The intro of White Rabbit sounds so familiar, I can hardly believe it hasn't been used in a modern pop song... Mike, would you know which? It has kept me thinking for over two days now. -Claire
Hmm, I don't see a new message from you on Talk:Remainder; I only see your response to someone else who had committed an anonymous (and wrong) edit in Nov 2004. I was editing that page just now to ask about non-integer division, so perhaps your edit was lost somehow? I don't see it in the history.
Come on. I see my edits there. And I see the entries in the page history too. Maybe something was wrong with the server. Could you check again (do a reload)? Oleg Alexandrov | talk 05:50, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You told me here that you had replied to me on Talk:Remainder. The only change that you made, at that time, was the addition of the "Remainder (disagree)" section. At first, I thought you were were responding to the discussion from 11-12 July 2004, but your answer did not seem to relate to anything that either I or Revolver said, and I didn't understand why you would be responding to that outdated thread, anyway. But then I saw that apparently, you were actually responding to an anonymous edit of the remainder article that had occurred in November 2004: somebody (not me!) had made the article state that remainders were formally defined or used in "real" math. I am not repsonsible for that edit, and my first change to Talk:Remainder since July 2004 was made after you posted here. - mjb 07:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I wrote another reply for you on Talk:Remainder, see the last section there. We had a misunderstanding, because I did not refer in concrete terms to what you wrote. Oleg Alexandrov | talk 15:59, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I give up. Your first response on Talk:Remainder was made BEFORE I added the "Other Definitions" section. Now you have reposted your same response, with the addition of a reference to that section I added 30 minutes LATER. - mjb 17:35, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Let us a bit cool down. Let me tell you the story. I went to the remainder page. I saw your changes, including your last section which you added. Then went and wrote to you on the talk page. Don't you see that my comments were on the last section, even if I had not mentioned the section title explicitely.
I think there was a problem with the server time. You should appologize. Oleg Alexandrov | talk 19:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Apparently so. I did not mean to sound hostile. I am just frustrated. It does not matter. My goal is to make the articles on remainder and modulo operation be as unambiguous as possible, and they must not be in conflict with each other. Let's concentrate on that. - mjb 19:46, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
...of course, by now, other people have come along and utterly destroyed large portions of my work. Still, though, at least a few of these entries are mostly mine. I'm particularly proud of the techno music one.
should contain the word destroyed in quotes. I hope you are not implying that we (everybody else) are just a bunch of vandals who just keep on screwing your good work. Oleg Alexandrov | talk 04:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Heh, perhaps. Some of the articles that, at one time, were almost entirely my own creation, have changed drastically, and not for the better. I'm a little bit resentful when people do not participate in discussions and instead just undo and sloppily rewrite anything they disagree with. However, I didn't mean to imply that I resent any of the edits that have been made to the modulo articles that I contributed to. I think we are making terrific progress. Your splitting out of modulo operation into a separate article was particularly wise. - mjb 05:02, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well, that's a side effect of allowing everybody to edit everything. There is another free math wiki, called PlanetMath where, if you submit an article, you can decide how much access you give to other people willing to contribute, and you are the ultimate owner and arbiter. I don't say this is better, but this would solve some problems. Oleg Alexandrov | talk 05:50, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
PS What are you up to recently, as far as Wikipedia is concerned? Oleg Alexandrov 02:08, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"Proved" is fine, and is correct, as I said. Wikipedia-wise, I'm not doing much. I am not liking the article on XML, but am hesitant to make any major changes to it yet, as I don't have enough time to concentrate on it. Mainly, it is written from a newcomer's/HTML user's POV, and repeats a lot of info that is in other articles. I also want to see all of the Internet Explorer references removed from the Mozilla Firefox article, for NPOV. The Internet Explorer article has had its Firefox references removed recently, and is much better for it. Unfortunately, any changes to these articles attract a lot of attention, so I am letting the idea simmer for a bit. Others advocate the same position, so maybe someone will take up the cause... - mjb 04:15, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well, we live in almost parallel worlds. :) My primary concerns for the moment is categorizing math articles. Have fun! Oleg Alexandrov 04:21, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Latest comment: 19 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Ah, I see you've noticed our little friend User:Bobber1 (and his many aliases) too. i've been tracking him for a bit and fixing what I can. May I ask how you noticed him? Soundguy99 02:09, 11 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
The Thomas Kinkade article's discussion page indicated that the article needed cleanup, so the other day, I made some minor edits and added an 'attention' stub to it. Our friend came along today, not logged in, from two IP addresses (63.147.240.11 and 63.147.240.12), and removed the stub after making some minor edits of his own. The edits were not very good, but with some rephrasing and better linking, I let them stay. However, the removal of the stub was inappropriate; he clearly didn't read the discussion page, as his edits did nothing to address the concerns of those who were calling for the article's cleanup. I replaced the 'attention' stub, cleaned up his edits, and set out to add a 'test' stub to the user talk pages for those IPs. I found that someone had beaten me to it already. User talk:63.147.240.12 didn't have any links to the other pages, so I added some, in the form of an enticement to check his messages.
