User talk:Mav/archive 13

Maveric149 Archive 13 (June 2003)[edit]

You're going to bring back lots of nice pictures from Yellowstone to illustrate Wikipedia with, right? ;) -- John Owens 23:41 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Yep - all my photos will be under the GNU FDL (I still have dozens more to upload from my Death Valley trip - not to mention the dozen or so of field note pages that need to be adapted... Argh!). :) --mav

Don't m-o-o-o-o-s-h anything you take a picture of this time, huh? Have a good time!<G> --Someone else 00:04 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

LOL. The last thing I want to do is step on a bear. ;) --mav

Your version of media:Shoreline Butte Death Valley-thumb.jpg is much too dark. I downloaded it and changed the brightness and contrast, but now I can't figure out how to upload it and overwrite the old version. Smack

Hi, Maverick.

May I ask what is the purpose of the Palestine/Archive 1 Palestine/Archive 2 and Palestine/Archive 3 you created? They currently all REDIRECT to Palestine, which seems pretty silly to me.

uriber 21:43 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Answer is on your talk page. --mav

Hi Mav,

(where have you been? A wiki without Mav is like England without the Queen, Catholicism without the Pope! :-) ) Anyway, Martin reinstated Michael's reply to my comments on Jimbo's page which you had removed. I have put in a reply suggesting a course of action to Michael. Please take a look at it and feel free to add to it or take away from it (under your name or mine - I trust you implicitly to do the right thing!) if you think it goes to far or not far enough. lol FearÉIREANN 03:09 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

LOL - I just looked at the most active page again.... I seem to have passed-up both the conversion script and Rambot! Yikes! So I took a week-long vacation to Yellowstone and several places along the way. I loved it and took over 300 high res digital photos that are waiting on my partner's notebook computer for me to convert to Wikipedia-friendly sizes. Anyway, I read your reply to Micheal and have nothing to add - you said it all altough I am doubtful that Micheal is mentally able to process your message. Sigh. --mav

My God but digital cameras are great fun, aren't they. I took 200 photos at my sister's wedding and reception, and about fifty before the day and of my local area. I had great fun winding up some friends there with 'normal' cameras who were saying that they had taken 48. I'd casually mention I had 520 left on my camera and they'd go green with envy, especially as I was able to review them there and then. SO they'd take their snap, then rush to me and ask to see mine!!! I have also been photographing old photographs (like one of my great-grandfather who was born in 1849 and died in 1928) and putting them onto my computer. Oh the joy!!! :-) FearÉIREANN 06:51 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The most active wikipedians page was updated recently. I'm still #7, which strikes me as undeniable evidence I need a life away from my computer. But you!... you've made three times the edits I have, in half the time. I fear for you, mav. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 18:37 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yes - I am hopeless! :) --mav

Thanks for moving Talk:Mojave Desert. I probably didn't do the move correctly. -- hike395 21:32 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Generally using the "Move this page" feature is best but that doesn't work when the target has multiple items in its history. Thus I had to delete the target page before the move. --mav

And undelete it afterwards, to reunite the history? :-) Koyaanis Qatsi 21:41 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It was only a couple different redirects. --mav

Hi Mav, I checked around with a few people (and chatted with some wiki people on AIM (my new toy over the last week)) and there was universal agreement that the History of China page was unsalvagable in its current form and required reversion. I have reverted to the 31st May version as you suggested; it was easily the last good version that represented the contributions of an range of people, not just one. lol FearÉIREANN 02:30 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That's what I figured. I'll take a look at the new user's edits to try and salvage whatever I can from them. --mav

its nice to have some links at the top of the current events. i request you put them back.

The subject of the page is current events and each entry has links to the relevant articles. --mav

Hi Mav. You are right of course re my comments on Republic of Ireland. I was exhausted, about to go to bed and then found Scipius back starting the exact same stuff as last time. I kinda saw red. I actually was going into the page to remove that allegation when I saw your stuff. I have removed it. (I hope you don't mind but I then removed your first line. As the stuff it commented on is no longer there and was being removed in any case I thought your stuff would read kinda weird without my text as a reference point. I hope that was OK with you. Feel free to re-instate it if you want.)

I'm sure you remember Scipius's last attempt to do this to this page. He was determined to turn it into a page about Ireland, called Ireland. He seemed determined to do this even when other Irish people, Northern Irish people or others either disagreed (or in the case of the Irish/NI people were actually offended by it!). Now he is trying the same lark. Build up a lot of stuff in the page about Ireland, then insist as so much of the stuff is about Ireland, the article should be called Ireland not the R of I. The trouble is, not just is that twisting the meaning of the page, some of the stuff he tried to add in again tonight is as wrong now as it was six months ago. And it is annoying to Irish people now to see it as it was to Irish people then. He gets titles incorrect, mis-understands facts, aspects of history, information on the Irish language, etc. The annoying thing is that the current version of the page was an agreed rewrite. Because I knew the facts I agreed to do it. I then contacted various people involved in the debate (for example, Derek Ross) asking them to look over the text and see did they agree with it, etc. And there was almost unanimous agreement on the layout, topics covered and text. I am perfectly open to more changes. But what I am not open to is yet another attempt by Scipius to change things from an agreed form to one he wants and which most other users don't, which is littered with inaccuracies, irrelevancies and dodgy analyses.

