Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:23, 22 August 2008

This user advocates unified discussion, if you comment here, I will reply on your talk page and move the entire discussion to your talk page in the process; I would prefer it if you did the same, moving the thread back here for your reply. That way the discussions will always stay together and the intended recipient will see the message alert when he or she logs on. If you create a broken discussion by replying here while leaving my comments on your talk page, I may leave the discussion as is and continue the broken discussion, or I may reunite the discussion in my reply, depending on what I think makes more sense. Thanks.

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I'm sending this to all the wikiproject:mammals participants. There's a naming guideline up for discussion on the talk page, and the more people get involved the more valid any consensus drawn. Ironholds 19:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC

Monastery and ag

WikiProject Birds August newsletter

The August 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. MeegsC | Talk 00:55, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

A new task force under wikiproject Europe

Hello,

I've noticed that you are active in the area of Europe. I just wanted to let you know that a European Space Agency task force has been set up to improve the presently very poor condition of articles about ESA and related topics. If you are interested, please join the task force here. We sure could use your help. Thanks.U5K0 (talk) 19:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Editor Assistance Question on Possible Deletion of several articles

(Moved here from User talk:Doug for unified discussion)
Neolibertarian - Right-libertarian -- Left-Rothbardianism - Libertarian center - Libertarian progressivism - Mainstream libertarianism - Thick and thin libertarianism.

These articles really annoy me because IMHO they are:

• Articles which cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including especially neologisms and original theories and conclusions
• BLP issues since they claim various individuals are part of their faction without providing evidence

Basically one or a small group of people have created these phrases, use them in their small circles, and then put up articles to advertise and promote their ideas.

It's probably not very libertarian to want to delete them, but is it wikipedian? I need another opinion for my peace of mind and advise on how to proceed with most dubious articles, i.e., one by one or all at once? Carol Moore 18:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Carol, I agree, they all seem to be neologisms. If you attack Right-libertarian, I would also plan to go after Left-libertarian or explain why not. Neolibertarian looks like nothing but a definition and Mainstream libertarianism has no cites; I would particularly support the idea that they should be deleted. I probably won't be around to participate, and who knows the discussion might change my mind (or yours) but I don't think it's unreasonable to nominate some or all of these for deletion (curious, how did you happen to ask me?)--Doug. 18:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC).

Thanks for comments. I found someone who got rid of Left-Rothbardianism so will be interested in his comments as well. I asked because you were listed in editor assistance as someone who knew a lot about deletions. Carol Moore 23:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

I think we're on the same line of thinking here

Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard#Individual_discussion_subpages.3F. Care to comment (further)?--Doug. 00:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, in any attempt for a ReOrg of sub-pages, I think that it would be more productive to deal with AN/I first. Consider that (at least) more than half of the postings as WP:AN would be placed at AN/I, if AN/I were fixed in such a way as most "incidents" would be funnelled there, I have doubts that there would actually be a need to split AN at all.

Also, note that the talk page of AN/I redirects to the talk page of AN. Hence why I posted my suggestion for AN/I there.

Hope this helps : ) - jc37 00:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Cookie8191

Regarding your indef block of Cookie8191 (talk · contribs)... wat? I checked several edits of his when I commented on the MfD, and most of them were perfectly valid. They might not have been very good, but it wasn't vandalism. I'm very confused at how you came to this conclusion. -- Ned Scott 06:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

(I'll keep this note here on my page as it relates to my performance as an admin)Ned, I reviewed them and they appeared to me to be a consistent string of vandalism of Sesame Street and Looney Tunes articles. Here's one that is very clearly erroneous if you're over 30, no edit summary, no idea where these dates come from, but I'll WP:AGF; then there is this one , which ends the AGF quest. Following that there are a whole string of Chuck Jones related edits, all with no edit summary and no known basis for the edits, claiming every Tune known to WB was created or inspired by Chuck. Finally, if you follow the series you can see that he's following getting reverted with changes to related articles that say similar things. Taken together with the two above, I take them all as vandalism and I see not one valid edit (please provide the ones that you say were). However, if you wish, I'll ask another admin to review what I did.--Doug. 01:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll admit, the date changes do leave me with the impression of vandalism, but there are people out there to believe that Chuck had a huge impact on most Looney Toons characters (I don't know if he did or not, but I do recall reading a lot of interesting debates about the claim). But then again, it could be those same kind of debates/ strong feelings that he is trying to troll.

