Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:53, 23 September 2003

I will respond to messages on this page. Please check your contributions list ("My contributions") for responses. If there is a response, your edit is no longer the "top" edit in the list.

Unlike other Wikipedians I don't archive Talk pages since old contents are automatically archived anyway - if you want to access previous comments use the "Older versions" function. But I keep a log of the removals:

• Removed all comments prior to Jan 2003. --Eloquence 04:42 Jan 1, 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments prior to Feb 2003. --Eloquence 10:19 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments prior to March 2003. --Eloquence 21:19 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments prior to April 2003. --Eloquence 08:14 25 May 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments up to May 31 2003. -Eloquence 19:14 31 May 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments up to June 21, 2003. --Eloquence 18:58 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments up to July 3, 2003. --Eloquence 21:51 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments up to July 22, 2003. --Eloquence 09:07 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
• Removed all comments up to August 28, 2003.—Eloquence 02:11, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

Emergency list

Did you get my email regarding an emergency developer contact list? -- Tim Starling 02:29, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think so. I'm on it, am I not? Of course, if possible, I'll try to let Brion do all the work :-).—Eloquence 02:38, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

The idea was that you tell me your phone number and time zone and other things like that, and that this information would be distributed to a few selected Wikipedians. That way when Misplaced Pages goes down, developers can be immediately contacted, even if they are away from their computers (or in Jimbo's case, asleep). I guess I didn't explain it well enough in the email: that could be why I only got 4 responses out of ~11. -- Tim Starling 04:17, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How about an internet time instead. -戴&#30505sv 02:16, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

I uploaded a logo yesterday(Aug. 27th) and it disappeared!

Dear Editor,

I'm new here. As a matter of fact, I only discovered this site yesterday(Aug.27th). I found this site very cool and decided to contribute something to it by uploading a logo I made as soon as I saw the deadline. I worked into the small hours last night and it was about 2:00 am (I'm in Mainland China) when I finished uploading the image. However, when I checked back this morning (Aug. 28th), I couldn't find the image I uploaded yesterday. It's simply gone. What went wrong? Is there a way that I can re-upload my logo to be part of the contest? I'm not doing it for profit. I just liked this site as soon as I found it and want to participate in the contest. Hope you could understand and help me out here. There must be traces to prove that I did meet the deadline. I log in by the name of "wikibi" and my email address is:

     Yubai@xkbear.com

Thanks!

Best wishes

wikibi

Hi Yubai,

did you add the logo to the pages where all other logos are listed? I'll check the upload log and see if I can find your logo.—Eloquence 10:26, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

"Criticism" type articles re religion subjects

Please respond. Material from talk page on Catholicism reproduced below:

Putting all the dark/red spots in the history of the Catholic church in a criticism article is a horrible idea. It is in gross violation of NPOV and should not be done with any religion or subject. Articles on Misplaced Pages are written neutrally, with perspectives treated not according to their position on the subject (sympathetic/non-sympathetic), but according to the standing of their adherents. I will attend to these ill-conceived "criticism" pages for the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons ASAP. In the meantime, please do not create any new ones. If you want to write articles from a "sympathetic point of view", try Fred Bauder's Internet-Encyclopedia. —Eloquence 06:39, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Eloquence, you are going to have to flesh out this standard you state above because it's too vague..."standing"? huh? Roughly, I think you are saying that an article about, say, Mormons (or Baptists or Catholics) should simply state the doctrine/practices, etc of the adherents without taking a position (being sympathetic/unsympathetic) on the truth/validity of the doctrine/practices. If this is what you mean, excluding the views of non-adherents is problematic. In the meantime Jtdirl moved over material from this article to a "criticism" type article on Catholicism's relationships with democracy and dictatorships despite your opposition to do so. I expect that interested wikipedians will continue to move in that direction and I suggest "Controversies of" rather than "Criticism of Catholicism" for the title of the article listing such because it seems somewhat less POV. B 16:46, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I don't much like the hydra, though it would look nice on an O'Reilly book about the project. ;) --Brion 18:21, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Eh, I dunno, I think most people are intelligent enough to just leave it alone if they don't understand it. Maybe they will learn something about html if they don't understand it. { MB | マイカル } 18:28, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

your request for page protection on circumcision

I have to decline this one--partly because I don't have time to analyze the back-and-forth, and partly because I have a great desire to edit the first sentence into something closer to sensible English. Vicki Rosenzweig 18:54, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Erik,

Yes, I do have the Misplaced Pages software running on Windows. Works great.

I had posted my notes to the mailing list even before seeing your request to do so, but the message yet awaits moderator approval, apparently because of the headers used by hotmail, which is where I sent it from. I really wish that there were better access to the mailing list for those of us who do not wish to disclose a permanent email address.

Hopefully the moderator will approve my post soon.

Kat 19:15, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

P.S. I give up, no moderator, no approval. I put my notes on the meta. Perhaps you can drop a note to the mailing list so that the fellow can find them. Kat

I saw your request re Circumcision.