And (as I explained to him before) the CIA factsbook for all its qualities seems to have a habit of getting facts about Ireland mixed up. (For example, on nomenclature. Maybe it is because in this case as I have researching the whole issue of Irish state names for my own book that the mistakes are so obvious - perhaps it is wrong with other countries too but no-one on wiki has the detailed factual knowledge to notice, or simply because it is so damned complicated in Ireland that someone at sometime got it somewhat wrong in the CIA and as the same inaccurate template keeps recurring the same mistakes are being repeated. But going by Scipius's attempts last time, I can see yet another attempt to 're-adjust' the content of the page, as a prelude to arguing 'as it is now about all of Ireland, the article should simply be called 'Ireland'.' *sigh* here he go again. lol. FearÉIREANN 04:01 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Your changes to my comment are OK by me. I hope we can avoid an edit war with Scipius - he has been a great deal of help to the project but is a bit stuburn sometimes. --mav

I'm certainly tenacious ;). I see JTD has been going around for help and misrepresenting my position in the process. I have never engaged in an edit war, but I do strongly resent the impression JTD gives of my efforts, when I've always been curtious towards him and appreciative of his otherwise excellent work. The issue of the name of the article is past us, this is about the template itself. See User talk:Jlk7e for more on some of the points JTD raises, which he should probably have mentioned in the RoI talk page rather than accusing me of vandalism. I would like your input to the questions I raised back at the RoI talk page, since this might have far reaching consequences for the template (and a lot of work for me...). -Scipius 23:12 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Wow. - Hephaestos

Thanks! Although I like this better. :) --mav

this one is good too. Koyaanis Qatsi 07:17 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It's mav 3.0--we'll make him better, stronger, faster, immune to symptoms from sleep deprivation.... [insert sound effect] Koyaanis Qatsi 06:53 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

LOL. It'll take me a long time to incorporate all those images into Wikipedia articles so I may need aother upgrade soon. :-) --mav

But we only had $6 Million for the budget! How much do you think your current upgrades cost? ;-) Koyaanis Qatsi

ROTFL. :-) --mav

So what's the next version after mav 3.0? Mav '95? -- John Owens 09:01 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

or maybe Mavrasoft 2004XP 5.4 -fonzy

Heavens no! :) I'm a Linux-only establishment. --mav

I thought the next version would be Zoe in a spinoff series with derivative edit wars. ;-) Koyaanis Qatsi 22:37 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Do you think this is a fake article about element 119: Porumbescium - fonzy

Yes - that does seem odd. I'll check it out. --mav

Did you mean to remove the slang definition from the Beaver article? If so, why? If not, put it back silly. ;) --Dante Alighieri 10:17 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It's really out of place since Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a usage guide for that matter. If you like you can put it back and I won't object though. --mav

Just checking, "Craters of the Moon NM" = "Craters of the Moon National Monument", right? I almost added a caption describing it as being in New Mexico. -- John Owens 11:14 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yep it is the National Monument. Thanks helping to spread my photos around. :) --mav

Mav, I have moved your photo from bacterium to bacterial lawn. Hope you don't mind...it seems to me that for the former, something microscopic would be better, but it fits in perfectly for the latter. --Josh

Good move! I didn't know we had such an article yet. --mav

D'oh! I seem to have been the one who first created the article.... --mav

Hi, could you take a look at DXM when you get a chance? I tried to correct the formatting and convert fragments to sentences, but I left parts of it alone because I didn't know how to change them, being generally unversed in the subject. Maybe you know something about the subject; I notice you've been working on some of the elements. Or maybe not. :-) Thanks. Koyaanis Qatsi 05:40 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'll give it a go. :) --mav

It looks like Axel already fixed it. --mav

Hi Mav, could you have a word with 149.101.1.126 They have been editing many Irish pages. Some of their work is excellent. Other bits highly POV to put it mildly, with a strong anti-republican agenda that has no balance. I'm hardly a republican sympathiser but some of the 'add-ins' are so OTT they beggar belief, such as acclaiming former taoiseach John Bruton as the most pro-British of taoisigh, a ludicrous add in Daniel O'Connell, an insistance on changing the name of the wife of Eamon de Valera - she called herself Sinead Bean de Valera which is an old form used by many women until recent years, meaning Sinead, the wife of de Valera. (Her page calls her simply Sinead de Valera, using a '|' to allow mention of the form of name she preferred and which is often used). But the user insists on calling her Sinead Flanagan de Valera, a version never used, which she herself would be insulted by, and which would be unrecognised by anyone.

I have advised the user to be more NPOV and to be careful to follow naming conventions. Sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they blatently ignore advice and add highly questionable unsourced quotes and highly questionable analyses to articles. I along with Jimregan have had to revert some of their work a number of times and am fed up having to NPOV articles they have POVed. The worst of all is that sometimes we simply don't know if some changes are accurate or just another bit of POV screwing around. One day they are co-operative and adding in good stuff. The next day or the next article, they are mucking around with POV stuff, reinsterting deleted stuff in capitals (!) and mixing clearly wrong info with stuff the accuracy of which I do not know. Perhaps you may have better luck in getting them to realise what NPOV means, how the naming conventions work, etc. (BTW they also signed in before under a different ISP). Thanks and the best of luck. FearÉIREANN 18:37 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

If I happen to see this person editing in RC then I'll leave a note for them on his/her talk page. But this person seems to have been editing from a dynamic IP. You seem to have handled this in a good way and I have yet to see any edits by this person to talk pages. Most people get the picture after a few reverts and either leave or change their behavior. --mav

Thanks, Mav. It is frustrating with the above user because some of their edits suggest they will be a very good user indeed. Others drive Irish people up the wall because they are so extreme and POV. (Sometimes the user gives the impression that the Irish are all Brit-bashing bigoted sectarian fanatic catholics and adds in pieces to support this thesis, which is frustrating as I and others have spent months removing such cardboard clichés and instead sought to convey the complexity.) In addition they make changes even after I and others have appealed to them to be careful and know in a practical sense what doing something results in. (Like removing a pipe that shapes a link to a page, eg they now leave Sinead Bean de Valera in but change [[Sinead de Valera|Sinead Bean de Valera]] to [[Sinead Bean de Valera]] even though I have specially created a Sinead de Valera page and doing that breaks the link. AAAAAGH!

