duh...live and learn I guess.....Awareness99

Nothing has been deleted - it is still in the history of the article. The information can be used but the exact copied wording cannot (it also needs to be stated in a neutral way). We also already have an article dealing with much of the same subject matter at Bush family conspiracy theory. I'm sure you could add a good deal of information to that article. --mav

Thanks Mav, this is really an awesome project. I totally understand where you are coming from. No more issues from me. Awareness99

I've been troubled with a problem for many months and I have not yet come to a solution. It has to do with a few hundred cities that according to the census bureau are duplicates but with different data. For instance some cities in New York are listed twice. Once it is listed as a larger "town" and secondly it is listed as a smaller "village". Now I have seen in same cases where this really does make sense. The one is a larger legal body and the other is a smaller body containing it (similar to a "township" containing a "town" of the same name). They both contain the same name and they may contain the same or different data. We're dealing with almost 2,000 articles here (duplicates, so about 900 or so unique areas). Should I create two separate articles? Just skip the different data and pick one? Some of the city requests made on the User:Rambot page are those cities which suffer from this problem. I could fulfill those requests for cities, but I don't know what data to use. -- Ram-Man

Oh vey! I'll have to put my thinking cap on for that... OK, in cases where the data are the same how about we have one article (like with San Francisco, California and [[San Francisco County, California) but when they have different data have two different articles. I guess to distinguish the two parenthetical disambiguation will have to be employed such as (town), (city) or (village). --mav

I guess we will have to leave it to the people who live in that place to make sense of it if they can. Thanks -- RM

Hi Mav, Gene Roddenberry was again modified by Trekkie1, but at least I managed to make him write in the discussion page why he deleted it. I am not sure what is right. What do we do? Thanks, Fantasy 14:35 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You seem to be handling it well and the info being removed is correct as far as I know so you, me, RK and anybody else is justifed in reverting. --mav

You seem to be getting a very hard time by the folks at Martin Luther. I'm not really involved either way, but I do have a lot of books on Luther, purely out of cultural interest. I'll have to try and get them organized, and maybe then I will join the fray. Although I do feel the page seems to entail too much aggravation for the commensurate egoboost. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 07:35 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I just changed my mind, after reading the current weaselworded edition with some attention. Come what may, I in. Not on your side, mind. But the side of truth, as always. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 16:32 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Good evening to you Mav.

I have a question. The english wikipedia has many more policies and guidelines than the french wikipedia, and many I am not really aware of :-) I think you are, right ? Re your comment to The Anome : You wrote that not respecting wikipedia policies, such as "niceness" was a bannable offense. Where can I find this policy ? Is not being nice is really a bannable offense ? What would you call not being nice ? (I don't talk about the case you know of course) User:Anthere

I was referring to Wikipedia:Wikiquette. A "bannable offense" in this regard is completely irrelevant because 142.177 has already been banned. Therefore there is much less by the way of "un-niceness" that will be tolerated from him. Example of being "un-nice": Calling for The Anome's sysop status to be revoked on the Vandalism in progress page just because The Anome was enforcing the HardBan. --mav

Is it ok to remove anything that is severely breaching the rules of "niceness" ? Which are the rules in terms of refactoring ? ant

I'm not getting your point. --mav

look again at this (the jewish aspect is not the topic I am talking about :-)) and [1] is precisely my point ant

I've noticed that many people's sigs have timestamps attached to them. How does one do that automatically (I assume there is a feature I don't know). What other hidden features are there? Is there a page for them? -- Ram-Man

Four ~ will do the magic. --mav

33K, Mav old chap. Tut, tut. Have you not done your daily archive yet (or in your case, should it be by the hour? Hee hee!) Anyway, bad noos. There seems to be some vote on the issue of the redesigned front page set up by those opposed to it. Now I love it but some people don't (one of them curiously enough dislikes photographs in articles too and dislikes talk page yellow! Do I see a pattern - no doubt in black and white in his case - emerging?). Given your role in our colourful launch (or in Yank-speech, colorful launch!) it might be worth casting your vote there, lest the regime of the BOSs (boring old sods) take power and return us to boring dullness on the front page. The vote is at Talk:Main Page/Layout design. Slán FearÉIREANN 02:11 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well I was one of the major people behind the non-color front page design that was launched on Wikipedia's last birthday. The only major different with the most current update was to add color. Before I started working on it the page looked like this which has ugly horizontal rules and no real "Selected Articles" box. But voting on this seems rather premature - shouldn't the people who object to the color try to help us design something that most of us like and the rest of us can at least live with? This rush to voting on every stupid little thing sickens me - have we forgotten how to do things the WikiWay and compromise? --mav

Hi, mav. I noticed the revision you made to Lou Donaldson. Is there a standard format for dates and birthplace? It's been perplexing me as I write my numerous jazz stubs. I put Donaldson's birthplace in the same para as the dates but in the separate sentence you wrote -- they seemed to go together but I'm ready to follow any standard format. Trontonian

Answer is on your talk page. --mav

Alright, fixed all of the links (including many where the problem was not caused by me, I'd note). I was trying to fix most of the Nebuchadnezzar links as well, but there's a ton and I'm going to bed. john 07:59 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's cool. Nice work so far. :) --mav

Thanks. It was an interesting trip, though I missed most of the major landmarks. Maybe I could get user:Ed Poor and user:The Cunctator interested in photography. Koyaanis Qatsi 22:09 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference. Another problem is bothering me. I believe a lot of the graphics of harness horses are actually copyright material -- for example, the rights to the famous picture of Greyhound seem to be owned either by the US Trotting Association or by the Hall of Fame of the Trotter. However, in the absence of any information about whether they were used with permission, is it wise to delete them? I'm leaving out of consideration the possibility of triggering another round of French king/List of Canadians battles. Trontonian

Hm. IMO all we need in this case is to mention who owns the photo. Then fair use would apply. It looks like this is where the image came from. Having a link to that page and mentioning the probable owners should be enough. If and when the real owners complain we can clarify things or remove the photo as appropriate. --mav

Thanks. Trontonian

Hi Mav. I'm sorry, since I am very new in Wikipedia, first I forgot to give references to my upload images and then after your messages I tried to cite them (most of them are from my personal archive) but couldn't. Can you tell me how I can write these next to my upload picture. Huger

No big deal - we all make mistakes. More on your talk page. --mav

an article about BAV1, a bacterium that can decompose vinyl chloride, which otherwise lasts for hundreds of years in the soil. You might know where to stick the relevant info. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 16:05 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Cool info - I'll look into it. --mav

Presuming his IP address has not changed since he logged in, we can block the Ian Curtis spammer. Shall I? I think we've shown exemplary patience. :-) Evercat 21:09 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yep. It is time. You do the honors. --mav

Done. We shall see if his IP address is dynamic. :-) Evercat 21:12 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I just saw your comment on the test wiki about dynamic dates. You probably weren't using my scripts. It's my fault, I didn't explain it properly. Anyway, this link should take you to a page that works, whereas this link takes you to a page which looks identical, but it doesn't work. -- Tim Starling 07:33 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Cool. It does appear to work now. OIC that was only installed on your version of the script. --mav