Would you trust me to protect the page? Without making any conditions on how I should do it? I haven't read the page in ages, and won't discuss anything on it, if you put your trust in me. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 19:18, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

Well, there's really no point in protecting Medical analysis of circumcision if you protect the revision by our anonymous user, with the list of circumcised people, the dumped AIDS data and removal of methodological criticisms etc. -- the anonymous user would just go away and leave me with a protected page that I'm not allowed to edit. The point is to bring him to the discussion table, which he has so far avoided, and unless protection has this specific goal, I prefer to revert to the present revision.—Eloquence 20:10, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

I'll take that as a no. I think I maybe phrased that too expansively. It was not my intention to suggest that I would protect a vandalized form of the page, just to appear "impartial". I was just trying to be clear, that if I did protect the page, I would not do so without independently considering the matter. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:39, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer. It appears that Martin has responded to my request and I hope this will help to resolve the issue.—Eloquence 21:43, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

Hello quence

test:Image:EloquenceSunflowerBlue-Large3 copy.png or: http://test.wikipedia.org/Image%3AEloquenceSunflowerBlue-Large3_copy.png photoshop file availiable, but superbeefy. -戴&#30505sv 22:07, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

Can't work with PhotoShop, unfortunately -- I'm a Linux guy. Having the flower symmetrical is certainly a good idea, but I don't like the pink dot in the middle, and botanists might complain that flowers don't grow that way.—Eloquence 01:00, Aug 30, 2003 (UTC)

Gimp reads Photoshop files fine. (If you want to spend money, Crossover Office is able to run the Win32 version of Photoshop on Linux via a patched Wine.) --Brion 01:33, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well the reason was just because that its not a "perfect flower." I used a petal from Anteres(?) flower photo and just made it more of a design, rather than a photo. Ill upload the photoshop file to the test wiki -- you can use or not as yu like. -戴&#30505sv 18:56, Aug 30, 2003 (UTC)

Hello Eloquence, is this: http://www.wrongfuldeathinstitute.com/links/sickontheinside.htm the article you were after called Sick on the Inside? Tristanb 11:41, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, that's it. Thanks very much! Now let's see where I can integrate it ..—Eloquence

Great article you posted a link to on mefi. (I would have posted this there but don't have an account ... just a lurker). Koyaanis Qatsi 22:12, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

And if you look slightly above, you know where I got it from ;-) —Eloquence

I noticed that after I posted, but I had to go get groceries and so I left it. And now I'm going to sleep, where I will overlook the entire world! mwahahahahaha! Koyaanis Qatsi 23:51, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Support

Hi Erik,

I just wanted to tell you that I have great respect for all the work you are doing on Misplaced Pages. Sadly, if you do something, there are always people that are not happy with what you are doing. And people that like what you are doing, and don't say so. Seeing the latest emails on the mailinglist, I just wanted to tell you:

Thanks for your work, Du machst einen Super Job! Danke, Fantasy 10:00, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree you are doing a very good job - fonzy

I also agree you are doing a very good job. ant (and I am not joking here)

I agree too. Thanks for your work on this. It's amazing. Angela 06:56, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate it, and I have no problem with the criticism. Could you add your votes to m:International logo vote/Vote on voting method so we'll have a clear decision on which voting method to use for the next stage?—Eloquence 16:12, Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)

I understand nothing to voting methods :-(((((

Could you give me an advice ? Say, I would like to make a vote on a simple decision, of the type "delete : yes, no". Yes, you read me well, not a consensus decision, a vote (horror of horror would say Brion). Which method would it be best to choose ? ant

Well, if there are only two choices, first past the post is completely sufficient (that is, a simple traditional majority vote -- pick one option, the option with the highest number of votes wins). The more complex voting methods become useful with more than two options when FPTP would lead to compromise thinking like "I need to vote for bad candidate X to prevent worse candidate Y from winning". Average voting, approval voting, Condorcet etc. allow the voter to pick an unpopular option without necessarily weakening the only alternative to a bad candidate. If you have a vote with more options like "Delete, turn into redirect, integrate elsewhere" etc. you'll probably want one of these voting systems. Normally we use approval voting in these cases because it's very simple, but I prefer range voting because it allows you to express a range of approval/disapproval.

The key, in my opinion, is to find the right balance between simplicity and theoretical fairness. A system that is mathematically very likely to give the result voters want should not be used if the voters are not likely to understand the full process.—Eloquence 23:09, Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)

If I understand well, we did approval voting right now, and range voting for the counting. Ok, I will think about it for the case I am thinking of. I think first past the post should be fine. Or...hum...perhaps...

I need to find how these are called in french... I will look at the other options for the logo issue. Thanks Erik

VfD already done

Thanks for the note about my withdrawn article, but I already had submitted it to VfD and removed the non-Talk links. You just didn't know where the VfD discussion was: Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/August 23. SEWilco 18:47, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Help needed?