Re that Welsh politician (whose name I have forgotten. Deb asked me to add it to the main page. Knowing Deb's thoroughness I presumed she had done the other stuff. To be honest I know nothing about the politician in question: I get the impression his death was announced today and as it was only of local interest (hence Deb's knowledge of it) it has not been carried on any national British stations. BTW I really think Deb should be a sysop. She is one of the best and most thorough workers on wiki. I have offered to propose her but heard nothing back from her tonight yet. She really has all the qualities necessary. I know from my work on the naming convention pages on royalty and clergy that she has been a godsend. Wiki is a better place because she is on. lol (I'm logging on, as I have a heavy cold and have an early morning appointment with the doctor. Me, bed and off wiki early! Shock, Horror!!! :-) FearÉIREANN 23:54 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yeah we've got to watch out for the anon and yes Deb should be an Admin if she wants to be. --mav

OK. So I not in bed yet. :-( I hope I haven't goofed but reading what you wrote in China I reverted to the last full article on the page prior to disamb (the full one by Fred Bauder) because I thought that is what you meant, ie, that China should not be a disambigulation page. But I now see you are working on the PRoC page (ooooh. Dangerous. You know what happens to people who touch 'communist' articles! :-) ) If I shouldn't have reverted, needless to say re-revert and post a 'sorry guys'n'gals' message as I'll be in dreamland at the time. In any case, this time I am going to bed. BTW I have sent a msg around nominating Deb.

BTW 2: - I'd be interested to hear your observations on what I wrote on the w-list about the Great Capitalisation Debate (to use British English), or the great capitalization debate (in American English - should that not be american english *grin*?). Anyway, lol, I'm a-hitting slumberland (OK, after one last look at my watchlist (Jeez this thing is addictive.) FearÉIREANN 00:41 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The China thing is cool as-is so long as we can bang out a decent article on the grand subject of China that isn't really about the PRC. Your note to the mailing list was interesting but Ec has already cited many, many publications and standards bodies - on both sides of the pond - that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that capitalization of species outside of the birds is spurious. The general trend you mention is really a side note. --mav

See my note on China at the bottom of this page ^.^ Uncle Ed 13:38 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Lots of traffic emanating from here... I guess the other firefighters are sleeping :) -- Notheruser 00:50 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

My connection is really slow right now - probably because I have about 50 Konqueror edit windows open to a bunch of new user pages. I'll take a took at RC as soon as I clear this queue. --mav

I think Wikipedia was mentioned on The Screen Savers too... (according to a village pump comment). -- Notheruser 02:03 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I hadn't intended to comment any more on the capitals issue, but out of politeness I felt I had to reply to your message. I just find it a bit sad that the generally liberal approach of Wikipedia means I could write about sexual positions, porn stars, lists of stupid thing, and breeds of dogs (which appear to be accepted with caps) but I feel unable to do any more cetaceans (or dragonflies, which I'd hoped to develop), without starting an edit war.

I accept that I might sometimes have been a bit intemperate, or, as you say, put up straw men (although I think my paranoia is understandable), but I don't think I'm alone in that.

Steve Nova seems to have voted with his feet, and if Tannin really has dropped out for more than a temporary period, that seems tragic to me, particularly on this issue. I regret being in the position of defensive writing (ie just birds), but I really just don't have the stomach to continue wasting so much time on this.

No doubt you will reiterate that there is no ownership of articles, and that the great project is more important than individuals, but I am reluctant to write articles, say on dolphins or insects, which are going to be taken apart, not on content, grammar or spelling, but by the imposition of an inflexible style.

There appears to be a de facto truce at the moment, with no-one (apart from Stan and his fish) writing non-bird fauna articles, and whilst I'm not happy about that, at least I don't have to spend half the day on the mailing list.

jimfbleak 05:53 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

There still are plenty of bird articles to write; plenty of time to tackle the 4,500 or so species of mammals later. And calling the downstyle inflexible seems odd since the capitalization scheme you want is also inflexible (in addition to being unnatural and unstandard ; you folks still haven't proven this not to be the case while Ec has proven that it is the case). If no-international standards body says to capitalize mammal names then why in the world is this so important to you? Mammal common names are not certain or written in stone (like bird names) so using capitalization wrongly indicates that these are official names. --mav

As it happens, I just logged on again because I realised that my position looked inflexible. In other areas, such as articles on US states, or on countries, there is a standard style, which obviously makes sense, but my impression is that this is a consensus reached by the contributors writing those articles, rather than imposed from above. Why can't that be the case on fauna?

I don't think Ec has proved his case: "Whales, Dolpins and Porpoise" capitalises, and that is a recent American publication. My insect and dragonfly books also capitalise. Anyway, I'm allowing myself to get caught up in this fruitless debate again, when I could be writing cutting edge articles from Easton's Biblical Encyclopedia, 1608 (or whenever).

I accept that outside birds any fauna article is likely to start an edit war again, and life's too short to bother. jimfbleak 07:43 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

As I said before I find the concept of capitalizing species names (in order to be specific) neat. But we cannot ignore standard rules of English grammar just because something is neat. And take a look at my user contribs; you will find that I too write fauna articles and so does Ec. Just because this is not currently either of our focus doesn't mean that we don't contribute to that area (we also were two of the three main instigators of WikiProject Tree of Life). And conventions, esp naming conventions, are formed by people who are interested in contributing to forming the conventions. For example I helped create the template and conventions used in many different WikiProjects yet I have made no really significant contributions to individual articles in most of these WikiProjects except in Tree of Life, Elements, Orders of magnitude, and Historical anniversaries. Forming standards is an important thing to do and doesn't require subsequent large contributions to specific articles. --mav

that was quick, 2 mins from posting to first edit, thanks, Ping 08:14 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Welcome aboard! Get used to quick editing around here (wiki means "quick"). --mav

Hi, mav. A belated thanks for your warm welcome. I have given the series of China articles considerable thought in my absence, and I hope to focus on that area in the near future.