Since he didn't even bother to challenge the block at all, I'm starting to think you were correct to just block him. I'm probably just thinking about this too hard. -- Ned Scott 05:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

IEC Binary Prefix

Hi Doug: Thanks for volunteering to mediate the dispute on the usage of IEC Binary Prefixes. What has happened is that two editors GregL and Fnagaton with the occasional assistance of Headbomb have acted in concert to prevent any indication of a dispute on the usage of IEC Binary Prefixes in Wikepedia. Then then further impose their will at the Binary Prefix article. It is not surprising that GregL and Fnagaton will not agree to mediation, they have everything the way they like it and together bully other editors into submission or acquiescence. Essentially together they use the 3RR rule to prevent any individual editor from raising any question about their view of the world at both the Binary Prefix article and the MOSNOM article. I suspect the next step is arbitration. The alternative is to find 4 or more editors to act in concert as does GregL, et al. How does one go about getting binding arbitration going now that u have closed the mediation case? Tom94022 (talk) 16:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

PS I will watch for a reply here Tom94022 (talk) 16:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

You would go to Requests for Arbitration and follow the instructions there (sorry, I've never filed one, so I can't really help). Can you explain what the arguments are for the IEC system? (please do so without telling me that the change goes against consensus or anything of that nature. Consensus is generally a circular argument. You either have it or you don't and arguing you have it is generally pointless. Read some of the essays on consensus for more information on that point.) I can't mediate the case (unless the other parties magically show up and agree) but I may be able to provide you advice one whether to go forward with an RFAR.--Doug. 00:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

IEC Binary Prefixes when used to disambiguate ambiguous terms such as MB are unambiguous, succinct, simple to use, simple to understand and their use is approved by national and international standards bodies. IMO there is no good reason to deprecate them, but the reasoning seems to be that because they are relatively unknown and infrequently adopted they shouldn't ever be used in Misplaced Pages. A more complete statement of the reasoning is here. Thanks for your assistance. Tom94022 (talk) 05:01, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Everything in that link is basically a copy-paste of the same text here with minor tweaks and in that talk page archive those unsupported incorrect assertions were refuted and rejected again by multiple editors. Then the time before that in the previous archive and then again here. A very short summary of the whole talk page archives presented above is that everything in that link you posted above is contrary to how Misplaced Pages works with guidelines and policies because nothing in that link tackles the real issue that using IEC prefixes is against the following WP:UNDUE, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:CRYSTAL. Those cited guidelines and policies are relevant because we use secondary sources for articles and those sources do not use IEC prefixes in the majority of cases (less than 1% of secondary sources actually use IEC prefixes). You want to rely on the primary sources of the standards bodies but you cannot do that without secondary sources to support your point of view, since you have very few secondary sources then WP:UNDUE applies. Your personal point of view that "IEC prefixes are easy" etc is also irrelevant because you need to detach from personal bias when crafting guidelines. Your personal opinion also appears to be refuted by the vast majority of reliable sources that have chosen not to use IEC prefixes, if they were as "easy" as you claim then surely those publications would use such an "easy" system for their readers to understand. The fact that the majority of publications do not use IEC indicates that they do not see IEC as a benefit to their readers. This is no surprise because the majority of manufacturers also do not use IEC prefixes. IEC Prefixes were proposed nine years ago now so their failed adoption by most of the technical people indicates they are a failed standard, thus they are a fringe theory (WP:UNDUE). Headbomb is an excellent example of remaining balanced and neutral because he personally likes IEC prefixes but he also knows that Misplaced Pages is not the place to use them. This neutrality is why we must reference existing Misplaced Pages guidelines and policies when considering changes to guidelines. Since the vast majority of the real world does not use IEC prefixes then to advocate use of IEC prefixes for disambiguation presents a false point of view (synthesis of an idea from a primary source) to our readers, which violates WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:CRYSTAL. Also with reference to your statement above "The alternative is to find 4 or more editors to act in concert as does GregL, et al." it is firstly a bad faith accusation against Greg (and others) and secondly consensus is not how many editors you can find on a particular day because consensus is made by good strong arguments so that would not help you because the arguments presented in your link are not as strong as those presented by other editors. It is pointless to repeat old refuted assertions again because old refuted assertions are not suddenly good arguments just because they are repeated again and again. If you or Thunderbird2 can provide new and better substantive arguments then please do post them on WT:MOSNUM. But please listen to the multiple editors that have refuted and rejected those assertions with much stronger arguments that are relevant to how Misplaced Pages guidelines and policies work. So in summary, since you and Thunderbird2 have not provided new substantive arguments and because the old arguments presented by Thunderbird2 (and thus yourself in that link) were discussed, refuted and rejected by multiple editors in multiple talk archives then there is nothing to mediate and therefore no need for mediation. Fnagaton 01:43, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