The IP addresses are apparently proxies for networks used by school districts somewhere in a 10-county region stretching north, west, and southwest from Ft. Worth, Texas. — mjb 03:31, 11 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
Mmmmm. . . . . we may be "tracking" more than one problem user, then. Damn. That would, however, explain the occasional good edit from those two addresses. And the occasional "out-of-character" sheer vandalism. User:Bobber1/User:Bobber2's work is characterized by a whole bunch of edits to the same article very quickly, many of them grammar or typo or link fixes. He apparently does not understand the "Preview" button. I didn't catch on to the ".12" address until today. The "edit quality" to Thomas Kinkade, poor as it is, is much better than Bobber's usual style, so it may be another student; OTOH, given Kincade's association with Ralph Bakshi and Bobber's interest in animation, it is possible. Plus Bobber does have a tendency to remove tags/templates and to delete comments from talk pages. In fact, it was multiple removals of a template that got him a 24-hr block from RickK at the end of April. This was as Bobber2, and he promptly started editing as Bobber1; I don't think he understood the "24-hr" part. Or he didn't read it, since he remains singularly unresponsive to comments on his talk page (besides erasing them, that is).
So, hopefully, the kids'll be out of school soon and this will stop for a few months. I'm gonna do some research on various Wikipolicies; I'm wondering if we have any precedent about sysops or board members officially contacting schools to let them know that one or two specific students are using school computers to disrupt Wikipedia. Thanks for your response. Soundguy99 06:11, 11 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
On the Talk:Character encoding page, you indicated that a bunch of char set tables had been archived to Talk:Character encoding/Archive 1, but that page doesn't exist. The tables are still in the history and could just remain there, but then the Talk note should say something different. By the way, the text encoding removal was a good move. -R. S. Shaw 28 June 2005 20:30 (UTC)
Never mind - I copied the tables into the indicated page (duh) -R. S. Shaw 28 June 2005 20:39 (UTC)
I've been having a lot of trouble getting edits to 'take' since the MediaWiki 1.5b1 upgrade went through yesterday. I will click on "Save page" and it will act as if I did "Show preview". I have to save multiple times before it will work. I was getting very frustrated when making those changes, and probably didn't notice that Talk:Character encoding/Archive 1 never got saved. So thanks for following up on it. — mjb 28 June 2005 21:17 (UTC)
Hey Mike, kinda confused. The Styleguide page shows a change by you with the subject "Don't use contractions, really? sorry couldn't resist" -- so I thought I had a response from you to my rant about contractions...but I couldn't find anything. Yeah, I'm new. Was your comment just that subject line? I'm still a little lost with talk pages that are labeled "Discussion" (Why the F--- doesn't the tab say "Talk" if it's the Talk page, anyway?)
Ignore all this if it makes no sense -- DavidH 1 July 2005 05:18 (UTC)
NEVERMIND, I just figured it out -- You changed my headline about contractions so it didn't have a contraction anymore. You rascal! Begone now and leave my rants alone!
BTW, I'm guessing that you don't go for stuffy style rules? Any real feelings on the contractions "rule"?
Yeah, I was just making a joke by changing the heading so it didn't have a contraction. But then I used a contraction in my edit summary ("couldn't resist"). It would've been funnier and more poignant if I had written "could not resist," but it didn't occur to me until too late. Anyway, I'm in total agreement with you on the contraction issue.
I'm not a big fan of strictly using "and so on" in place of "etc.", though, because we sometimes use et cetera to mean "and others" when talking about non-humans. "And so on" implies there is a common theme to the list, whereas "and others" would work better in some situations. The description of etc. in List of Latin phrases#E seems to agree, although the et cetera article doesn't mention this point. If it were up to me, I'd use "et al." for "and others," regardless of context, but for some reason that's just not the way things are done. :) — mjb 1 July 2005 06:27 (UTC)
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Saw your edit to my reference to EBCDIC in the ASCII article. My source was EBCDIC so you might want to correct that article as well. I had always thought ASCII was in part a response to the EBCDIC splitting of the alphabet; perhaps it was instead in response to earlier IBM formats. --66.92.74.252 20:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I've gone ahead and cleaned up the EBCDIC article a little. — mjb 00:19, 20 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
I'm only an occassional user and a rare editor so my addition of more specific ellipsis programming uses followed the existing page style. You mentioned the use of periods. Of course this is typically because a langauge is edited with ASCII characters only. Should that point be connected?
--Laundrypowder 04:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
I thought about mentioning that, but didn't want to conflate the discussion with too many details, and I am hesitant to make any statements about every single programming language, when I've only dealt with a half-dozen or so. I probably wouldn't object if someone else made such a statement, as long as it was sufficiently qualified (see below).