My take on "China" is that the article should describe all "Chinese" territory and people. However, due to changes (and disputed changes) in sovereignty occurring in the 20th century, some terminological conflict has arisen; dealing with the terminology will be a challenge for us all.

One way to deal with this challenge is to consider categories such as names of political entities. The PRC governs the mainland (directly) and Hong Kong (indirectly). Am I right so far? The PRC goverment also claims sovereignty over Taiwan as a "province" -- a claim which has evoked various responses from other political entities. We have (or should have) an article dealing with the Taiwan sovereignty issue.

One thing we SHOULDN'T do is assume that whatever the UN or one of its agencies (like the WHO) says, is "neutral" or "objective". I think it's common knowledge that UN positions on issues are often more motivated by the national self-interest of member nations than by strict adherence to the noble motives of the UN charter. But, *sigh*, maybe this "knowlegde" is merely my personal POV.

Anyway, I'm not saying I have a definitive answer. I'm just saying I'd like to be part of the solution, as much as time permits. I'm going to be busy the next 3 or 4 weeks, but starting mid-July I should be able to devote a decent amount of time to Wikipedia again. --Uncle Ed 13:38 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

As usual you are right Ed. What we are now doing is creating an article that is just on China (the ancient cultural/geographic entity) and having separate articles on the PRC, ROC and Taiwan. Check out China/Temp (which will soon replace China). That should give us a good starting point to cut through this very complicated issue. And yes we shouldn't treat the UN as an "unbiased" authority esp when the very un-democratic Security Council is concerned. --mav

Surely the UN as a whole is a democratic body-one nation one vote-, and it's difficult to see why the WHO and other agencies are more biased than national agencies. The Security Council is not intended to be democratic. It is there to give the major nations, through the permanent places and veto, a position which reflects the realities of world politics, and, through the veto again, a system of checks and balances between the great powers.

Although the permanent members may reflect past realities rather than present (ie, no Japan, Germany or India), I can't imagine any of the "big five" queuing up to support matters of world security to be decided on a straight democratic vote of all 118ish nations. jimfbleak

You'll probably scream and begin pulling your hair out when I say this, but could you please look at Bush family conspiracy theory. As I'm sure you know I am by no means a fan of Bush but this article strikes me as so pathetically POV and blatently paranoid as almost to be fun. What it isn't is anything that IMHO could remotely be justified as existing in its current form on any encyclopædia. I have thought and thought about it and I don't see how you can seriously and adequately NPOV this article without driving the 'X-Files' type wikipedians (and we have some) mad with thoughts of secret pro-Bush conspiracies on wiki to cover up 'the truth'. I have no problem with the idea of having such an article but I am stumped at how to apply genuinely NPOV standards to it when among the serious changes it levels against Bush is the fact that Bush's Defense Advisor Richard Perle apparently has a nickname, amongst friends, as "The Prince of Darkness". Or the even more convincing George H. W. Bush, a member of the Skull and Bones society, was head of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1976-77. And don't forget the mesmorizingly shocking Saddam Hussein, was provided with weapons and funding during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration. Golly. That is it. So Bush is clearly a secret nazi-leaning, Osama-friendly part of a worldwide conspiracy. After all, Pearle, the Skull and Bones Society and Saddam twenty years ago - what more evidence does anyone need? :-)

Seriously though, can you help turn his article into something that might even slightly show some even passing resemblance to NPOV, or at least the sort of article that you could imagine someone finding on a google search and not be ashamed that they found it? FearÉIREANN 07:58 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I gave it a go. We can't really delete the charges because the odd people who believe this conspiracy theory actually say that rubbish. I'm sure most readers will understand that we are just describing an odd theory and that we do not put any particular trust in the conspiracy theory's position. --mav

Thanks, Mav. You improved the article considerably. I have added in my own changes, in the form of the alternative interpretation of some of the 'evidence' given in a separate block below the current one. I hope though critical of the pro-conspiracy analysis it is fair and simply NPOVs, not POVs the piece. Perhaps you might give it a look over and see what you think. BTW I am surprised that the creators of this page missed the real story. The Bush people are oil-men, from Texas. What famous event in Texas are Texas-oil men (according to one conspiracy theory at least!) meant to have been behind? Why, the assassination of JFK of course. What I want to know is, where was George Herbert Bush on 22nd November 1963? Did any member of the Bush family ever visit a bar, bus shelter, public toilet, etc that Lee Harvey Oswald visited? Was the assassination of JFK a plot to put another Texan oilman, LBJ, in the White House? And was Dick Cheney involved somehow? :-) FearÉIREANN 04:54 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

ok, sorry, I will find another place for the new photo, I didn't know that picture was taken by a Wikipedian. It just looked too blurry, and as you said, both can be put on the same page, or others. -- Rotem Dan 14:49 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

No biggie. I probably sounded more pissy than the situation warrented because I have been up for 24 hours now. --mav

Question: Why did you move the current "China" page to People's Republic of China. That had already been done days ago and the new article edited several times. Please revert. Keep the People's Republic of China page as it was before. The China page should simply be replaced. Jiang 06:19 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Because all the text in the PRC article was developed at China. I was only half way through all the moves. --mav

Thanks for the kind words, Mav. But I won't be a great admin here other than by complaining. I am already a "great" admin (by complaining as well...) on fr. I only wish to take care of my "own" (sort of...) business here without bothering others all the time :-) User:anthere

Complaining is important too. :-) And when I say "great" I mean "will not abuse Admin powers and is likely to use them for good - if so compelled by the moment."--mav

President of the United States of America has president and first lady capitalised throughout the text. None of these words is a proper noun, none are capitalised in my dictionaries, first lady isn't (as far as I know) even an official position, and in this context they are not even referring to particular individuals.

