User talk:Scs/Archive/2006

This is an archive of past discussions. Please do not edit.
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C

Thanks for your note. I still have the image on my machine, so it could easily be re-uploaded. Don't think it will go down too well on the C page, but maybe, as someone suggested, the Crash (computing) article. Camillus (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Pink Floyd

Thanks for the kudos! That FAC was a rough week, I dreamt of references at night. :) Great work on the copyedits today. As to the "supposedly", from the sounds of it, it's highly doubtful they will ever see him again, but putting "as of 2006" would be a good way to hedge it without casting into doubt that it was.

The "tired and formulaic" isn't a direct quote, but it's pretty much a summary of how the Rolling Stone review I used as a ref read. It used phrases like "Gilmour ... seems bored or dispirited" and "few fresh ideas". - dharmabum 21:27, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Good Job!

Thanks for your sincere and caring thoughts conveyed to the young person who was disussing suicide. We could use more people like you, as opposed to some of the distracted and busy work types that generally populate these pages. Once again, great job!!! Kudos! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.219.128.169 (talk • contribs) 07:59, 21 February 2006.

Quadratic equation

Hey there! Thanks for your note on my talk page. I'm happy with any arrangment of the content - it looks great right now :-) --HappyCamper 17:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Invalidity Insurance (Industry, etc.) Convention, 1933 (shelved)

Hi Ummit. I noticed you placed the {{attention}} tag on this article. I was wondering what you had in mind for immediate improvement? Cheers. --Bookandcoffee 20:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Mostly I was bugged by the fragmentary text ""Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to compulsory invalidity insurance,...". I added this note to the talk page. —Steve Summit (talk) 21:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Yeah, it's not the prettiest is it. It's actually a blockquote from the preamble of the Convention itself, and I was using it as a quick introduction to what the document is about. I'm not sure of a better way to convey the information. I guess I could include a larger portion of the text. I'm only focusing on this because there are 185 Conventions, and I've created 82 of them in the last week, all using this format. I'm not too excited about putting {{attention}} tags on them all, because my understanding is the tag is specifically looking for attention from someone familiar with the subject, sometimes referred to as an "expert", often in the context of editing existing text. I see this article currently needing more information, including a better introduction, but I think that's already covered by the stub tag at the bottom.--Bookandcoffee 21:39, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

No big deal about the {attention} tag; I've taken it back off, since you're still working on the article. As to the content, why not say something like "According to the preamble of the Convention, its goal was to 'blah blah blah'"? —Steve Summit (talk) 02:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

PK

Yeah, that's me. How did you come across my username? I might actually be there again this summer. Dbinder 14:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Ah I see. I actually didn't know you weren't there anymore. Every time I come back though, I do notice the personnel changes. I did hear about the move to Newton though. Dbinder 15:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Jayant's suggestion on the reference desk

I see that you've been around a while and that you've posted to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard so I probably don't have to tell you this but don't go spamming user talk pages looking for the weasel word ranter. It's likely to get you blocked. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Good lord, no! Of course not. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, no I wasn't meaning that you were a vandal. It's just that I read through all the stuff in that section and didn't think about what he said until later when I saw your post on the Administrators noticeboard. It's was just that sometimes when someone says to do something we do it without thinking until later. After I saw you had been her a while I figured you wouldn't but... CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah hah!

I thought your username was familiar...I was the admin who implemented your suggestion for the watchlist. I can do your other suggestion as well, but I don't know what the variable is to list the number of changes. I'll ask some questions and around :-) --HappyCamper 23:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there was a bit of resistance towards the implementation, so it only lasted for a few hours. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, I found it useful myself too! --HappyCamper 05:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixing

No problem. Let me know if there's anything else I can do--you seem like a fixer of things, a trait I admire. Chick Bowen 03:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

JVM POV

Steve, I noticed that your statement on arbcom suggests that the JVM article contains POV. What bit's do you think are like this? --Vryl 04:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You wrote over at Waya sahoni's silly pseudo-RfAr: The editors he's in competition with are not all saints, either. Though Merkey is a notable figure who (I believe) deserves an article, its current state is lousy. (Any mention of bringing it up to featured article status is a bad joke.)

I'm curious about why you write this. My impression is that the article is actually pretty good at this point. It might have a slight problem with "undue weight", but it seems quite minor to me. Certainly its's nothing like FA, nor likely to get there, but it seems good-ish. There's a little bit of editors with an animosity toward Merkey "digging up dirt", but that type of stuff seems to get toned down pretty quickly. Obviously, Waya sahoni's disruption makes editing harder, but "lousy" seems rather extreme. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"Lousy" might have been a notch too harsh; I hadn't read the article in a while and was going by memory. But the thing reads like a barely-contained screed; the "undue weight" problems are more than minor.

Sigh. And now I see that, besides being a notch too harsh, it has had an unintended consequence. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Since you asked (but, please, not to get in an argument about them), the sections which seem most POV (or simply unnecessary) to me, and if it were up to me I'd just remove, are: the "participated in the Linux kernel mailing list for many years" paragraph, the paragraph on the Cox thought experiment, the Peyote section, and Judge Schofield's statements. I'd condense the "Lawsuits, threats, accusations" section by at least 50%.