As far as I know, right now, all programming languages use only ASCII-range characters in their syntax, outside of string literals and comments. So yes, it's safe to say that the odds of finding a language that supports the horizontal ellipsis character, as opposed to two or three periods in a row, is pretty slim. But since programming languages and their source code parsers are becoming increasingly capable of supporting source code that is in non-ASCII encodings (Python 2.3 and up, for example, allows practically any encoding as long as it's declared), it is theoretically possible for an actual ellipsis character to be supported as an alternative to a series of periods. Will it happen? Probably not. But it's possible. :) — mjb 05:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
Same here. I've also had somewhat extensive and ranging experience but it's hard to sum up the possibilities of language representation without further discussion. I'm going to leave it until such a method comes to mind. --Laundrypowder 15:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
Mjb, I thought that I'd mention the D language accepts unicode source files. [1] is the direct link without frames. Laundrypowder 05:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Hmm. I think you are misunderstanding what I'm talking about. D doesn't appear to be any different than Python in this regard. The source code file can be in any encoding, but that doesn't mean that the ellipsis (or any other non-ASCII) character can be universally used in place of three periods. The only place you can enter the ellipsis character is in a string literal or comment. If you try to use the ellipsis character instead of the "..." punctuator token, you'll get a syntax error. The language tokens in C and D are all ASCII-based, even though in the source code text files they may be encoded with UTF-16 or whatever. As another example that might be less confusing, you can't use a minus sign (U+2212: "−") in place of the dash (U+002D: "-") in the expression "x = x - 4". — mjb 07:44, 11 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Oh no, I understood. That is indeed a very special case which probably shouldn't occur in any new language/enhancements as an ellipsis replacement. I just thought I'd mention the Unicode source support. Laundrypowder 14:27, 11 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Ah, gotcha. It's good to know that there is progress being made in that area. I can say that being able to save Python source code in different encodings has helped us with the development of 4Suite. It's not very often that we need it, but when we do, it saves us from having to dumb-down the code to pure ASCII. — mjb 18:16, 11 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi there. You asked me a question on the LSD-talk page, which I answered. In return, I asked you one. Please answer it. Kind regards, --Twisturbed Tachyon 16:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
Let me explain my point of view. As you pointed out in your Edit summary, there are important differences in the glyphs beyond the fact some browsers use a serif or sans-serif font. However, using e.g. Firefox on Windows XP, the browser chooses a serif font for some languages (e.g. traditional Chinese) and sans-serif for others (e.g. Japanese). This clearly takes the focus away from the important differences (shape / brush strokes). Using the same "type" of font (serif) on all languages makes it considerably easier to spot those differences between the languages, and therefore to understand what the article is actually going on about. laug 21:02, 2 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
You're right; I saw this version of the article and thought that the serif specification was overriding the language tagging, making each column contain identical glyphs. Now I see that the glyphs did differ. However, I was also under the impression that stroke shape was important; for example, in practice, Korean text never so closely resembles Chinese, even when the stoke positions are the same. Am I mistaken? If so, then feel free to clarify in the article, and redo the serif font specifications. (Also, after I committed my edit, I saw that we were working on the article at the same time, so I apologize if I accidentally overwrote any of your edits.) — mjb 23:13, 2 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Well, the best would probably be to ask native speakers, to be sure. I can only speak for Japanese, which I have studied a little. However I believe:
the very names "serif" and "sans-serif" do not make much sense for Asian glyphs (as serif refers to the little bits at the end of letters in a traditional printing font (e.g. Times) compared to "simple" glyphs of e.g. Arial). Here the meaning of serif (for some browsers at least) is "Traditional esthetically pleasing font used in print (or what you would get using a brush)" where as sans-serif is "simplified, resembling characters hand written with a pen" (close to the original meaning of our italics). See below.
This is outside the scope of the Han unification controversy. The various typefaces existed before Unicode and had different usages (as for English). I don't see this as being a difference between countries but rather depending on a choice of style for the writing.
Another problem is that MSIE totally ignores the (sans-)serif stuff.
Anyway, I think unifying the type of font makes the chart and the whole article much easier to understand, as otherwise the reader may be misled into thinking "the evil Unicode is coding sans-serif and serif glyphs using the same character codes" (which is otherwise completely normal) and miss the actual subtle differences in the characters. laug 12:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
決
決
MS Gothic
MS Mincho
Notice how the shape of the third stroke is completely different depending on the font (probably only works on Windows)
Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
THANK YOU so much for getting rid of these. The attitude behind that kind of writing is a scourge upon Wikipedia. When you're done, if you could also work on "note that" and "N.B." (the most pretentious of all), that would be awesome. Nohat 07:21, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Yep, thanks. (The reader should, of course, keep in mind at all times that) I am in complete agreement -- this is one of my pet peeves on Wikipedia, so keep up the good work! — Matt Crypto 10:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Mjb -- I'm always interested in making writing efficient and readable, but can you say why you think "it should be noted that" is almost always unnecessary? Interestingly, my mother insists (that) the word that is in most cases unnecessary. While I can see her point it seems (that) many people are fond of using the word quite a bit - a cursory glance suggests (that) you're no exception. Point is, very interested, and this is one of the cool things about Wikipedia, but I'm not sold -- particularly since your edit altered the sense of the para .... though at the same time I must confess (that) the para needs a bit of re-working. Really interested to hear the reason for view. Take care Stephenhumphry 11:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Stephenhumphry— I am not trying to alter the sense of any paragraph; I am just trying to drop the phrases that implore the reader not to miss a certain piece of information. I'm going through a lot of articles and making similar edits, and it's possible that I skimmed a few too quickly when deciding how best to handle the removal of "note that"/"it should be noted that". In the Rasch model article (I assume that's the one you're referring to), it looked, at first glance, like the statement that the reader was being encouraged to take notice of was actually a continuation of the preceding sentence, which sounded somewhat like an ordered argument/explanation, so I chose to use "furthermore", which in hindsight maybe was not ideal.
Most of the time, actually, no such substitution is necessary; the sentence can begin with whatever came after the "Note that…" and nothing is lost. Every once in a while, the sentence needs to start a new paragraph, because it's introducing a new topic. In a few cases I needed to do some relatively drastic rearranging, because the sentence was contradicting or muddying something that was said before.
Regarding "that", your mom is right; it is often unnecessary. It's not something I feel strongly about one way or the other. I don't enforce it in other people's writing, and probably am not consistent about it in my own, although obviously I prefer to use it more often than not. There are times when omitting it leaves a sentence sounding too informal, and there are times when including it makes a sentence sound too formal. I do feel strongly about using "that" instead of "which" when appropriate, though; there's a difference, and "that" is usually the better choice. Also, I prefer to read "in order to" rather than just "to", even though the shorter form is just as acceptable.