Since that article has an exclusively American context, nobody is likely to object to changing to American lower case style. I can't see why you don't sort articles like that out before starting (again) on more contentious areas.

"Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises" has sold 5,000,000 plus (including the USA) and is hardly a specialist book. The point of capitals is not to confer spurious official status; it is, outside the USA, a normal convention. WDP capitalises alternative names too. The list in Dolphin is identical to WDP.

I was tempted back to doing something on Dolphins by seeing the new articles, but I obviously made an error doing so. jimfbleak 06:59 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You keep saying that the upstyle of all animal common names is common outside of the states and yet have not compiled a list of citations nearly equivalent to Ec's which indicates this is so. I wish it were possible to use capitals for species names but we cannot so long as that is counter to common English grammar (lacking any standards body saying otherwise as well). And the capitalization used in the above articles is OK for two reasons: "President" in this context refers to an official title the "President of the United States" -- same with the quasi-official First Lady/First Lady of the United States. If the common noun "president" used in a non-specific context then I would expect lowercase. Same for "first lady." --mav

Sorry Mav, I'm with Jim on this one (though I agree with what you say on First Lady/first lady!). I don't think users of American english realise just how much their attitude towards capitalisation infuriates the hell out of non-Americans. I and another European both worked on an article some weeks ago. It was finished only a couple of minutes when a possé of American-english users swarmed in and tore it to shreds, lowercasing things that we had been taught since we were five year olds should be uppercased. By that point both of us were on the brink of screaming fuck wikipedia and quitting completely (as I know some people have done over this very issue. One American in particular has driven people away with his 'everything in lowercase' fucking up of articles. He even suggested Prime minister at one stage somewhere!). If American english-users keep up with their 'we are right. You have to prove up wrong' tone there won't be any non-Americans on wiki. People are annoyed enough at how the big publishing houses are now opting to issue books worldwide in American-english because it is cheaper than doing separate print-runs in AE and BE, without then being told 'oh but look this major book doesn't capitalise'. Of course it doesn't capitalise, the publishers have chosen AE to the fury of native non-AE users. FearÉIREANN 08:25 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

As I said I would like to capitalize common names of species but I need to see a fair amount of evidence to support this as a rule of grammar. At this point I am not acting on anything ; I am hoping that the capitalizers will either accept the great deal of evidence put forward by Ec to support downstyle (cites from both sides of the pond) or for the capitalizers to compile a similar amount of evidence to support their claims. They already did this with the birds and I am happy to concede that it is OK to capitalize bird names so long as lowercased redirects are provided (we are only talking about 10,000 or so articles so it is reasonable to assume we can have redirects for every one). And if the general trend is to go toward the down style - even with European publishers then doesn't that just indicate that the language as a whole is evolving? Why should we not also follow this trend? --mav

That is missing the point. Academics, researchers, local publishing houses etc use European standard capitalisation. Some of the biggest publishers (who have in the last decade due to the removal of the legal protections offered to local publishers to stop them being swallowed up by American multinationals, have been taking over native publishing houses) for reasons that have nothing to do with grammar or spelling and everything to do with producing one print run rather than two and so have more money for themselves, have chosen to the fury of academics, researchers, teachers, local publishing houses and the general publishing houses to force American english standards (in some cases even spelling) on the rest of the world. This has led some academics to quit writing for these publishing houses (I know three alone who have walked and a fourth who is threatening to sue a major publisher on this issue). It is openly being described as American linguistic imperialism. For wiki to decide that because multi-national publishers have been trying to force American english on the rest of the world, it should follow their efforts and ignore the rest of the world is perverse. Put bluntly, there efforts are seen as amounting to a statement of "It is cheaper for us to do one print run, and so sell the same book in America and elsewhere, than to have to produce a version in British english for Britain, Ireland, Europe, Austral-asia, and an American english version for America. We are so dominant that we are going to simply use American english, and there is fuck all you can do about it because we are so big we now control the market." Wiki should have nothing to do with such an attitude. FearÉIREANN 21:04 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That still begs the question on whether or not it is in fact correct grammar in any English dialect to capitalize species names. I have yet to see any substantive proof for this assertion (believe me I would welcome such proof so that we could have a consistent naming convention for all species). --mav

One of the arguments for lower case was that dictionaries and encyclopedias always use lower case. The point I was making with the President example is that real life usage, even in the Wikipedia, does not conform to dictionary rules, which only capitalise genuine proper nouns.

I would accept that lower case is not restricted to the US, but it is certainly more common. I searched Google for {gray whale org.uk} (American species, American spelling, with the org.uk to weed out many US-based sites), and the majority of the responses capitalised as Gray Whale. This cannot be decribed as a specialist source.

I really can't understand why you, Fred and Ec are prepared to cause so much grief over this issue in an area in which you otherwise appear to have little interest. jimfbleak 08:29 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Little interest? I am very interested in making sure Wikipedia follows correct rules of grammar. The whole point of our naming conventions is to make sure we encourage page titles that would be grammatically correct in a sentence - as is. That way all somebody has to do to make a link is tack on a couple brackets on both sides of a term. Clean and natural. I am also very interested in the subject of biology - so much so I got a degree in it. --mav

Argh, I started this new bout with my dolphin query, didn't I? I think I stated my opinion on the mailing list that I think that for common nouns we should call things whatever the largest number of people expect them to be called. Or something like that. Well, that's what I'm saying now, anyway... I capitalised the dolphin names only because I looked up information on them with Google, and the pages I found capitalised the names. I didn't do a full statistical analysis, though, so I still don't know what the most common usage is for those particular animals. But aardvark is still spelt with a lower-case "a" in most pages, so I still think we should talk about "the aardvark", rather than "the Aardvark"... -- Oliver P. 09:31 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Wow, Mav. Great pixs! FearÉIREANN 03:43 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! :) --mav

Mav. I found following message on my talk page (why me?). As a Brit I don't know is it makes any sense, so I'll leave it to you. jimfbleak 07:47 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sir, can you please move Washington, DC into the District of Columbia, the name Washington, DC is not the legal name of this federal district, The City of Washington in technicially located in the District of Columbia. The way it is set up right now District of Columbia goes to Washington, DC it should be the reverse. Thank you kindly for your attention.