Damn you, mav, I spent the last 20 minutes updating the Pat Robertson article. ;) Didn't you read the talk page? hehe.. --Dante Alighieri 20:14 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No. I just read the article before your update and also the current events page which did not have the Robertson current event. Please also update that page. --mav

Done and done. Do you think it would be worth a mention on Anti-Arabism? Something along the lines of "Anti-Arabism is so pervasive in some American Christian cultures that even widely known and respected clergyman Pat Robertson would rather have a Baptist dictator who has been indicted by the United Nations for war crimes, than see Muslims control a country." Then again, I'm not exactly unbiased when it comes to Robertson... --Dante Alighieri 20:29 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hm. I think that may be a bit much (although probably true I'm sure Robertson would disagree). --mav

I thought about it again and... I agree with you now about adding full speaches to Wikiquote, tough I think tehy will have to be treated differently. -fonzy

Coolness! As a general rule you don't want to be too focused when making a new project. That is why the Sep11 wiki is dead (it should have been a general tribute wiki). --mav

Hey Mav,

I made some factual changes to Israel which maybe you might look over. I know that page (and related ones) tend to be babysat by RK and he seems to take offence at anything that isn't biased towards Israel and the Israeli viewpoint. The article IMO contained a few absurd gaps and more importantly one almightly POV. It stated that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Actually while Israel insists it is, most of the world says it isn't and offically describe Tel Aviv as the capital, basing their embassies and diplomats there. The US only accepted Jerusalem in 2002! So I have replaced Jerusalem with Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, with a footnote from there explaining why both are listed and why there is a dispute, in utterly neutral language.

I also added in some additional links. I have tried to be as balanced as possible and to avoid a bias either against or for Israel (the article IMO was in a number of areas biased towards Israel in a manner that if done elsewhere would lead to instant remedial action. But any remedial action tends to lead to RK going ballistic, as his long line of abused people can testify to.) So I would appreciate if you cast your intelligent eye over the page to see if I have succeeded in being as NPOV as I have sought to be. But no doubt RK will perceive some bias; he always seems to. lol. FearÉIREANN 00:49 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Already been there. IMO the capital that Israel has chosen for itself should be in the template with an asterisk by it. We can then explain the situation in more detail. --mav

I'll remind of that when on November 5th 2004 George W. Bush chooses Austen, Texas!: -) FearÉIREANN 03:16 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Mav. I know I should probably know how to do this, but I can't think of the procedure. The long article at Salomon Stoddard probably belongs at Solomon Stoddard, where there's a bit of information that could be merged into it. I could paste the stuff from Solomon onto Salomon, delete Solomon, and move Salomon -> Solomon, but the pasting would (I think) destroy the history of the stuff that's on Solomon now? Can you tell me how this >>should<< be done? -- Someone else 04:34 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Here is how I would do it: Copy all the next now in Solomon Stoddard (good title) and merge it into Salomon Stoddard (bad title). Then delte Solomon Stoddard (good title), move Salomon Stoddard (bad title) to Solomon Stoddard (good title) and then restore Solomon Stoddard (good title). --mav

OK, here goes<G>. Thanks. -- Someone else 04:41 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Gad, that restore page takes for--ev--er to load, but I think the deed is done, and done properly. Thanks for the instructions. -- Someone else 05:27 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yeah it does take forever (it loads I think nearly 15,000 entries now!). --mav

Hey, mav! Check out the review of Schaffer's book at [2]. I don't have easy access to a technical library --- would you be interested in the review of the book by Birkeland in Quaternary Research? -- hike395 00:14 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ouch! I wish I read that before I bought the damn book. Hopefully the other parts of the natural history he presents can be trusted. --mav

I dunno -- I don't have the book. It's always an issue with natural history overview books. I like the one by Allan Schoenherr. Which reminds me: I just updated Sierra Nevada (USA). If you detect too much overlap with the geology section of Yosemite National Park, give a holler and we can try and refactor. -- hike395 03:21 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nice work! I wish I had more time to spend on the geology section of Wikipedia but I'm always getting pulled away by so many other subjects. My biggest problem is I find too many damn subject areas interesting and I simply don't have enough time to do it all. Oh well. I'm sure Wikipedia will be around for decades to come (of course somebody else will have filled in a lot of the stuff I wanted to do by then!). --mav

Hi Mav, I never thought that the Battle of Magnesia article could be a copyright vio; the writing was hardly anything I would bother to copy & paste. Maybe if my tuits start being round instead of square, I'll write a proper article. -- llywrch 00:18 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Bummer that you wasted time copyediting that... I always check unformatted contribs by newbies for possible copyvio before I copyedit. --mav

Hi Mav, I see you have met the mysterious 159.134.51.48. He has been targeting a set of pages for the last hour or so. I blocked him so now he is back with a new IP. (I know how to block via the recent changes page, but if he edits already edited pages, that block doesn't appear. Is there another way? In the meantime, as he seems hellbent on 'doctoring' pages on Celia Larkin and Bertie Ahern, highlighting their ex-sexual relationship. I have temporarily blocked both pages. Now that he has returned to Eamon Delaney's page yet again I did the same there. That leaves only one of his pet four unprotected, my own, which he has tried to add things to once so far. (I can guess two others he might try before pissing off to his bed and sobering up.) Oh the fun of it all (yawn) FearÉIREANN 04:21 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Simply go to Special:Blockip and paste in the IP. Please then unprotect the pages. --mav

> Yes please do! It is hard enough to expand and > improve articles on valid scientific theories > without feeling compelled to defend things so > basic like the existence of matter.

You gave me a good chuckle, thanks. As an aside, I appreciate Descartes' work on mathematical topics, but I've long thought his philosophy was firmly grounded in idle wealth. (I find it hard to imagine waking up having not eaten for three days in a row, and saying to oneself "hm, I wonder if I exist.") Anyway. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 13:45 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

LOL. --mav

Hi,

Is what I put on the US States page incorrect? Resolution 1483 of the UN gave colonial power over Iraq to the United States. PeterK

You are going to have to give a very specific quote from that resolution. IIRC all it did was recognize that the US was an occupying power. The word "colonial" has many very negative connotations. --mav

You are correct I have made a mistake. I just read of the Resolution it did say occupying power. Do you think occupying powers should be listed? Or is there a more appropriate page to list countries which are under occupying power of the US?