Hi, I've seen you around a lot! IF you evern need help, check out my talk page, I'll be able to help from there! :P Ilyanep 22:45, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Why are you redirecting Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/September 3 to Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion? RickK 02:54, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages talk:Votes for deletion.—Eloquence

I don't see much alternative. You are acting exactly like a troll, for what reason I cannot possibly fathom. It is completely unlike you. However, given that I am unable to reason with you, or physically block you from the machine until you cool down, an "edit war" seems to be the only alternative.

There is no reason at all to scrap a system that was working VfD in favor of a system which has been proven to fail. - Hephaestos 04:16, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I personally see reversion to a version which has not been approved by consensus or vote as trolling. Proven to fail in which respect? We've used it for ~2 years, it seems to have worked admirably well.—Eloquence

It worked admirably until it got consistently over 32k. At that point it became unmanageable. Another solution was needed. There was discussion, and another system was put in place (which, I might add, worked at least to a certain extent).

The system was broken. The way you're putting it back today is completely broken. The fix might not have gone through some kind of three-month debate and a lengthy vote-on-the-vote, but it actually worked. If you have a better scheme (actually it sounds a lot like what I suggested before) then knock yourself out getting it passed in a rational manner. But don't go off half-cocked. You're one of the people I respect most here, and it amazes me to see what you've been doing this evening. You know full well this is not the way to get anything worthwhile accomplished. - Hephaestos 04:32, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Please explain why VfD became "unmanageable" when it went beyond 32K, especially now that we have section editing.—Eloquence 04:34, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

VfD became unmanageable even with section editing because it takes forever to load. 30 seconds on my broadband connection, I hate to even think about what modem users are dealing with. Section editing or no, that's the first step before editing.

I'm very much interested in peace, as you notice I've stopped reverting; I'd hope you'd revert your own changes when you realize it's just not workable this way, and hasn't been for a long time before it was changed. As I mentioned, I've been very impressed in the past with the way you handle situations, and I'm completely at a loss to explain tonight. - Hephaestos 04:48, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The time VfD takes to load has more to do with general server load than with bandwidth -- a CNN page with a couple of photos takes about the same bandwidth as a large VfD page. Text is cheap bandwidth-wise. The software is also currently still slow at rendering pages with lots of links (fortunately it is now much faster at saving them), which is a problem we will have to address and one of the good reasons to limit page size.

We have had some procedures in place in the past to do so, but as I noted, the problem was more with users not following these procedures than with solutions not being in place. It's similar to the Village pump situation. You just need a few people who do the job to have the thing work. The same is true for the new format, where you now have redundant listings that have to be kept up to date. Not only does this add effort for listing a page on VfD (right on top the recently added "suggestion" to add a notice on the page), which again increases the likelihood of pages being deleted without being listed, it also will inevitably lead to out-of-sync situations. This, to me, is much more inconvenient than an oocasionally slow loading page.

Again, my actions are out of respect for the opinions expressed by many users, and shared by me, that the new format is simply very inconvenient and impractical.—Eloquence

Erik, let me be frank. I think your behaviour on wiki tonight seriously wrong. I fully share your concern for how to make VfD a better more user-friendly page, and indeed while a lot of people have been complaining about it, I was the one suggesting solutions. I opposed the breakup but decided out of respect for those who put a lot of work in to this proposed solution to give it two weeks to see whether it was a dud or a workable solution.

For anyone to unilaterally undo all the work of others when they had genuinely devoted their time and effort was a gross abuse. If you had turned around and said 'this solution isn't working. I suggest we do a, b and c instead' I would have been supporting you. But I regard the unilateral undoing of so many people's work over weeks, and in the manner in which you did it, as the equivalent of giving them the two fingers. Yes maybe they broke rules but it was all done upfront and widely supported. To come weeks later and undo everything is frankly deeply unfair to them. They and their deserved work better respect than you showed them tonight. You are a competent and generally reliable individual, so I found the disrespect that you showed towards them deeply unfair. That and that alone is the reason for my revertions. I thought your actions the height of rudeness towards many honourable people who had tried with varying degrees of success to solve a nightmare problem.

As to where we go by now, I'm sorry but I cannot accept that, having shown gross disrespect for the hard work of others (and a solution, I must stress, I disagreed with) you then think it OK to use your work, not theirs, as the starting point for the debate. If you said 'OK. I don't think this subdivision thing is working, lets do 'x you would have had my support. But I think you owe it to the people whose genuine work you showed such disrespect for, to use what they have achieved over a couple of weeks, as the starting point.

It is one thing to dispute an article, but you rubbished an entire methodology designed by people who were trying to solve a problem. And that in my view is deeply unfair. I certainly would not blame people if, having seen the disrespect a developer showed them, they decided to quit wiki for good. Whatever about your dispute with the solution some people came up with, your handling was far below the standards I would have expected of a senior wikipedian. Tonight, only one person supported your behaviour, and he was motivated by annoyance towards me because I stood up to him over his heterosexuality articles nonsense and protected a page to stop him constantly trying to hide the VfD boilerplate on one page. Everyone else disagreed, from Angela who was horrified but didn't feel able to challenge you on it (a message in itself) to Hep, who likes me suspects your only defender is actually a banned troll.