The problem I have with "It should be noted that", "please note" and the like is that it's often saying "I, the author, would have failed to give you some crucial bit of information if you, the reader, were to stop reading at this point. I want to make sure you keep on reading so that I can tell you something that contradicts the invalid impression that I anticipate you've formed, thanks to my misleading or otherwise insufficiently informative prose up to this point." Other times, it's just introducing an example or other helpful followup that is perfectly fine without the phrase. This seems to happen mostly in the more technical, math-related articles, and is often just because the author is writing in a tutorial, classroom-lecture style: "Let us start with… Now we can see that… Look here and note how… Conclude from this that… Note, however, that…", and so on. I have mixed feelings about that writing style, so I am hesitant to gut it too much, but like I said, the 'take note' phrasing is usually unnecessary. Also, it is especially jarring if I see more than one "note that" in the same or successive paragraphs. It's like, "wait, how much do I have to 'note', and why is this stuff higher priority than the rest of the article?" I also often see parentheses being misused for similar purposes.
Basically, any time I see "note that", I imagine the sentence without it, and almost always conclude that it's superfluous, if not also reflecting poor organization. If it is truly crucial for the reader to note, lest they come away with some misunderstanding otherwise, then the information should not be tacked on as an afterthought. — mjb 12:05, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Your lengthy explanation is welcome! Thanks for removing it should be noted that from my article vrata. There are some other phrases used in some other articles like needless to state that, it is well-known that which are indeed superfluous. Apnavana 12:54, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Agree -- it is welcome. You are pretty much right, I'd used it in an attempt to pull back and say btw, this model involves the parameter I've just mentioned. Re-organization could well do the job. Cheers Mjb. Also, I agree with you on the use of that and on the use of parentheses, which rarely serve any real purpose in sentences. While we're on pet peeves, I'll throw another one ... the old "true x". You have enlightenment, then you have True enlightenment. Reality and True Reality. This is a person's way of saying 'my version of this concept is special and priveleged' ... only the person doesn't to let the description say this, the persons just slaps on a redundant true. Anyhow, sorry if I gave the impression I was complaining. As far as I'm concerned, you should go ahead and edit and I can sort it out. There is a problem, so you were right to do so. Thanks, good work.Stephenhumphry 14:11, 3 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I agree that the criticism summary is unsatisfactory. But I was not going to write something and then have it deleted by a wal-mart pr flak a few minutes later. I have re-edited the piece to bring the section closer to NPOV. It still needs some work but there has to be something more than a bland statement that some folk disagree with the company. The level of criticism of Wal-Mart is much higher than for comparable companies, in particular the criticism of union-busting activities and low pay.--Gorgonzilla 15:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I'm attempting to establish an solid consensus on whether or not to split Wal-Mart and Criticism of into separate articles. See the vote at Talk:Wal-Mart. Feco 21:00, 9 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I appreciate your efforts at diplomacy. — mjb 21:29, 9 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Mjb, would you mind taking a look at an off-topic for me? You'll notice the obvious confusion in the very last section of Talk:pinyin. Can you help explain what I'm seeing? Check the edit of that section to see my point. I'm a little new to wiki encodings and would like to be clear. I might start editing some of the angle of view and projection articles later which obviously can require special characters. Laundrypowder 22:07, 11 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
In Internet Explorer, I only saw boxes for the symbols, even when editing. In Firefox I saw unrecognizable symbols (sorta g-like, but very bitmappy and serify) at first. I went to edit the section, and they changed to the proper IPA symbols (relatively clean, narrow, and g-like). Thereafter they continued to look OK. I believe the problem is related to the font size; whatever font the symbol is coming from is bitmapped or just has no hinting or whatever, and thus does not scale well. If it is rendered slightly too small, it looks wonky. IPA symbols are known to be not very widely supported; I wish they (the Mediawiki folks) would figure out some kind of TeX-ish system for them like they do with math markup. — mjb 01:44, 12 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Ah, much appreciated. I have to say it's absolutely annoying and confusing to see the character change between page edits/views! Well the only issue with math markup methods is the size. You expect an equation to be somewhat separated, but you want individual characters rendered like a normal font. I didn't realize that IPA symbol was special though, I mistook it for a different character used as that.
You don't want to see what a superscript looks like my screen. Unreadable at 1920x1200 (let's not talk about image-text alignment at that resolution). Now that I wouldn't mind rendered larger with some space! Laundrypowder 02:06, 12 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Oh, hrm I seem to have missed something you said. Your 'properly' rendered symbol still looked like a g? What I've always seen in a 'proper' render was a very centered y where the tail came straight down and was kind of wide and fat -- this is what I assumed and called greek gamma γ but it is really ɡ .
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi! I'm pleased to see you've found a use for {{divbox}}. I'm not so pleased to see you throw it inside another <div> to get it to float right. Not that there's anything wrong with the goal; I've wanted similar effects often and got them by subst-ing divbox, then editing the style. Both our solutions are a bit clumsy.