Done. --mav

But the shawm was a Renaissance oboe! -- Oliver P. 07:50 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Anytime a stub is so small that the only info in it can be obtained from an article linking to it then it is of no practical use. Simply saying that a shawm is an oboe is like only saying iron is an element or almost as bad as only saying Dallas, Texas is a city in Texas. If you would like to write a stub using complete sentences and give at least a little bit more info then please do so. --mav

Sorry... I'm in my paranoid all-the-sysops-are-abusing-their-powers mood today. I think I'd best be off now, before I fall out with everyone. Nice pictures, by the way. :) -- Oliver P. 08:21 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

No apology needed. People like you need to be a bit paranoid to keep real abuses from happening in the first place. Thanks for the photo compliment. :) --mav

Hypenated words are lower case if they describe the bird, eg Red-necked Phalarope, Red-backed Shrike. Increasingly hyphens are being used (where they would not have been in the past) to clarify taxonomic groups; these are always capitalised in species, eg Wilson's Storm-Petrel.

I hadn't finished the palm thrushes, a friend arrived unexpectedly, so we had a coffee in the sun in the garden (I've obviously failed to completely destroy my social life!), I'll have a look now. jimfbleak 09:08 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Mea culpa; when I created these articles, I formed the group names as I normally do, by copying from the species list, but this time forgot to lowercase. I've moved the pages, so the Saxicolini should be correct now. I've be trying to sort the Corvidae and Turdidae into some sort of logical arrangement. I'm not totally happy with Turdidae still, but at least it's comprehensive, and can wait until another day for more tinkering. jimfbleak

You are the expert on when and when not to capitalize bird names so I leave that into your most capable hands (just make redirects where appropriate :) --mav

How do you find the new users? Ilyanep

There is a query that Admins can do but what I do is open up new users' user pages one by one as I see them in RC. Then when I have so many user pages open (usually about 50) that my computer starts to slow down I go ahead and greet each of those users and close the corresponding windows. --mav

So it's almost impossible to find many new users unless you're a sysop. --Ilyanep

How did you get that idea? The way I do it does not require Admin abilities. Just a lot of ram and an OS that can handle having scores of webpages open at once (Linux). --mav

YEah, but an admin can do query while a use has to go through the recent changes, in which half of the pages have been added. BTW, you should use a tabbed browser if you do that, try Mozilla (I'm not sure if it works on linux though). --- Ilyanep (never mind what I said...I meant it's harder that way)

I try to stay away from the queries becasue they slow down the server and give way too many results that then have to be pre-processed before they are used (the queries give plain text results - no links). That is far more work than just clicking the mouse wheel down to open a user page into a new window. Konqueror is a tabbed browser. I just have a certain work-flow that doesn't use tabs yet. It might save some RAM so I'll see if it works but many of the things I do do really need separate windows. --mav

Thanx. BTW, I advise archiving now... --Ilyanep

Argh! I just did a day or two ago. --mav

Hi Mav, I just had a look at you great pictures of the anti-living valley. I wish, I could be there one day to see this, the images are just unbeleavable! I was just wondering, why they are in no order, one over the other, some here, some there, or is it just my MS Internetexplorer mixing it all up? Fantasy 21:05 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't know what you mean by "anti-living valley" though.... They are in alphabetical order in the wiki text but they will look different in different browsers and different screen sizes. --mav

Sorry, I like to use different words for the same thing (Death Valley = anti-living valley... ;-) Regarding the fotos: on Mozilla it seems to work, but on the Internetexplorer i have to scroll 5 times to the left to see some of the images and some are even one hiding part of the other image. It was just to let you know, but it's not so important. Have fun, Fantasy 06:36 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, Mav, for being a little late in the lower-case discussion of species names, hope you haven't closed it yet. I am looking at Trees of Britain and Europe and just looking at two species Heldreich's Maple Acer heldreichii and (no common name) A. trautvetteri are mentioned on one page, exactly as shown. Collins Pocket Guide, Trees of Britain & Northern Europe does exactly the same. Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners too spells specific names in lower case. It certainly bears out your case. Dieter Simon 23:36 16 Jun 2003 (UTC) Perhaps I should say the common name of the species does appear in capital letters but the scientific name appears in lower case Dieter Simon

Actually that argues the case for the capitalizers sicne we use the common names whenever they are available. Thanks for the cite - at least several more will be needed to demonstrate that the up-style is OK for us to use. --mav

This is the last time I will come back, I promise :-). Flora Britannica on p223 has Broad-leaved everlasting-pea, L(athyrus) latifolius; Two-flowered everlasting-pea or Tangier pea, L. grandiflora; Norfolk everlasting-pea, L. heterophyllus; Sweet pea, L. odoratus and garden pea, Pisum sativum, all in one para, exactly as shown. A rather quirky compilation, but there it is. Trouble is as most of them appear at the beginning of sentences the generic names all appear in capitals. Hope it helps Dieter Simon

Hi Mav, I don't know how much you know about copyright law but I've been looking at some of the images Joe Canuck has downloaded and I think we may have a problem. The ones I looked at are of sports stars. In some cases he claims fair use but without indicating where they came from (so no credit can be given). In most cases he gives no clue as to where they came from at all. A lot of them are shots of, say Steffi Graf during a tennis match. From what I know, all such shots would be the copyright property of a news agency, but most of his images have no info whatsoever, a small number have fair use - no idea of who took the shot, where they took the shot, whether copyright had been waved, etc.