Please Erik, don't act like this way in the future. I am a believer in rules (heck I wrote many of the naming conventions) but on this occasion, as with the dates issue, you got so preoccupied with the letter of the rule you forgot its spirit. Please discuss changes rather than bulldozing them through, or insisting ages later that as some technical rule had been broken, like some wiki supreme court you were going to turn the clocks back. If you want people to respect you, you need to show others that same respect. FearÉIREANN 06:21, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I have said most what I think needs to be said on the matter. I think the core of our disagreement rests in this statement of yours: ".. but it was all done upfront and widely supported." The point is that, no, it wasn't. Far more people expressed very strong objections to the new format than support. You are glossing over the fact that many regulars -- Martin, Dante, Cimon Avaro, Daniel Quinlan etc. -- were annoyed by this confusing and unnecessary reorganization. They did not revert because of the effort it would have taken to do so, not because they agreed with the new scheme.

The one thing I agree on is that it should have been reverted earlier. I have focused on watchlist-only wiki activity in the last couple of weeks so I missed the change as it happened. That does not mean that it was not done against our procedures and against protests from Wikipedians. That is why I have undone it and think it should be discussed again. I also think you exaggerate the amount of work involved for dramatic effect ("when they had genuinely devoted their time and effort" .. "so many people's work over weeks"). It was a simple structural change, tedious for sure, but it would take no more than 20-30 minutes to restore this structure if we agree that it should be done.

I will spare you the comebacks, but when it comes to respect, you're a bit one-sided. What about respecting those who were overwhelmed and greatly annoyed by the changes to a system that has worked this way for 2 years? What about the at least two users who have said that they no longer participate in VfD because of it? Ultimately, it was Camembert's comment that those who do not agree with the change should do something about it that motivated me to restore the original format and provide some alternatives. It is unfortunate that an edit war ensued but I see few other options. If you agreed with me that the new format is inferior, you would have supported me in this conflict and have used the exact same arguments. For your stance to keep the new format to be consistent and in compliance with policy, every Wikipedian would have to agree with you, which is obviously not the case. My stance, on the other hand, can be plausibly argued even if you find the new format superior ("Even if it is superior, we need to discuss these matters first because some people do not feel this way and it is a drastic change"). We have a policy for these matters and it is clear that I acted in full accordance with it.—Eloquence 06:46, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

Good point. I would think say a 60-40 majority for deletion would make sense, but for smaller participant numbers the threshhold should rise; say under 10, a two thirds majority. I'll think about the issue more. lol FearÉIREANN 06:25, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well I wouldn't say I was horrified, but you are right I'm not going to start reverting anything done by developers. That's just me and I respect those who take a different approach. Angela 06:44, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Excuse me, but have I missed something? Like the moment I deleted Jtdirl from the system, or removed Hep's sysop status? I should recall these things if they had happened, shouldn't I? But if they haven't happened, then what does developer status have to do with this conflict?—Eloquence

Sorry Erik, I don't know how to answer that. As I said, it's just me and I certainly wasn't suggesting you would delete anyone from the system or desysop them. Angela 06:57, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In case it is needed; I just wanted to say I preferred the old system of votes for deletion. But said nothing because I rarely look at that page anyway. Since the new system, I do not look at it at all anymore. Anthère

Do you Europeans ever sleep?-sv

My sleeping cycles are fucked up. They keep .. cycling.—Eloquence

Big problem with Maveric

Hello,

Miwiki project have somes problem with Maveric who decide himself to delete logo 1b on finalist page :o( He never talk with another wikipedian about this before to delete this logo... And he think he is the judge who decide what is a variant or not.

Maveric don't accept that I help author who want to design variant of their logo which use Miwiki stylised ant... But it's only a variant and respect rules.

Paullusmagnus added himself logo 1b (with Miwiki the ant) on the finalist page... I don't ask him to do this but we worked on this variant since several days. And perhaps an another logo (by another author) will have a variant with Miwiki in some days.

Thank to help us for cease fire with Maveric :o|

Oliezekat 13:19, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

One comments page per logo ... can we change this?

The reason I ask is that the Miwiki-on-sphere version is highly contentious and Maveric149 would probably want to have a way to note that the wikipede is beating Miwiki for the Misplaced Pages Mascot. I don't want to unilaterally change the page format, but I think that putting up a seperate page to discuss the Miwiki variant will prevent controversy. What do you say? Paullusmagnus 16:30, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't think this is necessary, really. Mav's objections are noted and those looking at the comments will see them. They should not get any more exposure than any other objection. I for one strongly object to the clutter factor -- should this objection also get a separate talk page? I don't think this is the way to go. If you yourself don't want the Miwiki variant to win, just withdraw it. —Eloquence 16:42, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