Hmmm... the Cox offer/buying Linux thing is how I first heard of Merkey. That was reported on Groklaw, Slashdot, and a number of other widely read sites. You kinda need the Cox offer to be mentioned to understand the buying offer. That said, I just trimmed a gratuitious sentence from the Cox paragraph. I'm not sure I can be quite as worried about trimming as you though: "Wikipedia's not paper", and all that. Take this all in a friendly spirit though, I don't have any real disagreement with you, just in nuance. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

It's fine if the reader of an article on someone who's an idiot gets the impression they're an idiot, but they shouldn't feel the article was written by someone on a quest to show the person to be an idiot, and that's the impression this one gives. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Jeff does tend to bring out the worst in folks. Once involved, there is no middle ground. You're either for or against, and at least one of the current editors was a named defendant in the original lawsuit. That said, I tend to agree with Lulu. The only reason that Jeff is notable are the sometimes strange things he says and does and they are pretty well documented in the article. --Jerry (Talk) 07:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

My biggest problem is with the introduction. It sets the tone, which is a bit anti-jeff, and probably also factually incorrect. Why is SCO mentioned there?. I don't know why we are having this convo here, but it is probably easier to chat here than there. --Vryl 05:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Most Important Thing Possible

I liked your bit on the WP:AN so much I decided to give it it's own page. Enjoy. JesseW, the juggling janitor 10:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Lol

Lol I'd forgotten about that. No BLXT SNRD is made up, thank God. Although I've seen a few not much better... Herostratus 20:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

CambridgeMACityHall2.jpg

Hi. I'm making the traslation of Cambridge, Massachusetts article for spanish Wikipedia. I saw that CambridgeMACityHall2.jpg image was uploaded by you with PD licence. I'd like to upload this image to Commons, but maybe you could do it for proper license tagging (I, the creator of this work.. etc.). Thank you! --Zuirdj 17:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC) Thank you again!. --Zuirdj 19:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Paris Metro

I agree, the article is looking very nice indeed. It's a shame I've been away from Wikipedia for so long. Polocrunch 18:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

RO-RO

Thanks for your work on improving this article. --JBellis 17:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Colbert Props

Thank you for rationally addressing the issue over the Colbert incident. That was a class act. Somnabot 21:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Parable of process cruft

This works great IMO and is just what we needed. I've tidied it a bit, but it actually describes the career arc of several admins ... - David Gerard 11:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Reference desk

Do you think your comment here is useful to a reference desk, which is designed to direct people to information? Please remember that wikipedia is not a chat board. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes, of course I thought it was useful, otherwise I wouldn't have written it! And while it's true that Wikipedia is not first and foremost a "chat board", certainly some of its non-main-namespace discussions do get rather chatty, and I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with this. (Finally, my view of the Reference Desks are that they're to find answers, which may or may not best be done merely by directing people elsewhere.) —Steve Summit (talk) 16:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The Refrence Desk is not a debate society. Your readdion of this was not appropriate. Please remove it at your nearest convience. Thank you. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It was not my comment, so it is not mine to delete. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I deleted it. You readded it. Please do not readd comments in the future if you are unwilling to vouch for them. Thank you. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I will ask you in turn not to delete the good-faith, on-topic comments of others. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can't do this any more

Steve - just to let you know that I'm am going to leave the RD guideline and RD talk page discussions. I just can't deal with Radiant and Hipocrite any more. Every time I interact with them I end up feeling disgusted and soiled. I am going to find some far corner of Wikpedia where the air is clean and the water is pure and I can leave their poison far behind. Thought you wrote an excellent summary on THB's RfC. Keep up the good work, and thank you for all your help. Gandalf61 21:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, and I do understand. You won't believe me when I say this, but Radiant, at least, is not the evil bully which I do fully realize he seems like to you. (Hipocrite I'm less sure of.) I say this not to suggest that you should be buddy-buddy with him, or to suggest that you should now think me some kind of coat-turning sell-out, but just as a reminder that, in complicated situations like these, there are more perspectives than are dreamt of in all our philosophies, and it's impossible to comprehend them all -- though in time we can begin to. So enjoy your respite, and take care. —Steve Summit (talk) 21:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Reference desk

I noticed some of your comments, particulary at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Vote_stacking_on_MFD. I disagree that there was a consensus-based attempt to make a useful guideline that was them barged in on. There were attempts to have a small group of people vote things into "rules." I suppose part of this IS the vote-versus-discuss conflict, but that's not the whole story. Some of the people shouting "we're pro-consensus" did some things that were actively harmful toward gaining consensus. Anyway you seem like a reasonable type so I thought I'd give you my two cents. There's a lot going on there, and there was rudeness and foolishness on the part of many people, of course. Ned Wilbury 22:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Understood. Thanks. (I've been trying to qualify my descriptions of my understanding of what happened, because I know my understanding isn't complete.) —Steve Summit (talk) 22:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You continue to make good points- thanks for giving helpful input in a tough situation. One thing I have seen is this: it's already accepted practice to remove off-topic stuff from talk pages. I don't think this happens often- it shouldn't NEED to happen often, but it does happen. Generally, people are first given gentle reminders about the purpose of talk pages. I think this works more through a set of social expectations than throught exact rules. Anyway, just wasn't sure if you were aware of this or not, or whether it would matter to you. Ned Wilbury 19:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. And in fact I wasn't aware that this is "accepted practice" -- it always bothers me when I see it, anywhere.