A good place would be after the discussion about dependent territories (in the "States" section of United States). --mav

What do you think of this: User:Tim Starling/Skeptical solicitation? Please feel free to edit it. -- Tim Starling 07:12 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'll make sure to take a look at later. --mav

You're braver than I am. :) Those are some excellent photos. - Hephaestos 07:44 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! That damn bumble bee wouldn't leave me alone. The thing was on my thumb for nearly 10 minutes ; that's one of the weirdest things I ever saw. He must have been really low on salt or something that was in my sunscreen. Oh, and I'm allergic to bumble bee stings but I'm well aware of the fact that if you don't bother them they will probably not sting you. --mav

I don't know if this is what happened in your case, but they take just enough food to get where they're going, and if they don't find the flower soon enough, they run out of energy and sometimes you'll even see them walking on the ground, apparently in good health. I'm allergic too, but I've successfully picked one up from the ground (by letting it walk onto my hand, not by squeezing it between my fingers :-) and walked it to a nearby flower without getting stung. Koyaanis Qatsi 08:10 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That may have been what happened because there were no flowers around when he first landed but he left as soon as I came upon some flower beds. --mav

Hello Mav, you removed the work in progress line I had put above my little article so I gather that it is not appropriate to use this. I read it somewhere in the wikipedia docs. Can you clarify?

with regards,

/\
Vincent
Zenzee 09:20 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Everything here is a work in progress and meta-like comments like that are very often removed. --mav

Ok thanks, I'll remember that for future articles (:-)) -- Zenzee

Hi Mav, I've made a suggestion for a system as to how the bottleneck on the Votes for Deletion page might be cleared on its talk page. See what you think. FearÉIREANN 01:04 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I say go for it. --mav

Thank you, sir, for welcoming me to your community. All is well. I hope to stay. And thanks again. Rednblu 03:32 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Not a problem - don't forget to have fun! :-) --mav

I know I shouldn't have done this, but I couldn't help myself. MB

Cute. Your version was much better. ;) --mav

Just to clarify about Wikiquote and public domain bits and bobs, only speeches will be included. But documents like constitutuions or whole books would nto be included. They should be on sourceberg.wikipedia.org, (when brion sets it up) but Wikiquote would like the documents on sourceberg. -fonzy

OK. --mav

Dear Mav; Hey! Sorry for messing the anniversary thin with Linda Ronsdtant however you write her last name..lol after you removed it, me, not knowing about the 100 year rule, put it back again! I apologize and let you know I just read about the 100 year anniversary protocol a few seconds ago.

Another thing, I need to know how to archive my talk page.

Thanks and God bless

Sincerley yours,

Antonio Samantha Jones Martin

It's alright. :) --mav

Hi Mav,

I´ve written an article on Apnea that I feel needs some editing and polishing. I think it might go to the new articles section on the main page, but I don't want to put it there myself. Would you mind taking a look and putting it there if you feel it's worthy of such a honour?

Thanks and best wishes, Kosebamse 18:00 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nice article! Done. --mav

Thanks! Kosebamse 19:39 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I am not sure how to use the message feature, so I wound up doing a page edit here. Just wanted to say sorry for my original goofiness yesterday. I found a new toy, I played, and now I will leave it alone. {G}I will behave now. :) Ayla

Hey - no big deal. :) --mav

Oops... "They should be on sourceberg.wikipedia.org, (when brion sets it up) but Wikiquote would like the documents on sourceberg." thats should be link not "like" :-). -fonzy

OK. --mav

Thank you for welcoming me to Wiki. Thanks for the links they were very informative. ~AndrewHarris

Not a problem! :) Type three ~ and see what happens when you save. Then try four ~. --mav

Heh, I only finished Indo-Pacific half an hour ago, and I only wrote it to sort out the confusion caused by yesterday's near simultaneous creation of White Dolphin by Heaphastus(sp?) and Chinese White Dolphin by a Chinese contributor.

My Dorling Kindersley book (hardly a scientific text or expert guide) capitalises dolphins, so does the online source I used for the dolphin list.

(I wrote several more sentences, deleted them all in the spirit of goodwill!)

jimfbleak 06:14 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm still warming to the idea of capitalizing species but need to see more evidence. No hurry, I'm not going to go on any moving frenzy (but I may get a bit pissy when down-style redirects are not provided), but do keep your eyes open. --mav

To me, capitalisation avoids ambiguities like "female red crossbills are green" and "common dolphins are rare in ...". If I come across species' articles without redirects I put them in, and make sure that new regular contributors, like User:Big iron are aware too. Indopacific is a bit of a nightmare anyway in terms of alternative names, hyphenation etc. I suspect that most dolphin contributors (they're not all Tannin and me) are using the DK book anyway, although the Chinese contributor may be using another source. Jim

I suggested another name for the wikitextbook on the main page of talk. -fonzy

Mav, are you really "still waiting" for evidence? I have no idea why. There is ample evidence around. Aside from the substantial amount that I and other have provided long since (which has been conveniently swept under the carpet and forgotten about, it seems) let me add a few more (not that this should be needed - the case has been made by me and by others long since). The Mammal Society of New South Wales (which is the senior Australian state mammal society, just as the umbrella body Birds Australia is headquartered in Victoria) explicitly mandates captialisation. All three of my mammal field guides use it. (Yes, I bought another one last week - can't help myself.) The Australian Mammal Society uses it. Even in that strange and illogical heartland of spurious decapitalisation, the United States, we see that no less an authority than the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History capitalises mammal species names. No need to wait, Mav, the evidence is there for anyone who cares to look for it, and the rationality of using normal capitalisation to set aside species names from other describing text, so as to provide clarity and avoid ambiguity has (despite many attempts) never yet been challenged. No-one has yet provided a way (other than by standard capitalisation) to avoid the ambiguity problem. So, please, just give it a rest, heh? Things are going along well right now, there is no need to stir up old troubles. Tannin

Have no idea why? Up to now the best cite you had was the Mammal Society of New South Wales which is hardly anything conclusive. And you never did dig yourself out of the massive heap of cites for the downstyle. The rationality has always been to follow existing standards -- the greatest number of cites thus far favor the downstyle as the standard (proving that if anything is spurious then it is the capitalization). I do find the Smithsonian cite to be very interesting, however. Is that the only internationally-recognized and respected institution that favors capitalization? I wouldn't want us to be accused of following an American standard or anything. ;-) --mav

Hoolie Doolie! You have a seriously selective memory. But you are quite right. The entire nation of Australia doesn't have a respected mammologist or institute of mammal study anywhere, does it. All those state museums and the mammal societies and the universities and the professors on exchange with Harvard - sorry - I must have dreamed them. All that evidence I brought up in the first place all those months ago - obviously, I dreamed that up too. I'm so sorry for breathing. (The above is the most astonishingly arrogant bullshit I've come across in quite a while. What is it with you Americans?) Tannin

To compare a state level entity with the Smithsonian Institution is hubris. Even though the state I live in (California) has a larger population than the entire nation of Australia I wouldn't dream of pretending that what the California State University (or even the University of California) has to any really significant say in and of themselves. But I guess arrogance comes with the territory when a good quarter to third of the states in your nation are in many ways more important to the world economy than most other nations. Vicki Rosenzweig (a professional copyeditor) had this to say. And Ec's refutation of the capitalization argument but acceptance that birds may be capitalized. Here is another post from Ec [3] talking about why field guides often capitalize species common names. Again, I do find the concept of using capitalization as a means to be more explicit but I cannot in good conscience support such a thing when it is not already commonly practiced in publications similar to encyclopedias (or their primary sources). The Smithsonian cite does very much help your case - all I want is a similar cite from a similarly respected institution (Oxford would be an example) and that will further help your cause. --mav