I proposed this because mav feels (I think) that many people may vote for the Miwiki variant without knowing about the underlying mascot issue — hence the "backdoor" statements. If he can be assured that everyone knows about it, then he shouldn't object. I don't really think that it needs its own page, but I want to keep the peace. How about having a few pro/con bullets for each logo (on the main page or not) like on m:wikipedia mascot? Or (with so many people and so big a change) would that cause hard feelings? If we don't have either of those, I'll do what I can to make the Miwiki section easy to find on the logo talk page. Paullusmagnus 17:05, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Fur purposes of internationalization, I would like the main page to be mostly free of text. Mav has withdrawn his objections to the Miwiki variant being listed so I'm not sure there's any need for some compromise solution. But I do encourage you to try to structure the talk page so that all arguments can be located easily.—Eloquence

Section editing

Hi,

I'm coming around to your view regarding section editing. I'll probably either alter the behavior or offer two options (maybe we can unclutter the links somewhat as well, perhaps by putting two small buttons under each headline instead).—Eloquence 14:49, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, sounds cool. Maybe the possibility to choose either method in the preferences would be the best, even if it clutters up the prefs. For the uncluttering of the links, I repeat the idea of using pencil-icons in a small space left to the article. -- till we *) 23:17, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

How would that work for headlines in tables?—Eloquence 23:47, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

Lack of imagination

For the sake of keeping the article simple, please remove the science section. If, though, you continue insistent, then YOU can rewrite the section so as to include the other viewpoint.

Just because you're an evolutionist and an administrator doesn't mean that you have the right to impose your views upon other people. -- Corey 02:21, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm not imposing anything. Vicki protected the page and I don't even know where she stands on the matter. It is a procedural question, not one of opinion. We generally try to expand articles instead of removing arguments. Debate on Talk:Lack of imagination, please.—Eloquence

• re:BuddhaInside -> Misplaced Pages:Problem users/BuddhaInside

undeletion

NP re the undeletion. But under no circumstances should it be a live page, ie, it should be archived. One of the nightmare problems with holding delete debates on talk pages is that the debate gets muddled with host of other issues. The idea with creating a separate deletion debate was to have a clear page only about deletion and nothing else. It was to be totally self contained and singularly focused, not, as Martin, bless him, has a tendency to do, meander into ten issues at one, then raise another twenty, and leave everyone at the end completely confused as to what decisions had been taken. (I think Martin thinks I don't like him. Actually I do. I just his 'yerrah lets discuss everything remotely connected with the issue at one, and maybe throw in the kitchen sink as well' approach infuriating. Organisations run like that invariably collapse in confusion and indecisiveness. It may be a great theory, doing things like that, but it does not work in reality!) So the intention was to say - this page is only about the issue of deletion, nothing else, that decision will be taken in exactly 7 days, not 17, as all too often happens, with the page terminating at the end of the debate. I was thinking of undeleting it myself.

As a long term policy, I would suggest that:

1. Where a complex issue is being discussed on the VfD page and it is too big an issue for there, a special deletion page is constructed, linked to the VfD page, where all the debate takes place.
2. At the end of the debate (ie, a strictly applied 7 days) the page is archived.
3. A sub-page could link to the main page, at which all archived pages, such as this, would be placed.

What we have to avoid is Martin's tendency to keep alive a debate that, as in this case, was decided in favour of deletion, by using the deletion page as a 'lets talk some more about anything and everything connected with this issue' page. So I have no problem keeping the page as a record, but under no circumstances should it remain live. Wiki policy is to delete talk pages when the main article is deleted. Archives are kept as archives. If all Martin wants to do is keep the page to continue the discussion then it defeats the entire purpose of the page and runs contrary to longstanding wiki policy on talk pages about deleted articles.

BTW, while I'm here, I'm sorry if I was a bit sharp with you about the day delete pages some nights ago. I disagreed with the manner in which you did it, not with the fact that it was done. The trouble with wiki is that with so many pages where discussions can take place, some people's unhappiness with some discussion may not be widely known unless people read every page. Your decision came out of the blue to me, as indeed did the original creation of them. We had the same problem with the issue of the 'new' page. Maybe we should have a page listed at the top of Recent Changes called Current Wiki controversies where the fact that 'x' is controversial is listed, along with links to the various pages it is being discussed on. I don't think it should be the debate page, merely a signpost that says - issue 'x' is hot right now. See talk on pages 'a', 'b' and 'c'. lol FearÉIREANN 22:06, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've renamed the article Talk:List of heterosexuals/deletion to Talk:List of heterosexuals/deletion (final archive) and placed the archive link on the top block of the VfD page (ie, not for deletion, put as a link to an old debate). I also put a concluding paragraph on the page explaining what the final decision was, who implemented it and when. lol FearÉIREANN 22:32, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Smaffy: A braincell could be considerd as a single & simple "mind". It has the power to compute the "in-values" trasmitted to itself from its neighbourgs. And it has it's own litle life.. Consider this as well: A brain is spread over some space. No signal can travel faster than the speed of light, and therefor, the brain HAS TO BE built up by several smaller pieces that work in paralell with each other. Each smaller piece of the brain is more stupid than the unit it is a piece of.. kindof. User:Smaffy 13:05, 10 Sep 2003 (swedish time! lol)

Are images protectable?