I'm thinking about a next-generation divbox and I'd like your commment at: Template talk:Divbox. — Xiong熊talk* 03:09, 2005 August 12 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm probably going to delete the divbox from my user page; it was really just an experiment, and it has been pointed out to me (privately) that my comments in it are a bit, um, snarky :) I'll check out the divbox discussion. Thanks! — mjb 03:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Anything you say, somebody will say it's snarky. Don't be buffaloed. If you think you need to tone down the box, do so, but why take it out altogether? Resist groupthink. — Xiong熊talk* 03:49, 2005 August 12 (UTC)
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Hey, thanks, but it's my pleasure. Every time somebody makes that article silly, I feel like it actually gets a little better than it was before through the cleanup. One day, it's going to be awesome. I still really need to do Category:IDM Musicians and perhaps Category:IDM Labels too, but I don't know how many articles would actually be in there. Junjk 23:01, 12 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Agreed re: the cleanup and continuing evolution of the article's quality. There's still much room for improvement. Defining IDM is hard, as it's defined more just by what it's not. Regarding categories, I'd suggest calling the artist one Category:IDM musicians (small 'm'), but run it by the powers that be first, because there are some who don't like to see initials in category names. They made an exception for Category:DJs and its subcats though. I don't think there's enough notable IDM-only labels to warrant a category just for those yet. What you should probably work on first is converting List of electronic music record labels into Category:Electronic music record labels, nominate the list for deletion, and then maybe add a subcategory for the IDM labels, if there are enough. — mjb 00:26, 13 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
I like the changes for IDM and the individual IDM artist pages. Looks a lot better! --ДрakюлaTalk 17:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
In my temporary workspace at User:Mjb/Character_encoding, in late June 2005, I was preparing a list of character encoding related articles so that I could get a better handle on how to best recategorize them. The fruits of that labor are Category:Unicode and Category:Character Encodings), along with the deletion of the ambiguous Text Encodings category. The following question is about the former content of my workspace.
Should Template:Table Unicode be on pages that aren't in it and if not is it reasonable to expand it to this full list? Plugwash 21:10, 16 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
I remember looking at that table and wondering the same thing. Feel free to look through Category:Unicode (which is more up-to-date than my temporary list) and see what you think. I don't have anything to do with that table and don't really see a need for it, personally. — mjb 21:52, 16 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Right. I'm surprised I could do such a mistake: I always use %7E instead of the tidle when writing an URL manually (the Italian keyboards do not have a tilde key)! I still don't like the sentence “a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier under certain circumstances”, but could not come up with a better (and correct) alternative. Maybe one can say that it is just an encoding, that can be used for encoding some parts of an URI, and that is necessary in some cases? Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 15:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, that sentence can use some work, but I don't want to go into too much detail there, as the intro paragraph is supposed to be a concise summary. The "circumstances" are a bit tedious to explain in 1 sentence. Keep working on it, I guess. — mjb 17:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Thanks for double checking my edits regarding external links on ISO/IEC 8859-1 . I'm in over my head with those pages, but had reverted an external link addition to RSS (file format) by User_talk:81.68.98.163 (advertising/linkspam) and was checking the rest of their contributions, all of which are external link additions. With the exceptions of XML editor and XML, which seem appropriate, and RSS (file format), which has already been removed; can you confirm that the rest of the contributions should be removed? Thanks! ∴here…♠ 02:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
By the way, you co-admin hyperreal!? It's an honor to make your aquintance my friend ;). ∴here…♠ 02:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
They're all linkspam. For now I would leave the ones on XML and XML editor but all others should definitely be removed. The ones that linked to character set data are not providing any info that is not already in the articles, and they're misrepresenting the info anyway. They're just trying to get those links to their site established in order to boost their Google page rank. — mjb 02:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I noticed you are a major contributor to the ASCII article. This article is up for review at Wikipedia:Featured article review#Active reviews. Please look into this and state your expert opinion on the article's feature status, specifically identifying what should be developed further. Your opinion would be highly valued on this matter. --maclean25 04:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi Mjb, my source about Lil Louis is Joel Whitburn's Hot Dance/Disco 1974-2003, ISBN0-89820-156-X.
Louis' entry in the book reads, "Born Louis Burns in Chicago, Illinois. Noted DJ of Chicago dance club scene. Son of blues guitarist Bobby Sims." Hope that helps. -- eo 00:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Let's not overreact about NPOV policy. Calling the Dayton Old Court House an "excellent example" of Greek Revival architecture is not a violation of WP:NPOV policy. This is not a controversial topic; there are no conflicting views. Disagree with the wording if you like, but please don't suggest that it's somehow biased. --Tysto 06:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Let's not overreact about it, indeed. How is "excellent" anything but an opinion, and a boastful one at that? It doesn't matter if it's a popular opinion; it's unencyclopedic, so I removed it. — mjb 08:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello Mjb, I'm noticed that you removed the quotes Joel Stein made in his LA Times article and his Hugh Hewitt interview describing them as "quote being used for inflammatory purposes"....I am also wondering if EVERY quote in the Criticism secion under the Bill O'Reilly entry should also be removed based on the same criteria?
Perhaps, but plenty of people are interested enough in the Bill O'Reilly article to sort it out eventually, whereas the Joel Stein article is being curated by a relatively small number of us. Meanwhile, tell me what purpose is served by quoting the interview (which, as I mentioned in the edit summary, is already linked to). It seems to me like the intent is merely for its shock value and to sway the reader's opinion: "see? see what he said? isn't that outrageous?"