I also have to agree with Tannin. To dismiss the senior organisation for mammals in Australia is very arrogant. Australia is one of the major places in the world where English is spoken as a first language. It is therefore one of the places that we should look to for guidance on technical uses of English, along with the US, UK, New Zealand, Canada and Eire. I don't know what the equivalent organisation would be in the UK, but personally speaking, I would support the capitalisation of species names from a strictly grammatical point view. They are proper names, and should thus always be capitalised. David Newton 15:27 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, the Globe and Mail Style Book, and the Style Manual for Biological Journals the down-style is the way to go. But what do they know. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that no other encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks, or other general reference works that I have seen use the upstyle. But I guess all those publications are also wrong.--mav

Well, the fact that those say otherwise does make something of a difference. However, out of those sources, I would trust the biological journals one more, since it is far more connected with the field concerned. I have heard of the Chicago Manual of Style before, but I am not sure exactly how important it is. The Globe and Mail Style Book is something that I have never heard of. How important is that publication? David Newton 12:43 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Howdy woody doody, but I agree with Tannin. Pizza Puzzle

All I want is a respectable body of international institutions to point at and say "look they capitalize, so we should too." So far the best cite has been the Smithsonian with possibly the NSW cite to back it up further. If we do not have such a list then the already mentioned majority usage of the downstyle wins. --mav

Could you look over the current revision of creationism, and address the "further arguments" in the last section? --Eloquence 09:17 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it later. --mav

"Nice work on Jefferson Davis! The previous state of that article has bothered me since I first joined Wikipedia over a year an a half ago. --mav"

Thanks. But aren't you supposed to do that, being on the Fire Department and all? P.S: Could I get your feedback in the =Trivia= thing on talk:? -Smack

Oh oh! 31K. Danger time. Time for that 12 hourly archive:-) I've put forward some other ideas about how to make the VFD page more user-friendly and more decisive. They are on the Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion. I'd welcome your observations. lol FearÉIREANN 00:35 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

About grouping events on Year pages --

Mav, what I did at 1945 was more or less an experiment, to see how it worked out. (And because I try to focus on the years before 1000, where there aren't as many entries, I wasn't about to start making similar changes to year pages until I had some feedback.)

The reason I'm saying this is not because I was offended (although your message came over as a bit curt for some reason), but that after I saw your message, I looked in the usual locations for a discussion on the format of year pages -- & found nothing discussing using subheadings under dates as I had odne at 1945. (I probably would have not seen it until after committing my no-no, but it would be useful if this was stated somewhere, because I suspect I won't be the only one to try to create lists under the days of a given year.) -- llywrch 18:09 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

See Talk:Historical anniversaries/Example. Other than that the only documention I have is the edit histories of all the day and year pages I've been working on since December. --mav

Mav you know my suggested name Wikiscrinium/Wikscrinium (Wikibookcase) for textbook wiki. Then u said not the right thing, we could use it for sourceberg, as it will have full e-texts of public domain books an other documents (which you may find it the draw of a bookcase), what do you think? -fonzy

We should probably stay away from Latin - only geeks like us will get it and most people will have a very hard time remembering (or even pronouncing!) the names. Back to the chalk board... Wikibookcase.org might work for Sourceburg (or even wikibook). --mav

What i am trying to do is get rid of teh domination of the english names for Wiki-"name" dictionary is not very international, quote is not very international. etc. -fonzy

English is the de-facto lingua franca of the Internet, business commerce and the sciences. It is also the second language of over half the nations on earth. Latin is spoken only in churches and in classrooms. --mav

IMHO "no lists" is too simple a criterion for the new article selection. Instead, I suggest using the "degrees of separation from brilliant prose" standard. Some work went into List of famous duels, so it would have been OK as a new article (although your current selection is better). But typical lists often consist of unformatted, unspecified stuff without even a decent intro, so in most cases, they should not be, uh, listed. --Eloquence

Fair enough. --mav

On another note, one disadvantage of the new layout is that we have even less space for the selected articles .. --Eloquence 06:26 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Not really. We lost half a word to a word each on the "In the news and "New articles" section but gained a bit of space for the Anniversaries. But the negative is overshadowed by the fact that the whole selected articles area is now easier to read. --mav

Who cares about anniversaries? I want more new articles! ;-) Unless someone else does it, I'll probably try to come up with a design that uses the best elements of the current one and of Martin's design, which gives more space to the dynamic stuff (IMHO a good idea, especially when the category feature goes live, where we can just link to the first 10 top categories and be done with it). --Eloquence 06:39 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Anybody who cares about history. And updating our older articles is a good thing too, no? Do present your design on a temp page and I'll look it over (but I really did not like Martin's design - way too much space devoted to a huge selected articles area that did not have as many links as our current compact design). I doubt any one of the new contestants will get a majority vote so they won't see the light of day. It's always good to experiment and play though. --mav

With average voting, the design with the highest rating will win -- that may be the current design, of course. The advantage of Martin's design was that it actually explained the content of the featured articles. Learning about history is nice and good, but if you don't know about the anniversaries listed, they are just links that give you little incentive to follow them. For example, as someone only remotely familiar with US civil war history, the term reconstruction does not trigger any memories for me.

Now, you may say that people are supposed to just explore the things they don't know, but that's not how the human brain works -- people will click on links when they have an idea what the links are about, or when they need the links to explain the context in which they stand. Isolated links about separate subjects thrown into a list don't mean much -- they need to be connected to memories, thoughts, emotions to be interesting. Yes, that applies to the "new articles" section as well. You said earlier that you should read Wikipedia more -- the question is, why don't you? Having links with context not only invites visitors to read more, it also encourages our regular authors to do so, as they need to summarize existing articles for the Main Page. In that case, I do prefer quality over quantity.

As for giving attention to our old articles, please do also check out Special:Ancientpages. There are quite a few pages there that could really use some editing. --Eloquence 06:58 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

But the Main Page is not an article - it is an index. When was the last time you saw a verbose index? There is a great deal for us to cover in each section of the Selected Articles so many links are preferable to a single sentence about one thing. Why, BTW, would maintain such a thing? Picking 4 or 5 things in each area is hard enough but 1 or 2? Simple links are best and I do very often explore naked links - it is very easy to find out the content from within the article - all one has to do is do a find on the current month's name. Big deal. I am getting more and more opposed to Martin's idea with each passing moment. --mav

Um, who gave you the idea that the Main Page is an index? This is an index. The Main Page is an entry point that should provide the most important links and interesting descriptions. Who would maintain such a thing? Who wrote more than 140,000 articles? Wikipedia is a collaborative experience, and if we can't create a better Main Page with the current protected page scheme, we need to change the way protected pages are handled (this has already been discussed and would not be hard to do). I do appreciate all your work on the MP, but I feel that you have developed something of a sense of ownership of it, which is fine within our current scheme, but not very scalable. Take a look at the "Main Pages" of Encarta and Britannica -- they're both closer to Martin's scheme than to ours. --Eloquence 07:13 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've always hated those pages because there are far too many no-linking words. So in order to find what I want I have to swim through a whole bunch of prose I may not be interested in. And Allpages is just a machine-generated index - that doesn't negate the fact that the current Main Page (at least) is a listing of topics in a particular organization. In my world that is an index. --mav