If so, could you revert and protect m:image:paullusmagnus-logo_(large).png (I am assuming that you are a meta sysop as well)? User:JDG has twice reverted it to an earlier version. I left a message on m:User talk:JDG, but it has not been responded to. I am at a loss to explain why this is happening. If I need to upload a new large version, then I'll just give it a new name. Thanks, Paullusmagnus 01:55, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

JDG was doing it by mistake. Thanks for reverting for me. Paullusmagnus 16:24, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Please see JDG

Sonnenblumen-Logo

Hi Erik, ich habe ein Bild einer Sonnenblume hochgeladen, falls Du (oder jemand anders) weitere Varianten des Sonnenblumen-Logos erstellen willst (m::Image:Sonnenblume.jpg, m:Image talk:EloquenceSunflowerNew-Small.png). --Kurt Jansson 10:58, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Erik

Olie tells me the page for the final votes submission was protected, so uneditable 2 hours before the official end of submission. Comment ? Anthère

Apologies, I thought Berlin was UTC+1. It's UTC+2 during summer time. But now it is past 20:00 UTC, so Olie has to hurry.—Eloquence 20:14, Sep 15, 2003 (UTC)

I just saw you made some updates...did you do the update Olie was talking about ? I am not entirely sure.... I am not sure he is still around...he left a totally discourage message on my talk page. I'll check :-(

0 in voting

What do you mean, "0 is not allowed"? Just don't vote for the logos.—Eloquence 22:48, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It was not clear to me this was also an option. To me, average voting implies that all votes on a certain logo get averaged over all the ballots for that logo and not averaged over all the voters in the election. Did that make sense? Ap 02:26, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Here's an example -- logo 1a gets the votes 5, 4, 4, 2, 5, 1. The average of that is 3.5. The logo with the highest average score wins. If you don't vote for a logo, your vote is simply irrelevant. So you are right that "voting zero" in the sense of reducing the score is not possible. But then again, it doesn't need to be -- if nobody can vote zero, voting 1 is the logical equivalent. Anyhow, I'm not very happy with votes of the type "every other logo gets a 1", because that to me indicates that you are not even willing to go to the effort of naming the logos which you despise. So I'm inclined to invalidate votes of that type and encourage you to adjust your ballot accordingly.—Eloquence 04:30, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

Finding subpages

Hi Eloquence, I was wondering if you could tell me how you generated the original list of subpages to be moved. Some of the articles that were originally on it have slipped through the cracks. -- Cyan 03:21, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That's a sysop query. I can update the page, but then we'll have to remove all the non-subpages with a slash (e.g. GNU/Linux) again; plenty of those, IIRC. Can't you recover the missing subpages from the history?—Eloquence 04:31, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

I was kind of angling for a tutorial on how to do sysop queries (or just a link to a place I can get that information). The list needs to be regenerated because the only other method for distinguishing which articles were removed from the list properly and which were dropped from the list improperly (e.g Poker/One pair2) is checking manually from the original. As for non-subpages with a slash, there were only about 30 of them, and a few of them have since been turned into redirects. I am willing to do all the dirty work. -- Cyan 17:21, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Cyan 18:42, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Pallus logo clutter

Talk moved to m:Talk:International logo vote -戴&#30505sv 21:56, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

sister project logos competitions?

do u plan to (after the contets at the moment) create contests for the sister projects too? If runners up (and non runners up) wish to resubmit their logo again they could. - fonzy

I do not plan to create such contests, but perhaps the leaders of these projects can agree on which logos to use from the highest ranking ones. E.g. if logo 6a loses, maybe Brion, I and the other developers can agree to use it for MediaWiki.—Eloquence

Why did you give as an argument for bad grade the fact it was not transparent for one of the logos n°7 ? It is obvious that the final logo will have to be transparent. And the fact the other ones of the serie were transparent made it obvious to my opinion that this one could be (I just saved it in the wrong format). There are several other logos which were not saved with transparency. You did not mention anything about them.

If being transparent the day of submission was a requirement, why did not you just refused all the non transparent logos and said they did not fit the requirements ?

If not, why do you publicly insist on the fact one of mine is non transparent but say nothing about the other ones, just as if it was clearly obvious that this one should not be voted for because of this argument ?

Really, saying it is ugly is far from enough as an argument. This is just a question of taste. Nothing wrong with that.

If a technical flaw is not acceptable, you should just plainly mention it, and I will remove this logo.

And this is not particularly to defend my logos (I truely prefer the sphere, and actually the sunflower as well), but I think this is not very honest.

Anthere's thoughts on logos

Just an opinion of the current vote : I have the inner feeling it is not a good idea that arguments are given aside to votes. This could have too much influence on last moment choice. This is not criticism, this is just a feeling. I would be glad to hear other arguments.

user:anthere

I'm not very happy that we have non-transparent submissions at all -- the logos on the ballot are supposed to be final and ready for use. If the logo is at least well done technically and the artist has already promised to fix it (as Neoloux has for Ncwiki), that's less of a problem, but in the case of 7d, the whole logo has an unfinished, ugly look.