I have left two messages on his page. The first one politely explained the reason why we needed to know the origins of photos. He didn't reply, just deleted it, the way he had deleted other people's requests. (Classic DW stuff!) I left a stronger second one, stating that unless he can supply some information about the photos they will have to be removed from articles and listed for deletion. Maybe that might make him take some notice though I severely doubt it. Any observations? FearÉIREANN 03:45 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You did what I was going to do anyway. JC needs to understand that he cannot claim fair use without at least stating where he got the image. --mav

Mav, I left you a comment at Zoe. I was not talking about you. But I think I messed the bottom of the page :-((( User:anthere

note that you will only find it in the history. When user talk pages get too long, my comments are usually censored (reverted). I think that is poor practice because I justified my yesterday comment there, and now all what is left in that discussion is you mentionning I am dishonnest when I was NOT dishonnest. Would you be ever so kind to fix my comments please ? I personally think it is dishonest to remove someone explaination when they are said to perhaps be dishonnest. I don't want it to stay that way. User:anthere

I didn't remove anything. I reverted a version of my Talk page which didn't have the bottom of it deleted by your lossy editor. -- Zoe

and while reverting, you removed my comments... yes. ant

So what? It's my Talk page, I can do what I damn well please with it. -- Zoe

Ok. Mav, you will find my comment in the Zoe talk history.

I think discussion such as the one yesterday should not be moved to user talk page, as they can conveniently censor these discussions to suit their own purpose. Ant

You're determined to try to make me look bad and to put the worst face on every g*ddamn thing I do, aren't you? If YOU had not messed up the page, *I* would not have done anything to it. I reverted it because of what YOU did, not because of what you said. I don't believe in modifying Talk pages, though there are many many people who do so. I was only fixing what YOU messed up. Your comments got dropped in the process. But of course, that wouldn't suit your interpretation of me being an evil person, would it? -- Zoe

Oh for crying out loud, would you both STOP IT! Zoe - if you had archived your page that would not have happened. So it is partly your fault. Anth, if you find that your browser is cutting off the end of her page, cancel out of the page, or go into the Page History and revert to the previous version.

But I can't Jt. That is the whole point ! I can't edit a page too long. In this case, it was written 31 ko, so I thought I could add a dozen words (normally, it cuts at 32 ko). But apparently it cut nevertheless :-(( ant

Sounds like a case of Internet Exploreritus, the most damned disease on the net. Dr. JT's remedy - bin explorer. Get Safari. Far far better. IE is pure and total crap. FearÉIREANN 06:46 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Zoe had to do that to get back the end of her page, and that involved reverting to the version before your comments. In cutting her page like that it is partly your fault too. Zoe was not censoring Anthere, Anthere was not trying to screw up Zoe's pages. You both just fucked up at the same time. Now will you both fuck off and stop this clowning around. You are acting like Brittany and Christina at the MTV awards.

Dunno these ones.

There are enough vandals out there to be fought. Will the two of you stop cat-fighting and go out and fight the Michaels and DWs of this world, not each other. OK? These tantrums all this pointscoring is becoming tedious.

Sorry Mav, BTW, for highjacking your page like that. But I have been watching these two fighting for weeks and it like watching slow motion sumo wrestling and its getting on my nerves and everyone else's. I am really fed up with all of this. And now I am going to friggin' bed. Oiche Mháith FearÉIREANN 05:59 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Women fights. The worse. :-) Good night. Ant

I never said anthere did it on purpose. I do not think she did it on purpose. As I said, it was her lossy editor that was the problem. However, from the time I stopped working on Wikipedia last night until the time that I came back this evening, my Talk page more than doubled because of all of the information that was cut and pasted from the Votes for Deletion page. It is NOT my fault that the page got so big, it was the move from VfD. -- Zoe

Fair point, Zoe. I guess we are are a little tense. Anyway, look on the bright side, GrahamN has made a complete ejjit of himself in what he said. And most people understand what you did, why you did it and that even if they disagree don't see you are some sysop vandal. You know, you and Ant should be working together. You both are capable, committed wikipedians. And if you were, you'd terrify the bejaysus out of the DW's of this world. OK. Better stop. We can't have Mav doing two archives in one day. :-) Get some sleep, both of you (Ant and Zoe), heck Mav too. I'm about to. (I only got up 7 hours ago for a few minutes. I currently have the flu - the real flu. I'm so high on drugs I could fly to work, if I was going to work. So as dawn breaks on another sunny day, and I break into a sweat through typing (no joke!) it is time to crawl off to bed and sleep for another 15 hours! Take care and lol to all three of you. FearÉIREANN 06:46 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Calm down you two. Neither of you are "evil" or at all bad people so please stop. :-) --mav

It looks like Zoe archived the page so the issue is moot. I understand though and take back my observation. --mav

If you understand, that is fine. Ant

I'm afraid Joe Canuck is ignoring appeals on the photo issue. (So DWesque!) He deletes anything I say, deleted stuff from Camembert, deleted stuff by Martin but I think Martin put it back again. JC has made it clear he wants no discussion of the issue on his page (and any discussion will be deleted) as he thinks it has nothing to do with him. I have put a note on Jimbo's page but I wouldn't be surprised if that is deleted too when JC sees it. I guess there is no option left but to remove his images from his articles and list them on the VfD page. Re-the growing suspicion that he is DW/Black Widow, how should that be handled and who should make the judgement call? Ths similarities in contribitions, tone, attitude, behaviour re images etc are striking. What are the odds on someone coming to wiki who shared all the characteristics of DW/Black Widow yet who isn't DW/BW. In addition when Cam challenged him as to whether he was DW he immediately went ballistic. The thing is, as a supposed new user, he should not have known who DW was. Yet his response suggested he knew and didn't like the mention, which was damned suspicious. FearÉIREANN 00:26 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yep - it is time for VfD. --mav

Hi mav,

Thanks for the welcome. I think wikipedia is a great idea and I intend to help out by contributing here and there. I am all for free and open content.