Because Wikipedia is so highly cross-linked, every page is partially an index to other pages. In fact, using "Related changes" you can even treat each page as an index for the RC function. So whether a page is an index or not is a matter of degree. Currently the Main Page is very index-like. Martin's design is very unindex-like, which makes it harder to find certain pages, but can make those links which are there more appealing. I think we need to find the right balance. --Eloquence 07:25 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

With nearly 150,000 articles that balance will favor more links (aka access) rather than content at the top-most levels. --mav

That "aka access" is a highly problematic notion. Links do not equal access if people have no incentive to visit them. Doubling the number of links when we reach 300,000 articles will not give people more "access". The question of accessibility is, in fact, almost completely independent from our number of articles. I think what you mean is structure.

Oh, and one more thing: One of the worst things to do in design is to extrapolate from yourself. Your own preferences may be vastly different from the preferences of the majority of users. You are the most active editor of the MP -- thus, for you it is very important to be able to quickly locate and update links. But the average viewer of the MP may have entirely different expectations from it. --Eloquence 07:33 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I didn't suggest that we should double the links on the Main Page when we hit 300,000. I did speak against the reduction in the number of current links. IMO they are sufficient to provide access to the great majority of our content and our processes (not to mention good coverage of topics of current interest). But I await your proposed new solution in the form of a mock-up - we can then return to this debate. Oh and I'll yell and scream if the vote this time isn't approval voting or is set up badly. --mav

As I said, links do not equal access. Because if they did, we just would have to add more of them. I'm not particularly fond of approval voting; how about the method used for m:Article count reform? Most people seemed to be happy with that (except for me, because it's a bitch to count). --Eloquence

I have no problem with links and explore them often but I'm an inquisitive geek... Can we agree to disagree then on the access issue? I still don't understand the article count vote so I can't say if I like that system better. Automation may help in the counting (an optional voting module turned on for meta would be nice...) Of course we have to evaluate a bunch of different voting systems first - direct/simple vote seems to be least popular for anything controversial (which is just about everything around here). What is needed is a voting system that minimizes both the tyranny of the majority and minority with a tendency to favor the status quo. It's late and I'm babbling - I need to go to bed. --mav

Dear Mav: I apologize for the main page mess. I guess Im speechless after that (about that subject) cause I might be a good writer but a writer critic, definitely Im not..LOL!!!! (and I mean critic in a good way, Im not saying you 'critizize' others or anything, matter of factly youre one of the most respectful people Ive met here)....

Thank you for saying my articles are great. So are yours. I didnt know mine were so good to tell you the truth.

Once again, thank you, and God bless you!!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Pour the wine there Martin

It is always a real pleasure working with you Antonio - you are just so darn nice. :-) --mav

Hi I am looking for a program to load a mass of articles (batch load) to Wiki.
I try to add new articles to the newly born Hebrew Wikipedia.
Can U pl. give me some directions? -- Dod1
BTW I also sent this message to Egil.

You would need a bot to do it, but bots are contraversial. -fonzy

Can U B more specific (I don't under. what bot is). -- Dod1 11:46 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dod1; I would suggest to ask your question on Wikipedia:Village pump or (even better) on the Wikipedia mailing list. -- Cordyph 11:59 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Scientific classification: Could you expand a bit more on the talk page of that article why do we need both it and linnaean taxonomy? Ad verecundiam I'd tend to belive you, given your bs in bs, but I'd like more info (as do some more people there still discussing the matter). --One that is supposed to be gone, but is too much of a wikipediholic to do it

I didn't say that - I said that if there is to be a merger then everything from linnaean taxonomy should be put into Scientific classification. But if linnaean taxonomy is to still be an article then it should concentrate on Linnaeus' actual proposal and not all the modern stuff. --mav

Why are you insinuating that I am paranoid. You must have ulterior motives :) Seriously, I am NOT paranoid generally speaking. It is just in certain stages of hangover that the shadow of my bookcase turns into my mother watching over my bed, and the dirty laundry on the chair is a hobgoblin. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 14:26 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to rewrite the Great Depression article completely, but shouldn't get distracted from completing my other massive projects, such as the history of the United States series.

Right now, this is the least NPOV article of which I'm aware. One rightwing user single-handedly hijacked this article, determined to stifle any Keynesian analysis. Granted the previous version was in bad shape, but the current version belongs on the talk page until it can be balanced. Until then, the old article should be posted.

Even monetarist economists acknowledge that many factors were involved; this user was just determined to only elaborate on the points that monetarists emphasize the most. Other issues were the lack of diversification of the US economy, a maldistribution of purchasing power, the credit structure of the economy, and America's position in international trade. Many non-monetarist economists would emphasize these four points, and rebut much of the arguments in the current version.

Your insistence that the article stay sets a bad precedent too. One user cannot be allowed to post a one-sided tract just because several users decided to edit for spelling or style.

172

Reverting all the work of others is a far worse sin. Most of the junk you speak of could have been taken out of the current version without reverting. --mav

Thank you for your support. (Now I need to write an article on Bartles & Jaymes.) *smirk* - Hephaestos 02:20 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

LOL. I thought is was Blue Diamond that said that? Both businesses are located in my part of California though. --mav

Thanks for the 411 (information) about editing the main page Smith03

No problem - the current layout of the Main Page is rather fragile... --mav

Go ahead. Restore the ancient History of the United States article. But it should follow the format of the History of Germany series, with broad introductions linked to the main articles. That's where I got the idea for the history of the United States series. And you know what? Before you rudely dismissed my work on that series on the free-for-all 172 lynch mob New Imperialism talk page, I was planning to do exactly what you proposed: restoring the old history of the United States page, but in a way that would allow it to work with the rest of the articles in the series, like the History of Germany page. I'd welcome that. A little help on the main page will enable me to finish 1918-45, 1945-64, 1964-present at a much faster rate. 172

Great minds think alike then! I very much like how History of Germany is organized. I'll see about doing exactly what you suggest this weekend. Sorry for being rude - that was uncalled for. :-( --mav

I'm sorry too. I got a little testy on the New Imperialism talk page as well. But thanks for the message! Having some help with US history is the best news that I've heard in a long time on this site! 172

I like summaries. :) I'm the person who wrote the intro to the United States article - it is very difficult to capture the essence of a topic (which is all you possibly could have in the intro of such an important subject!). --mav

We have stumbled upon an excellent idea during this battle/pax. I'm going to start working on a summary for the main US history page right away based on the old article. Before posting it, however, I'll let you go through it on a talk page. Let's see where this goes. 172

Go ahead and post it on the main page - I'll take a look at it there. --mav

Hi Mav, Nice modification of the wikipede for a logo. Might it raise fears of plagierism? Maybe have two or three books open to emphasise the research is decoupled from the writing. Later --user:mirwin

Plagiarism? How so? It's just an idea for mascot. Anyway it wasn't me who made the modification you talk about - I just proposed that a wikipede be used instead of an ant. --mav

While far from finished with the summaries, I've revived the November 2002 US history article and have established the structure for the main, summarized page. I'd like to know what you think. 172

W007, the more the merrier they say. I hope the Geologic Timescale WikiProject can make the epoch navigation a breeze!