You can't reproach someone not to have promised to do it transparent when you never ask. Whatever the quality of my logo, I think it is quite dishonest to use the fact one variant is not transparent when all the others are, just because of the way it was saved. Btw, should the current set be chosen, it will need to be transparent of course.

Never ask? Please read the guidelines on International logo contest.—Eloquence

Yes, ugly is not much of an argument. It is always difficult, if not impossible, to argue about taste. Many people hate ants altogether and have voted all the ant logos 1. Do you want to argue with them, too? You can't always convince people -- what we like and what we do not like has been formed in our brains long before we started this logo contest. Even though I do not like the puzzle sphere much, it seems to be popular among many voters. That's life.

You did not understand me well at all. Please check again. I said ugly was a very acceptable argument :-) Everyone has different taste, and that's it. I don't care whether some people don't like it; it is enough for my personal pleasure that *some* people like it :-) As for insects being scary for many people, believe me, when you see how many people make a face or plainly refuse to dissect a wasp or a similar insect because they are either scared or disgusted, you get aware there are some battles lost from the very beginning. That's life :-)

As for the comments, they are supposed to influence people. They are your best way to make some last minute propaganda for your favorite logo. That hopefully makes things more interesting.—Eloquence 17:32, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

Hum. Fair enough. Do we have the right to change our votes ? I didnot check. We are so numerous that it would not be interesting. But...imagine a vote with 30 people, a number where your vote is likely to really have weight. And set a rule where people can make comment (and so influence others) but not change their mind during vote. Then, one will have to decide between voting first (in hope of influencing others, but blind vote) or last (no influence on other votes, but more chance to tip the balance by voting tactic). That would be funny. Anthère

In the current setup, changing your vote is possible until the deadline.—Eloquence

Invalidating my votes

0 means I'm not voting for the logo. It's simply a placeholder to be systematic. CGS 17:57, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC).

Please don't do that, people might get confused by the meaning (see discussion with Ap above). Just don't vote for logos you don't want to vote for.—Eloquence 18:10, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

Formatting change on ILV/Ballot

Erik-- is it all right if I changed the meta:International logo vote/Ballot page so that the usernames are ==-style headings? I think that would be a lot better: there would be a table of contents, making it easier to edit a specific ballot. Also, we could have a heading at the bottom saying "edit this section and place your ballot above it", like we used to have on VfD. Any objections to this? (BTW, thanks for all of your hard work on the logo vote!) --bdesham 01:18, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

I considered that, but the TOC would be massive. Feel free to experiment with it, though -- we can always change it back if it doesn't work.

0er-Stimmen

Hi,

aber wenn ich die Stimmen fuer die Logos entferne, dann zaehlt es als 0? Warum darf ich dann nicht 0 schreiben? -- JeLuF 04:32, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Weil die Richtlinien 1-5 sagten. Mindestens das wurde erklärt.-戴&#30505sv 04:44, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Nee, sie "zählen" nicht als 0 -- sie zählen überhaupt nicht. D.h. die Summe der Bewertungen für jedes Logo wird durch die Zahl derjenigen Nutzer dividiert, die darüber abgestimmt haben, "0er"-Stimmen gibt es nicht.—Eloquence 05:20, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Logo Voting Rules Being Broken

The rules (on the main logo vote) say "In the final stage, the 10 submissions with the highest number of votes, with up to 4 variants". Several of the logos have 5 variants. Did you allow this? CGS 17:22, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC).

This should be understood as "one logo per person and up to 4 additional variants of that logo".—Eloquence 20:24, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for watching...

Just wanted to say it's very encouraging for a new user like me to have my new contributions posted on the Main Page two days in a row! I appreciate it. I'll be out of town with limited web access for a few days, but I'll start working again on 22 September...

Danke, Bcorr 03:35, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

You're welcome. I have to admit that I usually don't look at who the author is, but you seem to have done a good job at absorbing our content and style guidelines -- I would not have recognized that this was the work of a new user.—Eloquence 21:49, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

logo submission

hi, i am very happy, that my logos are within the final lists. i did not response to your mail because during the final vote i was in holiday and came back on september 17. so, unfortunately i could not make changes but i think they work well in that stage of design. if they are selected, which would be very nice, i of course can do some little refinements.

circ edits & diff

Yes. I started from two edits back, with your last edit. That page needs to have all the micro-crud that people (mostly anons) add one little bit at a time pruned back to size every couple of months. You had it looking pretty good a while back, but it was getting really messy again. I didn't have time to do a proper re-wrire, but that has at least got it somewhere back in the ball-park. The 19th century section could probably use some attention, too. Cheers -- Tannin 02:09, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

quicksilver & metaweb

I'm working on a project based on the wikipedia MediaWiki engine to create a set of annotations on Neal Stephenson's upcoming book Quicksilver. It's going to be a public site. I've seeded some of the entries with text from the Misplaced Pages for our internal release, and I wanted to invite you to participate and also ask you whether it's OK to use some of the Misplaced Pages content for our public release (I realize the license is GFDL, but I still wanted to make sure that we don't just launch without asking). Send me email and I can give you the URL and password for the internal site. patrick@appliedminds.net --Zippy 21:29, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, but I'm no big sci-fi fan, sorry. But it's always good to see new MediaWiki sites. Let me know if you have any question about setting it up. Of course you can use Misplaced Pages content. Will the Quicksilver wiki content be under the FDL?—Eloquence 21:42, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