I hate asking this, because it makes me sound like a rule-mongering policy wonk that, believe me, I'm not, but: is this "accepted practice" documented anywhere? Because if it's not, and if others (like me) can reach the opposite conclusion, this may be a big part of the misunderstanding and disagreement. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I would take a look at Wikipedia:Refactoring_talk_pages#Prune specifically and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines in general. The first bit has a sentence that says "Following Wikipedia's talk page guidelines, an editor is encouraged to remove any content that is not appropriate." But, as you said, this can easily come off as rude, and so caution is advised. In practice, fairly wide latitude is given to people who are TRYING to say something useful. As is unfortunately common here, different pages will say different things about this- good judgment is needed. Ned Wilbury 19:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks and double standards

Hi - I'm responding here rather than on the refdesk talk page, because I don't want to head off the main line of discussion. I take your point that 'two wrongs don't make a right' - but my point was that StuRat, in particular, has tended to warn Clio about personal attacks, while completely ignoring or even supporting Loomis's far worse attacks. Hence 'double standards'. There's a history here - and as far as I remember, you weren't involved in the earlier parts of it. Yours, Sam Clark 14:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I gathered it might have been something like that. Thanks for the additional perspective. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Priorities

This was maybe getting a bit long for Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/guidelines. Some of what we're looking at here is different priorities. Some editors give free speech a higher value than the improvement of the ref desk. Some editors do the opposite. To see this in action, check out Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Lines_I_suggest_be_removed. Friday (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Appreciation and concern

Hi Steve. First of all, I really appreciate your efforts to mediate on the reference desk issues; you're absolutely right that we need discussion and concessions on both sides. However, your basic proposal seems to be:

1. People shouldn't post inappropriate comments
2. If they do, nobody has the "right" to remove them

I just don't see how that's a solution, and I also don't see how it's consistent with the wiki process, which as I never grow tired of linking is a Foundational Issue. We need another way, and it will ultimately involve people realizing to some degree that they are on Wikipedia, and that "Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech". If the goals of the reference desk are to welcome new users, answer their questions, and involve them in Wikipedia—and we can agree that those are at least a subset of the goals, right?—then (in the non-ideal world in which we live) it has to be possible to remove content that interferes with those goals. If people insist on taking offense at the very concept that there are limits to what they should type, then I don't see how avoiding offending them is possible except by abdicating my allegiance to the goals. Your input on this problem would be great. Thanks, SCZenz 02:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It's not a "proposal"; it's just an idea. I am probably attaching more importance than I ought to to the desire to not have things deleted merely because they're inappropriate, and while I'm not willing to change my mind yet, I do at least recognize the conflict.

My biggest objection (and not just with you, but with several others who have been making the same claim) is to the notion that "the wiki process" gives one carte blanche to delete anything, anywhere, which one feels does not help the project. My feeling is that this is only one part of the wiki process, and that the right to delete is not as absolute as some would make it sound.

Please understand that I am not defending anyone's right to post absolutely anything they want, nor asserting that no one has the right to delete anything, ever. There's a fine line, here, which is difficult to define. And, for what it's worth, I too have occasionally been annoyed by excessive banter and joking on the Reference Desks, and long before this recent brouhaha broke out.

—Steve Summit (talk) 02:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we've not been explaining ourselves clearly; it's hard to get all the caveats of a subtle situation into everything you say. Obviously you can't have a carte blanche to change anything, anywhere. Instead, common sense, precendent, and sometimes specific written rules have to be used. On articles, anyone can change anything if it improves the article; it's only if consensus is against you that combative editing becomes inappropriate. On talk pages, Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines says that "off-topic comments are subject to removal." On the reference desk, lacking (as of yet) specific guidelines, I think making the page more consistent with its goals is the best guide for which edits are appropriate. Of course we shouldn't go around removing anything we don't like, and yet if something is clearly harmful and doesn't contribute in any way... well, there shouldn't be any objections to removing it. Obviously there is a line to be drawn somewhere—but the fact that a few users will object to anything being removed, no matter how boorish or unhelpful, makes me believe more and more that action has to be taken with or without their consent. My current strategy is to solicit reasoned advice before removing anything from the talk pages, but I think it's fair to accept only advice based on Wikipedia policy and the goals of the reference desk. -- SCZenz 02:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Friday

THere is currently a call to bring User:Friday back for re election as admin on his talk page. Your comments are welcome!--Light current 00:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)