P.S. Changing it in favor of the right aligned bar was a good move, thanks for nudging me that way! Otherwise, I'd have done a History of Japan style navigation. Emperorbma

Thank you, and no problem. I think it will be neat too - take a look a the nav work I've been helping with at the Periodic table. Start with Lithium move across and/or down. --mav

Is support for .doc still shoddy in linux, or has that been taken care of by now? :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 23:04 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It works in Open Office fine - still buggy in KWord. --mav

Changing subject: I take it that the citebot hasn't gone through yet. Is that still planned? Last I heard, someone had taken offense at the proposed wording and it stalled. It should be cited, if only to debunk various jerks who want to claim private ownership of public information. Koyaanis Qatsi

I think it still is planned - just hasn't been implemented yet. The simplified wording now in Politics of India would probably be better. --mav

Yes. But that would require going through and trying to list out what came from where, which I've done only incompletely. Maybe it can be reconstructed. Koyaanis Qatsi

User:wshun asked me to make a temp page linked from New Imperialism but I just can't seem to get the disclaimer good enough for User:172s purposes; perhaps you can offer some advice? Pizza Puzzle

Why do you want to fork the article? --mav

User:wshun suggested that I do this. I tried to add some links to the New Imperialism article and 172 swore at me and protected it. He got extremely upset at suggestions that the page be overhauled (see Talk:New Imperialism) and so wshun suggested that somebody create a forked page and edit that since 172 wont let any of us touch his page. Pizza Puzzle

Mav --- I'm not sure what to do about this, but Uranus (planet) has been vandalized (completely deleted by a non-registered user). -- hike395 16:32 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Never mind, User:Notheruser fixed it. Thanks! -- hike395

I am writing to express my anger at your threat to nullify changes I make to daily history pages. How dare you!

You claim that my entries are usually wrong or unverifiable. Has it occurred to you to discuss them with me? Can you list them for discussion? I think that you should.

I wonder, for example, whether it was you that changed "Seven Years' War" to "French and Indian War" in one of this month's pages. If it was then kindly read the two articles for these subjects where you will find, I think, that the latter term is used by Americans. I deliberately chose the former term because the main combatants at Fortress Louisbourg were Europeans.

Finally, you have no right AFAIK to destroy the work of others.

BillBell

I have every right to delete material that cannot be verified in order to preserve the accuracy of Wikipedia. The only point you make that is valid is the Seven Years' War thing - I should have known that.

That's the only valid point I made because it's the only point I mentioned. If you were routinely dropping my entries, and with my knowledge of mechanisms available in the 'pedia, I had no idea what items had been changed. I think you're an American, so I picked the point of disagreement that seemed most likely.

I'm also sorry for being terse - it is my nature. In retrospect I should have brought up the issues as they happened instead of simply doing clean-up and getting frustrated. For that I am sorry.

Actually, no worries. What I was most exercised about was being told that you were going to nullify entries (imperfect or not) in perpetuity. Although I would agree that each of us should endeavour to make this thing as correct as possible, I challenge your right to discard stuff that is largely correct--and that might fill a gap in the document. More than that, I question whether the process in which we are participating will converge unless the means applied for improving accuracy are more subtle than deletion. And, yes, I know about Emile Borel's theorem.

If 20-30% of the information is inncorrect it doesn't matter how good the other 70-80% of the information is since nobody will trust any of it. Quality always comes before quantity. --mav

But, for example you stated that on July 25, 1969 that English and French declared the official languages of Canada. This is wrong per my research which states it happened on July 7 of that year. Other than that there were several entries that I could not confirm via a several minute search on each subject - and I'm really good at finding and confirming facts. So those were removed.

I no longer know exactly what I stated--because you deleted it. What I should have written is that the Act was _amended_ on the date that I gave. Source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Jul&day=25

It wasn't _proclaimed_ until sometime later, September according to one or two sources.

Incidentally, that source is _not_ entirely accurate; however, in my considerable experience with it the errors are usually enormous (eg, a claim that Queen Elizabeth II's coronation took place in 1853) which makes most of them easy to identify. The date you gave seems to be from the 'pedia itself. How would you know it to be accurate? I've looked all over for information with which to prove you wrong. The main thing I've noticed is just how imaginative people are in their reporting of events. (So I don't know how you can be so confident of your date.)

No - The date was from elsewhere. I confirmed it with a Google search and looking at a great many different websites. I then updated Wikipedia with that info. You should not assume that all the errors are major ones in your source - that doesn't seem logical at all. And a mere amendment to the act, even if it did happen on that day, is probably not important enough for listing on a general day page (it would make sense on a Canada timeline page though). --mav

I don't know what you are using as a source but please make sure the information you input into Wikipedia is accurate - I got stung by this bug too about 6 months ago when I found out that the source I was using for the day pages has about 1/3 incorrect or outright false information. I still use that source but I check each and every fact. I suggest you do the same. ---mav

That wouldn't be Bernard Grun's The Timetables of History by any chance, would it? I've found the music section, at least, is pretty slipshod. - Hephaestos 21:42 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ugh! I've used that on occasion and had assumed it to be accurate. I'll make sure to check those "facts" as well. All these damn timeline references seem to have major problems with getting their facts straight! I'll be damned if Wikipedia's day and year pages become so inaccurate. --mav

OK, I sorted out the problems with Butte, Montana. You can now put your "orphan" Butte photos there. -- RTC 23:48 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Coolness! I'll get right on it. --mav

I stated to User:Ryenwah: Move your comments about the Patriot Act to Patriot Act; they are currently at George W. Bush. If you don't move them, you risk having someone delete them. Because of the computerized nature of this project, we are able to write things very concisely and link interested parties to more detailed text. The page is already getting too long, we try not to exceed 32k per page for technical reasons

I would appreciate it if you would state something similar to New Imperialism author User:172; either that, or explain to me why my temp page is so "incoherent" as 172 claims. Pizza Puzzle

I've already done so - we both agreed that the style used in History of Germany is what we should strive for. --mav

A "high-speed rail" page (with a hyphen) already existed, so the "high speed rail" page (with no hyphen) could not be moved there. Perhaps some technical improvements in Wikipedia are needed for such circumstances? 131.183.84.166 02:31 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That bug was fixed months ago - please see your talk page. --mav

From Main Page edit summary:

fixing format; please make sure you don't break things when you add items

What was wrong with having 'Hussein' postpended to the names of Messr.s Hussein? I did 'make sure' - there was loads of blank room left in Mozilla and Opera. Or is this something specific to other peoples' environments? James F. 04:30 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Your edit didn't break the format of the page. Another person added another recent death bio and instead of removing an entry I shortened the bros bios. --mav

Oh, right, sorry.