On their own, and especially when taken in light of the fact that they appeared in an op-ed piece and an informal defense of it, Stein's statements aren't any more outrageous than the kinds of opinions that are published every day on the average blog, Web message board, or electronic mailing list. If the intent of the quote is truly benign, then how is that intent evident when the quote is presented without context? If you want to say that certain statements he made in a subsequent interview about the controversial column further provoked the ire of a certain demographic, then say that. You don't even need a specific quotation for that. In the meantime, don't expect that controversial quotes affixed to a bio without any indication of what point they are illustrating will last forever. — mjb 03:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Mjb, I agree with everything you said. Suprising?? I only hope that the same rational judgement is applied to other Wikipedia entries with the biased POV left out. I added what I did to the Joel Stein entry more specifically to prove a point (the left leaning bias of Wikipedia) rather than under the belief that every person's statement or comment should exist in their Encyclopedia-style bio. We'll see if the same rationale is applied elsewhere...although I won't hold my breath. Jeravicious 07:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
To avoid flip-flopping between 'degree Fahrenheit' and 'Fahrenheit' or 'degree Celsius' and 'Celsius', I propose that we have a discussion on which we want. I see you have contributed on units of measurement, please express your opinion at Talk:Units of measurement. Thanks. bobblewik 22:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi,
Re: your "citationneeded" tag about my adding that IDM also means "Intellectual Dance Music" (diff)
After my quick edit, I have opened a discussion about it on Talk:Intelligent dance music. Sorry, I should have opened the discussion first, and then referred to it in the edit's summary. Unfortunately, I don't have an authoritative online source/citation for it. I had read about it in some magazine years ago, which doesn't make for a good enough reference ;)
I hope the talk page will help to find someone with a paper reference. I would however add that IMO, in a worst case scenario (if nobody can provide reference), the article still should namecheck the alternative meaning, if only as "sometimes erroneously" or similar.
No problem. I'm guessing the occasional use of "intellectual" rather than "intelligent" is in every case just the result of someone guessing or being confused about what IDM stands for, since it is almost always referred to as just the initials "IDM". When we started the IDM list, it was definitely "intelligent", a word which was the subject of many-a debate :) I didn't want to just drop it though because if people are using that term sometimes, then we should document it, but at the same time, avoid unintentionally promoting that usage. —mjb 02:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I saw your comments here. Well we're having the same problems down at the Persian Jews article. Could you keep an eye on this article and maybe help out? Thanks, AucamanTalk 19:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
I just wanted to say thanks for your comment. I ran out of room on the edit summary line to complete my thought but am glad that you understood what I was trying to accomplish. I grew up SW of the Conifer area and went to the same schools as Trey although about 12 years before he did. I have taken the drive to Fairplay many times as it is one of Colorado's true scenic trips. I still take people to South Park City museum to give them a flavor of Colorado history. There is an understandable amount of confusion on the net about just exactly where the show takes place (for instance location wise Fairplay fits the bill but physically the town is more like the Conifer/Aspen Park area) and I try to set things as straight as I can here at wikipedia (though I can make errors just as easily as the next person). One of the fun things, for me, about the show is how well they recreate the geography of, what is called, the 285 corridor. 'The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers' has parts of the drive between Fairplay and Conifer down cold and their takeoff on the Casa Bonita restaurant is hilariously correct. Well thanks again for your comment and keep up the good work here at WikiP.User:MarnetteD | Talk 19:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Gosh I didn't read your user page til after I had typed the message above. You live in Colorado too and, so, are probably aware of everything I said. Apologies for boring you with stuff you already new but have a great day anyway.User:MarnetteD | Talk 19:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Mike,
Could you please reconsider your removal of some of the External Links on the ASCII article? Two of the recently removed links were quite relevant to the subject matter and add value to the article. One of the most common things that people are looking for when searching for ASCII (as far as programmers go, at least) is a well-formatted ASCII table. A good one is more difficult to find than you might think. The table in the article itself is split up into several tables, making it somewhat difficult to find what you are looking for at a glance. My revert was not ment to start an editing war or anything; I had just assumed that the removal was a mistake as the page is relevant.
Thanks,
Will
Will, please take this up on Talk:ASCII, but I doubt you'll get far. You are clearly the owner of asciilist.com and are just trying to drive traffic to your site. I happen to maintain a useful and relevant document on my own site, too: the only complete HTML translation of The set of control characters of ISO 646 (the PDF original, rather than my version, is linked to from the ASCII article)…but I am quite content to allow mine to show up as #2 in a Google search for iso 646 control characters all on its own.—mjb 04:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
If we have a link to www.asciilist.com, I suggest that it should be to the printer-friendly version of the ASCII table. It's more useful, and doesn't have those annoying advertisements. Cheers, Chris Chittleborough 04:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Chris, see my comments on Talk:ASCII. :)—mjb 04:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Sorry for not making myself clear. I completely agree with what you say there, and with what you've done. I've commented further at Talk:ASCII. Thanks, Chris Chittleborough 07:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please don't subst this template. Doing so defeats the whole purpose. I re-wrote it to use m:ParserFunctions so it can take 1-5 parameters. Some random examples:
This makes it easy for people to re-order the articles, or remove a few, without messing up the format, grammar, and punctuation of the section sub-heading, which is the whole point of having a template. Also, it does so without extra template calls, as in the previous {{qif}} method. Perhaps I should have updated the talk page to reflect this, but I didn't think anybody would actually read it. — Apr. 28, '06 [19:42] <freakofnurxture|talk>
Ah, OK. I was under the impression (perhaps from long ago) that using templates put a strain on the servers, so subst-ing was preferred for templates that were relatively stable and widely used. Thanks for the pointer (on the talk page) to the relevant section of WP:SUBST, which I see (no longer?) seems to say anything to that effect.—mjb 22:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hey, sorry about deleting that section in the Ska discussion. I think I did it on accident, my laptop likes to randomly select things on occasion. Again, sorry about that.--DJ Citizen D 06:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Have you read the article? In UK and Europe, DJs use club music since the mid 1980s in their slang. Many Wikipedians find difficult and disputable to deal with the inconsistency of these music genres articles. Please watch my contribs and the feedback of other WPs. And who told you that the venue doesnt define the genre? It was called disco music in Donna Summer and The Chic era, then the disco died, and it has been called dance music up to 10 years ago. Where do you live? All the web quotes "Club music". A Google search returns 2,500,0000 results. See also http://www.beatworld.com/ a US based radio that doesnt pretend to be unaware of the term Brian W 21:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Yes I read it. Providing an unsourced claim that UK DJs essentially invented the term "club music" and that it has this rigid definition that allows it to suprsede the descriptive phrase "electronic dance music" is not persuasive.