Our current license is identical to Misplaced Pages's -- GFDL with the same options set. But one of the people behind this project asked about using Lessig's Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. They seem to require and grant the same things to me. Has anyone determined whether these are compatible? What I want is for the Misplaced Pages to be able to use Metaweb content, and vice-versa. --Zippy 22:30, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I haven't seen a detailed analysis yet. From a naive understanding I would say that CC-SA might be compatible in one direction, that is, Misplaced Pages might be able to use CC-SA content, but not vice versa. That is because CC-SA places less restrictions on content than the FDL (no invariant sections etc.). I definitely recommend using the FDL if you want to maintain compatibility.—Eloquence 02:37, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

My naïve understanding is that they are incompatible, as both require that derivitive works be licensed under themselves. Section 4b of the CC-SA: "You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform a Derivative Work only under the terms of this License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of each Derivative Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any terms on the Derivative Works that alter or restrict the terms of this License or the recipients' exercise of the rights granted hereunder, and You must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties. ..."

I should note though that it's perfectly possible to have separate pages with different licenses on one wiki, so long as you're careful about mixing content. (Such as on OpenFacts.) --Brion 02:48, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you! I've got a backup of the database that I can run other ones on but it'll be nice to be able to run the new user ones again. Not much point running those on a three week old backup. :)

Good work on the second paragraph of Circumcision. I felt it was important to give an overview. I'm happy with it as you've edited it. :) -- Tarquin 11:51, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Did you ever see my suggestion that the TOC ignore spaces if they're the last character in the header? Evercat 17:32, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Could be. This is probably just one line of code. Why was that a problem again?—Eloquence 17:36, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

Look in the TOC. If I do a header == like this == it gets an ugly space at the end of the TOC link.

I see. This is only visible if underlining is enabled (yuck). I'll see to fixing it.—Eloquence

Cluttered voting process

From m:Talk:International logo vote Its fairly clear now that the PM logo is not in the lead, as was tabled yesterdday--

1. 8: 3.285714286 (69 points, 21 votes)
2. 4d: 3.1 (62 points, 20 votes)
3. 3a: 3.0 (63 points, 21 votes)
4. 5: 3.0 (3 points, 1 votes)
5. 4: 3.0 (3 points, 1 votes)
6. 10: 2.96 (74 points, 25 votes)
7. 1a: 2.92 (73 points, 25 votes)
8. 5e: 2.727272727 (60 points, 22 votes)
9. 5a: 2.523809524 (53 points, 21 votes)
10. 5c: 2.523809524 (53 points, 21 votes)
11. 3b: 2.5 (50 points, 20 votes)

Im going to go out on a limb now and state that my premise was correct -- that cluttered rules about final versions have prejudiced the voting, and Erik's statement that changes can be made post-voting do not make sense, if we are in fact not voting on final versions now. Judging by how many people claim that the PM logo was "too cluttered"-- (perhaps following Eloquence's lead) its only clear that unlcear rules have to some degree spoiled this process. 戴&#30505sv 22:32, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

You're wrong. The rules weren't unclear.—Eloquence 01:54, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)

(In response to whether I would be willing to modify my logo if it gets selected:)

short answer: Yes. It's preferable if other people try their hands at it too.

long answer: I was glad to see that the possibility for logo change after the competition brought up. It would be great if other people could get a chance to "re-execute" the logo, so that those with more experience/knowledge/luck would be able to change things for the better in subtle but very visible ways. Also, I am busier than I was over the summer, so I worry about commiting to doing things that I'll just put off. But (1) I'm not that busy, especially over the course of a week, and (2) it's my duty to do what I can to come up with a logo that there can be consensus over (cf. the joke about how programming is like sex —l I'd really rather not have people feel that I imposed a cluttered tyranny of the majority). Specifically about the "kallo" thing, I noticed it too, and wanted to add at least one non-latin character to break up the word, but I couldn't think of a good, quick way to do that.

Another reason that having other people try to implement changes is that they can see things that I can't. Toward the end, I uploaded a version that I thought was a serious change and (as far as I can tell) no one could tell the difference. I have gotten really reductionist and I need people to tell me what the big picture looks like. I admit to being a little frustrated by being unable to see the clutteredness.

But, I don't want to try to foist the job off on anyone else. If anyone wants to try something themselves, I'll enjoy providing support (the vast majority of the work was done with free software), and I'll be trying stuff concurrently with them, but I'll do it alone if no one else wants to touch it. Paullusmagnus 00:18, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)