As u can see, Fnagaton likes to shout, sometimes that no arguments were made and sometimes that the arguments were weak and rubutted. I am not going to bother to waste the time and space in this forum. He and GregL have imposed there will by shouting down any debate and so it is either binding arbitration or I find a set of editors who can shout louder. Tom94022 (talk) 04:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

As can be seen by the reply above Tom has failed to actually rebut the arguments presented and has resorted to misrepresentation and using weak personal attacks about "shouting" instead. Obviously since Tom has failed to present a valid counter argument then his objections are weak in comparison to the many editors who have presented strong and relevant arguments. I'm glad Tom has chosen yet again to demonstrate he is unwilling to provide substantive arguments because if it did ever get to arbitration his actions and threats about finding "a set of editors who can shout louder" are a matter of record. Not that there is a need for arbitration in this case because it is obvious Tom is unwilling or unable to respond in a constructive manner so to go to arbitration would be just wasting time that could be better spent on other more deserving cases. Fnagaton 05:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Why are we still arguing about this? Tom94022 complains that the final 7:3 vote should somehow be considered as invalid because *he said* he thought the issue had been settled earlier. Yet, debate raged (and he participated in that debate) for over a week after a preliminary vote before he dropped out. So he knew—or should have known— the issue was still active the day he lost interest. In fact, debate and dispute resolution continued for another 41 days afterwards. Thunderbird2 stuck with it the whole time and his position in the final pole (a “1” vote) was clearly a minority view; the consensus was clear and that decision was posted to MOSNUM. This is simply an issue of these two editors failing to accept the consensus view.

  And what is that consensus view? That Misplaced Pages will be like every other magazine and encyclopedia in the world and use “megabyte” and “gigabyte” rather than terminology that is unfamiliar to our readership. The Mac OS X reports file sizes in “KB”, “MB” and “GB”. So too does Windows. If one goes to today’s Featured Article, Poliomyelitis, and click on edit this page, Misplaced Pages itself reports that “This page is 64 kilobytes long.” Notwithstanding the wonderful virtues of the IEC prefixes (“kibibit”, “mebibyte”, etc.), such language is unrecognized by our readership and looks quite odd. Encyclopedias observe new standards only after they have seen wide adoption by industry leaders; they never let editors thrust them into the position of promoting a new standard by setting an example in hopes the rest of the world will follow their lead. This is simply a problem of flogging a dead horse. The views of Tom90422 and Thunderbird2 have been considered and discredited. There is nothing to mediate. Greg L (talk) 06:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Doug: See what I mean about GregL and Fnagton - filibustering seems to be their preferred mode of operating. I'm not even sure what they are doing on this page other than inferring with our dialog. You asked a simple question - i gave you a short answer (1,322 bytes) and they jump in and in 14.2 KiB :-) pretty much confirm my statement of their reasoning. Most of what they say about arguments in favor of Binary IEC Prefixes is either misleading, incomplete, untrue, irrelevant or oxymoronic. If I tried to respond, point by point, they would just bury this page in more misleading, untrue, irrelevant and/or oxymoronic stuff so its either binding arbitration or a group of us will have to stand together to stop this bullying or both. Tom94022 (talk) 16:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)