I'm not saying "club music" doesn't exist or is an invalid term in and of itself; clearly it's not, and is widely used. I am also not disputing that you and your DJ friends use the term to refer to electronic dance music. What I object to is that you're trying to place improper restrictions on the definitions of both "club music" and "electronic dance music". Both are informal terms, for one thing. "Club music" has a definition that changes over time and from scene to scene; people do sometimes refer to more than just electronic dance music as "club music", and in the future, "club music" may not encompass electronic dance music at all. But in the future, electronic dance music will still be electronic dance music. Any claims you make about things that can change need to be phrased such that they're just as valid in the future as they are now. Temporal qualifiers are necessary. As of 2006, for example.
And the genre of disco is still disco; it did not change to "dance music" or "club music". You're conflating the actual genre with the general term used to refer to the genres played in certain types of nightclubs (specifically, the ones that play recorded music) by patrons of such clubs at a certain period in music history, in certain regions of the world - currently, that term is "club music", and you're right, it used to be disco, although there weren't 27487528098709 varieties of disco, so it's not the best example. Do you see the difference, though? "Club music" and "electronic music" and "electronic dance music" are meta-genres and mean different things to different people. They're primarily descriptive phrases that are used as if they were genres, usually by people who are either ignorant of actual genre names, or who intentionally want to make a blanket reference to multiple genres.
Take for example hip hop music and reggae. I assure you people in different communities use "club music" to refer to the many different forms of hip hop and reggae. But that's probably not the club music you have in mind, eh? And lots of people draw a line between those forms of music and electronic dance music. So you see, it's inappropriate to say club music and electronic dance music mean the same thing. 'Club music' mainly covers what's popular. People might use it as if it covers what's made a certain way with certain instruments, but ultimately it's very distinct from the phrase 'electronic dance music' in that regard.
You're also overlooking the fact that "club", as in "clubby" is a distinguishing factor in separating styles within genres. 0.00001% of IDM is club-friendly, but I'd wager that none of it is "clubby". Maybe that doesn't stop some larger percentage of people from lumping it under 'club music', but generally people don't consider it to be club music because they generally don't hear it played at clubs! And 99.99% of house music is club music, in a sense, but "clubby" house is only a portion of all house. I highly doubt fans of splittercore techno would call it "club music"; rather they'd probably take offense.
The definition you tried to put in the electronic dance article was sorely lacking, and again made the unverifiable, dubious assertion that "electronic dance" (music) is obsolete and identical to "club music". However, what was there before wasn't much better, and I feel the article title needs to be changed to make it seem less like "electronic dance" is a genre in the sense that "house" is. I've rewritten the intro of that article to provide what I feel is a more reasonable explanation of the relationship between the terms, as well as better explaining what is meant by "electronic dance music". It's a bit wordy, much like this reply, but I wanted to address all of these points.—mjb 23:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm enjoying your last edits at "electronic dance music". Brian W thx
unsourced claim that UK DJs essentially invented the term "club music" and that it has this rigid definition that allows it to suprsede the descriptive phrase "electronic dance music" is not persuasive.
still unsourced claim? nightlubs and discoteques are called club in UK. Or are you asking me a source for that? Vynil remixes reported Club version, Club edit or Club remix since early 1980s. I guess dictionaries report the word club with this meaning.
I am also not disputing that you and your DJ friends use the term to refer to electronic dance music.
I never sayd that edm is all club music, just a part of it.
Take for example hip hop music and reggae. I assure you people in different communities use "club music" to refer to the many different forms of hip hop and reggae. But that's probably not the club music you have in mind, eh? And lots of people draw a line between those forms of music and electronic dance music. So you see, it's inappropriate to say club music and electronic dance music mean the same thing.
Who told you that I didn't mean to include hip-hop and reggae?? Did you see the template that I edited for that article? Also, one of my DJs friends is mainly a Reggae DJs. And when did I say that edm is all club music? I am trying to use a terme that may be able to include all the percussive genres that are aimed for dancing from 1960s onnward. Music for nightclubs or modern dance music would suite good, I believe.
Listen carefully: I don't really care of clubbing, and the music for dancefloors. What I can't stand is just the fact that here in Wikipedia some articles are dealing with and describing the same topic, that is modern techno-dance music. These articles are Electronic music, Ambient, Ambient techno dance. I cant stand that potheads regard themselves as the heirs of Stockhausen, Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream. Youngsters' pretentiousness claiming to cathegorize music only in two big genres-acoustic and electronic-, regardless styles, other cultural movements and contexts really scares me.
AGAIN and again, how can you all believe that electronic instruments can attribute the style of a given piece of music? (sorry for my continental European English).Wikipedia is a pop music magazine? Or something similar to an academic encyclopedia? Brian W 02:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Who told you that I didn't mean to include hip-hop and reggae?