James F. 03:01 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. The best thing is, Doug did half the work himself, by creating Tutorial introduction to the RST. Hopefully he won't make too much fuss when he sees what I've just done. -- Tim Starling 07:02 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comments and copyediting on the geyser page, --Evan Hunt 1714 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi, could you merge the edit histories of Deus ex Machina and deus ex machina? Thanks. (also, your page is 31kb). Koyaanis Qatsi

Did that do it? I'll archive in a bit... --mav

I should have written this earlier - Already merged it myself, just to see how it works... Oh well... כסיף Cyp 21:58 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I hope I didn't break anything... --mav

Don't think so, looks the same as before, apart from the history now showing me vandalising the article, by replacing it with a redirect, and you reverting it... כסיף Cyp 22:04 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oh wow, that wasn't my intention. It's just that I'm not a sysop so I can't delete and undelete articles, so I had to ask someone else to merge them. Koyaanis Qatsi 22:55 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No problem, by the way, just commented, because I thought it looked a bit funny. Now I know why some articles have strange edit histories... כסיף Cyp 23:00 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

don't know why I am typing this in on your page but it looks nice! :-) Mav, I didn't know there was a temp page for Catholicism. MB transferred something worked on there to the main page on child sex abuse. While it was NPOV it did have rather glaring gaps (eg,. that the Vatican recently vetoed the US bishops' plan on how to deal with paedophiles, etc) and the language was a bit woolly and didn't flow well. (MB also erased a good paragraph in his move over). I've done a rewrite. I'd be interested to know what you think. FearÉIREANN 02:15 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"like so much toilet paper," mav? that's a little harsh, innit? Koyaanis Qatsi 07:29 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps - But I didn't think so at the time. I'll contemplate that while I do an archive. --mav

Yep - you are right - I fixed it. --mav

It's the kinder, gentler mav! :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 07:50 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How many months do you think it will take for 172 to get around to redoing New Imperialism? Pizza Puzzle

How many days do you think it will take for us to get around to banning Lir/Vera Cruz/Susan Mason/Dietary Fiber/Pizza Puzzle? 172

Mav, there is a potentially serious problem arising with a new user called User:Hlavac. He had been waging a minor edit war on two pages, Divine right of kings and Royal Prerogative. Both are very time and place-specific terms (the former a term used by European Christian monarchies in the Middle Ages, the latter a term used for a collection of powers possessed by monarchs in common law jurisdictions, ie UK and the Commonwealth). He however wants to turn them into broad discussions on different topics that have only marginal parallels; claims of divinity of Eastern emperors, powers of monarchs and dictators. It is like turning the page on President of the United States into a page on presidents or a page on the US into a page on the Americas. Now he has gone one step further. He moved the RP page to a new name he made up, European Royal Prerogatives and put his own text about head of state's powers on the Royal Prerogative page. I tried to remove his text and move the page back to its page but as sometimes happened the move was not allowed (it saying 'a page already exists'. So I had to delete RP and the RP page to clear the space to move ERP back to RP, where all its links were. As European Royal Prerogative is a non-existent term (RP only exists in the UK, not Europe, because no country in Europe but the UK - and Ireland, but we have not had a monarchy since 1 April 1949 that has no likelihood of ever being used as a google search or by any user, I deleted it.

I know it is not the normal way to handle this but other than Michael renaming some user pages I have never come across a case of someone moving a page to a made-up name so that he can colonise the original page. Given that all the links were at RP, everyone was working on RP (and wouldn't have known about the ERP page) and ERP was a completely ficticious name, I thought the correct thing to do was put the communal page worked on back at the page everything linked to. I left a sharp note on Mlavac's page about his behaviour.

Maybe you could try to have a word with him. The amazing thing is he admits he doesn't know much about the topics. He keeps saying simply that everything is missing the "big picture" and is being euro-centric. Given that the topics are by definition about a European concept of the divine right to rule of monarchs based on the bible, and a term Royal Prerogative that is used 100% to refer to Britain (and the commonwealth) of course the pages are eurocentric, just as the page on US presidents is americocentric, the page on the British queen is anglocentric or the page in the Irish prime minister is hibernocentric. Unless he stops this a very nasty edit war will be the result, with everyone against him; Roadrunner is constantly having to revert his bizarre doctorings to DRoK. FearÉIREANN 20:10 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I made a go at 1 of the 3 disputed articles you are working on. Right now I need to work on History of the United States (I promised 172). --mav

Thanks, Mav. I don't know if the guy knew how to start his own pages so I created two blank articles on the broader topics and left them on his talk page with a note telling him how to link them to other articles. That might difuse things though the messages he left on various talk pages of people don't inspire much confidence. FearÉIREANN 22:27 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hrm. Did I just misunderstand something, or did you remove some stuff off the date-page besides just adding? Did you remove the international language links? Or is my browser just playing up? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 06:47 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You didn't scroll done enough - per the new convention I moved the links to the bottom. --mav

Grr. I hate to be in the wrong. Well, <weasel>at least I was awake.</weasel> Aargh. Brain, engage before fingers! -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 06:56 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"Brain, engage before fingers" - there is some advice I should take! :) --mav

Hi Mav,

once again, I'like to ask you to look at an article I've written. It's here. It needs some review (and certainly less medicalese) and I think it might qualify for the new articles section on the main page. So if you can spare the time, would you mind taking a look and putting it there if you think it's worthy of that honour? I'll also ask some of the (alas, too few) medicine people on Wikipedia to read it, BTW.

Cordially, Kosebamse 12:38 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nice article - added. --mav

Thanks! Kosebamse 15:38 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've done a bit of a rewrite of the opening of the Catholicism page. The opening paragraphs were almost incomprehensible, not to mention monumentally wrong, and some new user came along and made them worse by far. It is hard anyone could do an article on Catholicism and not mention things like Apostolic Succession, the Vatican, etc. It is a bit like doing a history of the USSR and forgetting Stalin. Have a look at the rewrite and see what you think. I think it reads far far better and is far more accurate. FearÉIREANN 00:36 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Great job! It was a bit boring the last time I read it (admittedly several months ago). Your changes make it far more engaging and interesting - getting to the point. I like it a lot. --mav 00:41 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hello, fairly new user here, one of the -- as of yet -- few contributors to the Hungarian Wikipedia. I'd like to thank you for the nice images of the Periodic table, which I -- after having also read the talk page on User:Hashar -- have taken in use on the hu:Wiki, linking to your userpage here, like “Made by User:Maveric149” or something like that in Hungarian. I hope that's proper...

By the way, shouldn't there be a compact version of the periodic table, if not for anything else than historic reasons? It's similar to Mendeleev's (I recall he did it vertically, the one I know is horizontal and was in use for a good while, at least in Hungary -- I'd guess it was also in use in other areas of Earth.), it has one A, then one B group, then one A again etc. Maybe if I have enough time/brainpower for it and I find one in a book, I'll make a HTML version.