I live in Melbourne, Australia.

DavidZuccaro

No problem. I hope you like the place. --mav

regarding my message to you this morning, you might find something that was placed on my page . . . interesting. FearÉIREANN 01:03 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Adam is hopeless. Sigh. --mav

---

Thanks for the welcome. I hope I am putting this on the right side of the page.

Clipdude 01:11 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You are welcome - and this is the right spot. :) --mav

Yo. could you delete mise en scene, move mise-en-scene to mise en scene, and undelete mise en scene? At least, that's the way I remember it working to keep the history intact? I'll merge the two if you don't want to do it, but I think the bits are fairly self-explanatory. Thanks. Koyaanis Qatsi 01:16 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Done. --mav

HI Mav, I've put all that I can of Joe Canuck's jpgs on the VfD file. I was only able to go back through his last 500 edits (aaagh!). Some I think are OK (book covers, album covers) but everything else has IMHO severe questions as to its copyright status. I removed the images from the pages, put a note on the talk page and a note on the image page. Knowing Joe's liking for removing unwanted information, I thought it better to protect the image pages so that the statement that there was a suspected copyright breach, the images would be deleted in a week unless there copyright status was clarified and in the meantime do not reinsert them, could not be removed as I have no doubt would be Joe's first move. I expect when he sees the removal he will go ballistic, leave legal threats on my talk page and try to reinsert all the images if he can. He seems to think that legally he has no responsibility for clarifying copyright if it is not explicitly stated. I also put detailed explanation on the VfD page of the background so that no-one is in any doubt as to why this action was taken. If you think it too long, feel free to cut, cut, cut. And now, finally to bed. BTW I see you read what was left on my page. My suspicions groweth! (like my tiredness!) Oiche Mhaith FearÉIREANN 03:44 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Mav, I think you need to take a look at the user page and talk page of User:Pizza Puzzle. It is rather strange. FearÉIREANN 03:16 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Boy - I wish etiquette would allow me to say what I'm thinking right now. Gesh. How juvenile - even for Adam. --mav

I was actually thinking it looks like "unattended terminal syndrome." Roommate or something. Hephaestos

If you want a laugh, take a look at Joe Canuck's comments IN BOLD TYPE on the VfD page regarding his images being listed for deletion. As Chandler from Friends might say, "could he be more DW? :-) FearÉIREANN 03:52 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Any particular reason you do not want the links on the main page to describe the actual event? It seems to me that having brief descriptions is more useful than having general links when reading about historical anniversaries. It often annoyed me that I had to search a 10k+ article for the relevant date by hand because the main page gives no info about what actually happened. And a short summary like "Rosenbergs execution" doesn't take more space than "Ethel and Julius Rosenberg". --Eloquence 09:41 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Mainly because a non-Admin on the talk page of the Main Page complained. I prefer the simple approach but I also see your point and won't get into an edit war over it. --mav

Mav, Joe Canuck has attempted to reinstert the potentially copyright images onto the pages from which those images were removed. Users have had to revert his changes. I am now in the process of temporarily protecting the pages as he no doubt will keep doing this. An examination of his editing style leaves no doubt but that he is indeed DW. (Like DW, for example, he refuses to state nationality, refuses to instert birth and death information on the opening line, etc, removing it if it is already there.) In addition he has been exceptionally abusive to users (see Votes for Deletion page). In the circumstances, given his abuse, his constant installation of images that may be copyright, and the overwhelming evidence that he is clearly DW, I have requested that Jimbo immediately ban this user. FearÉIREANN 18:18 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

His actions are not good. He needs to at least provide sources for the "fair use" images and willfully going against WikiStyle is not at all a nice thing. We have conventions for a reason and intentionally going against community agreed-upon ways of doing things is a violation of etiquette. --mav

Also some other evidence i have notice which i asked him on his talk page:

<START QUOTE> Joe, I am starting to believe you are a reincarnation of a banned user. There is one thing that makes me believe this:

You seem to know your way around Wikipedia quite well for a new user.

-fonzy

If I am a banned user, please provide your proof. Wikipedia.org will not tolerate harassment or false accusations from anyone. Joe Canuck 18:00 20 Jun 2003 (UTC) <END QUOTE>

His tone is interesting; I don't ever recall Jimbo ever giving him the authority to speak for Wikipedia. --mav

o just found out he can no longer talk about the "owners of wikipedia.org" as the Wikipedia foundation ahs been set up. [1]

Yes I know - Jimbo already contacted me about transfering Wikimedia.org and Wiktionary.org to the Foundation. It's great! --mav

Mav, User:Kils, a former sysop, keeps adding himself to Wikipedia:Administrators as "science editor" (previously he called himself "senior editor"). Could you protect an earlier revision of the page without that label for the time being? I don't want to do it myself because that might be interpreted as abuse. --Eloquence 19:17 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'll give SoftSecurity one more chance and then I'll protect the page. --mav

Hm. Now he changed it to "(only adding, moving and suggesting)" which doesn't make much sense to me. Is this "OK" in your eyes? If not I'll revert and protect. --mav

Doesn't make sense to me either, but that's what it was before. So that's OK IMHO. Let's hope he doesn't pull another one, but I won't hold my breath.--Eloquence 20:00 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)