Your initial edits to the house music, electronic dance, and club music articles were equating "club music" and "electronic dance music", and they indicated an unsubstantiated preference for "club music" as the canonical term for this category of genres. You even insisted that you had never heard the term "electronic dance music" used by UK DJs. You were called out on this by me and others, and I went to a good deal of trouble to edit one of the articles to accommodate your underlying but mostly unstated complaint, which was that neither of the terms were very well discussed in the articles, and the relationship between them was unclear, especially given that they're sometimes conflated. Now you're trying to have Wikipedia canonize "music for nightclubs" and "modern dance music". I don't understand why you are doing this. What is unacceptable to you about the information that is presented in the articles? Why do you think they're incomplete if they don't use those terms? Don't answer here; take it up on the articles' Talk pages.
Regarding instrumentation, most certainly it is an important, though not exclusive, criteria in the definition of many music genres. If you disagree with that, take it up on Talk:Music genre.—mjb 06:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, regarding your email, my feeling is that the external links section may need trimming to bring it in line with WP:NOT - "excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, including a link to one major fansite is appropriate, marking the link as such." However, I'm not an expert on the article's subject, and if you feel that all these links are necessary and appropriate per WP:EL then I withdraw my objection. Regards. --Muchness 11:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hmm. Are you counting List of roller derby leagues as part of the list? I very recently created that list in order to reduce the size of the external links section from about 140 items down to 12, and it also is useful because a separate list that isn't under an "External links" banner can contain wikilinks and unlinkable items and can belong to different categories. As for what's left in the article, I'm pretty careful about what links I allow to stay; I've reviewed all of them to make sure they're useful for research and references. Also, FWIW, I was just put in charge of roller derby links on the Open Directory Project.—mjb 22:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi, I saw you've tried to reason with Wilson on Talk:Club_music... I hope it was not too frustrating. Anyway, it's a user who has many good edits, however, his edits related to musical genres and styles are getting annoying. He's convinced the entire world is wrong about the terminology they're using for different genres and styles (especially the ones that have the world electronic in them), and he clearly wants to change whole wikipedia to his unclear and vague POV ideas on the subject. (and he esp. tries to push away articles about modern dance music, see Talk:Psybient for his attitude. Read his contributions (esp. and talk pages) and you'll see they're mostly incomprehensible gibberish... Anyway, you'vre tried to reason with him once... whenever you might have the courage to try to talk to him, or correct and steer his edits, go ahead; cause I'm getting really tired of it. Regards --LimoWreck 17:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In regards to your search for citeable information on AMBER Alert false alarms: In 2005, Scripps Howard News comissioned a study of all AMBER Alerts that were issued in the United States in 2004. Only one-third of the alerts actually met the U.S. Department of Justice's criteria for the issuing of alerts. I've written a short section in the article for false alarms, citing and linking the study. Thought you'd like to know. Kevyn 05:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
What's wrong with you? Am I vandalizing anything, or reverting pages without discussion? I'm even asking you all to delete all my previous edits, cos if it's true that I'm insane, then everything I wrote regarding Royal Houses is wrong, therefore must be deleted. Goodbye. --skysurfer 23:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
I don't think you'll find any evidence that I've ever accused you of being "insane". I'm hesitant to respond, though, because (assuming you and Brian G. Wilson are the same person) you seem to thrive on personal conflict and feel that everything that happens within your realm of observation is directed at you, personally, sometimes with hostile intent, even when it's clearly not. I'm even afraid these very statements will be twisted to fit a worldview in which you are the misunderstood victim of a conspiracy, and any advice I try to give will be taken as patronizing at best, condescending at worst, and in any case further feeding your sense of alienation.
That said, your posts today pretend to be conciliatory, but are so laden with pouty sarcasm and self-martyrdom that it doesn't sound like you really believe what you're saying. Also, the similar writing styles, coinciding edits, and your allusion to using aliases on Talk:Ambient music all seem to indicate that you and User:Brian G. Wilson / Brian G. Wilson are one and the same, and if that's correct, then it's evident (including by your own admission on User_talk:Sky-surfer) that you have some personal issues that are spilling over into your Wikipedia presence.
In my opinion, none of this, not even the heated exchanges on User_talk:Brian G. Wilson, other users' talk pages, and the articles you've edited, make you "insane" (which is, besides, a colloquial term and a legal defense, not a medical diagnosis), but they do seriously undermine your credibility, as they draw suspicion upon your motivation for making what would otherwise be legitimate, good-faith edits.
My advice: Take a break from Wikipedia, travel a bit, interact in person with people you consider to be good and nice and important to you, then decide whether being misunderstood on Wikipedia is something that you really need to focus your mental energy on. Know your limitations, and accept the restrictions and uncertainties that Wikipedia imposes on all of us. If you decide to come back, then stop editing under aliases; come clean about your identity, don't exaggerate, and make no threats or accusations toward other people, even if you think they're treating you unfairly. If you reach a point where you think everyone but you has got it all wrong (regardless of what "it" is) or that you're being harrassed, then it's time to take another break, and doing so is not admitting defeat; it's just a matter of keeping frustration manageable. I would do the same, myself, and have done so in other forums back when I was more tightly wound than I am today. For example, I dismissed myself as the administrator of the ambient music mailing list about 11 years ago.
If it makes you feel any better, I've never liked the ambient music article, and despite being somewhat of an expert on the topic, I've avoided going near that one because I am tempted to spend too much time rewriting it. We have to pick our battles around here, though, and these days I'm more passionate about other subjects. The history of 'pure'/'authentic' ambient music, and the increasingly broad application of the word ambient to various forms of 'chill out' and mellow/atmospheric music rooted in very disparate schools of composition (be they textural, percussive, noisy, or not) are topics that are fairly well documented; I've got a number of books and press clippings with interviews showing the connections, and it's easy to find evidence that people use the term more broadly than perhaps they should, not that it's for us to judge… —mjb 02:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