-- Ralesk 01:02 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! Yes, a link as you say is more than enough to credit me. Another way to view the periodict table would be nice - we already have several listed at Periodic table including a vertical version (see Periodic table/Alternate Table). --mav

Noticed them before, this is why I was missing the compact one. I'll look into it. -- Ralesk

It's me again, this time with something else. My dad has brought an interesting grasshopper home -- he had found it in his trousers at work. Now seeing as how you have a big interest in biology, and I don't know anyone else, I'd like to ask you for your help in the identification of said insect.

It has an elongated head, the antennæ and the eyes are both located up in the “tower” while the rest of the animal looks like any other big green gh or locust :P It's about 6 cm long from head to tail, legs and antennæ not counted.

I'll put links to the [crappy webcam] photos in my User page, I'd be happy if anyone with some knowledge about Orthoptera could help identify the little beast. Thanks -- Ralesk 12:36, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

On protecting the new imperialsim page: Make it so! -- Cimon Avaro

But please make sure that Martin doesn't get away with making huge revisions unilaterally. We all agreed to divide it (and I think that you were one of the first to accept this idea) and create a series. But this doesn't mean that Martin has the right to hack away at whatever he doesn't want without discussing his intentions beforehand. 172 12:38, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The record shows that I did discuss my intentions beforehand, though I could have spent more time doing so, I guess. Martin 23:19, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'll revert it to a version that existed before the edit war. It can be changed back in a day or two after things settle down and some type of agreement is reached on the talk page. --mav

Fine, that's the version posted right now. 172 12:42, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You said that you protected it a few minutes ago, but it's not protected. Thanks in advance when you get to it. 172 12:49, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It took a while to find a version before the current string of edit wars. --mav

Mav, there is no need to protect New Imperialism! PP is not going to insert his link again because we are voting on whether or not to include it. Protecting it will only stop normal eiditing. The situation is under control. CGS 12:52, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC).

PP is not a part of this edit war - Martin and 172 are. --mav

Two edit wars on one page... sheesh! CGS 12:58, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Yep, 'fraid so. And I was doing so well... Martin 23:19, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Didn't Martin already state in an edit summary that he wouldn't revert again, anyway? And on talk: "I'll give way if 172 reverts it again. Martin 12:14, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)" כסיף Cyp 13:01, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

(Instead of getting an "Edit conflict", my post just disappeared. 2nd and 3rd post attempt: edit conflict)

Mav, don't you think that your restoration of a version that's about half a month old is a little drastic? Several users have made some marvelous contributions since then that have not been challenged by anyone. The current edit war only involved my opposition to Martin removing the theories of imperialism section. It was a Martin vs. 172 edit war, nothing more. Please revert to a more recent version. I'm sure that even Martin would agree that you should revert to a more recent version. 172 13:00, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

As I said, when you work things out on the talk page then all those edits made by everyone else are still in the edit history - they are not lost and are easily recovered. I was tempted to go back all the way to the pre-edit war January version. --mav

removed text

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Can you describe what exactly you did when you ended up with removed text?—Eloquence 14:23, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Just did Wikipedia talk:Software updates#Bug with new edit links? --mav

May I have permission to clarify some sentences in the main article of New Imperialism and add some brief points? These changes should offend nobody, as they would not removed large portions or rewrite large potions. 172 16:11, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If others can't edit it isn't fair that you can. --mav

I am asking you to unprotect New Imperialism. So far as I can see the contributor with the greatest tendency to revert is absent from the site for some time, while others are prevented from editing what remains a profoundly unsatisfactory article. I am amazed that the article should be thus closed to someone (myself) who has made repeated constructive edits, lately restructuring the whole thing and rewriting a large part of it to make it more readable, objective and informative than the present disorderly assemblage of rambling, repetitive and circular claims.

I set myself the goal some time ago of bringing this article into editable size (so far from 35K to 50K, with no loss of valuable content}, and believe that I should be entitled to present the results for review and discussion like anyone else. I am quite at a loss as to why one contributor appears to be the beneficiary of so much use of administrative privilege - to the extent even of having "his" page protected in his absence although he is quite happy to revert others' work without even reading it - when the result has in fact not to date been (and is in my opinion unlikely to be) any significant improvement to the article in question. Graculus 21:30, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

See NI talk page. --mav

Everything is relative. But timing is absolute.

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I cannot say that I can imagine what it may have been like. But what is making do a round-the-clocker and then some, isn't just the lack of air-conditioning. Next weekend we are having Eurocon Science Fiction Convention, and I am wound up for that, next weekend from that is the worlds largest demo-scene Assembly in Helsinki. And if I still have money, and a liver and a heartbeat, there is always Uppsala Swecon next weekend after that. Maybe meet up with Wilmer T. or not -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 22:54, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC) I should get to sleep now..

Mav, I am nigh on furious that after a democratic vote decided to include a link to PP's version of New Imperialism you remove it the first chance you get. This is appaling behaviour, after we ended one edit war you immediately try to start it again! What is wrong with you! CGS 19:03, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Hey - chill out right now and knock off the indignant attitude. I unprotected the page so that it can be worked on. If part of that is to have a link to a temp version then put it in there. Also, when I unprotected the page 172 had indicated he was gone - thus there was no longer a need for a link to another version - that version could easily be copied over. --mav

You didn't just unprotect the page. You unprotected it and deleted the link to PP's alternative version that we voted to keep and was the subject of an edit war. Why did you delete the link? Hmm... I guess you might have just done it by mistake though... CGS 19:23, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Mav probably reverted to an earlier version - a side-effect of this is that it doesn't give edit conflicts, so later edits can get silently overwritten if they're made while you're reverting. It's easy to do, sadly. Martin 20:15, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oy, Mav?! New York City, New York? Nu?

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Mav, you delectable wikimaven you, one is rarely taken aback by your (generally sound) choices. "New York City, New York" is an exception. It's just not called that by anyone. New York, New York was fine (did we move "Chicago" because it sounded like a musical group?), New York City was fine, City of New York would be marginally appropriate, but please, please...please... rethink this one. -- Someone else 05:25, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"New York, New York" is fine with me - I was just responding to a complaint that that sounded like the title of a musical. By all means - change it back if it bugs you. --mav 05:28, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's you, too obliging.... I'll try to be bold <g>.... Someone else 05:33, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

172 removed my link to the temp page -- what am I supposed to do? Pizza Puzzle

How about working on the New Imperialism page and its daughter articles? 172 has done what you wanted - he broke up the page and provided summaries. He has admitted that the text isn't the greatest so why don't you help him improve it instead of continuing to support a fork? --mav

172 wont let me edit his pages. He doesnt seem willing to let Graculus edit them either. 172 did not do what I wanted. Pizza Puzzle

Excuse me mav, just my usual obsessive disambiging. Regards -- sannse 21:53, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's all good. :) --mav