Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:02, 6 May 2009

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

This is Jimbo Wales's talk page, where you can send them messages and comments.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

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Archives

Index -index- As of January 16, 2003 September – December 2005 January 2006 January – February 2006 February 2006 February 2006, cont. March 2006 April 2006 - late May 2006 May 24 - July 2006 July 2006 - August 2006 August 2006 Most of September 2006 Late September 2006 - Early November 2006 Most of November 2006 Late November 2006 - December 8, 2006 December 9, 2006 - Mid January 2007 From December 22, 2006 blanking Mid January 2007 - Mid February 2007 Mid February 2007- Feb 25, 2007 From March 2, 2007 blanking March 2-5, 2007 March 5-11, 2007 March 11 - April 3, 2007 April 2 - May 2, 2007 May 3 - June 7, 2007 June 9 - July 4, 2007 July 13 - August 17, 2007 August 17 - September 11, 2007 September 14 - October 7, 2007 October 28 - December 1, 2007 December 2 - December 16, 2007 December 15 - January 4, 2008 January 4 - January 30, 2008 January 30 - February 28, 2008 February 28 - March 11, 2008 March 9 - April 18, 2008 April 18 - May 30, 2008 May 30 - July 27, 2008 July 26 - October 4, 2008 October 4 - November 12, 2008 November 10 - December 10, 2008 December 5 - December 25, 2008 December 25 - January 16, 2009 January 15 - January 27, 2009 January 26 - February 10, 2009 February 8 - March 18, 2009 March 18 - May 6, 2009 May 5 - June 9, 2009 June 10 - July 11, 2009 July 12 - August 29, 2009

This page has archives. Sections older than 2 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

Misplaced Pages's strength

Everyone has a reason of their own why everything under the sun here either is amazing or sucks, but 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak sums up for me the strength of what a Web 2.0 creature can be. 15,000+ news sources last time I looked on Google News, and 99% of the key bits in one place updated almost real time. rootology (C)(T) 18:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

And even a sub-article for the US. In the 21st century we expect our encyclopedias and information in real time but as long as wikipedia creates quality like this it will remain the best encyclopedia, which makes it worth volunteering for. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree! I already read it this morning and made a bookmark so that I can refer to it daily (or perhaps more often) to keep up with this breaking story.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

As I have said before, we do this for our children, and our children's children. Let the naysayers and decent crtics have their place, but let us also reflect that our positive work should not be deflected by unproductive criticism and hatred, and that we should feel proud of what has been acomplished so far - even if there is still much to do. Pedro :  Chat  19:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Assuming we're still here soon. >.> rootology (C)(T) 20:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, yeah. It all depends... –Juliancolton |  22:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Tsk, amateur. You left you off the obvious solution to global overpopulation. rootology (C)(T) 23:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

But what is Misplaced Pages's weakness? Stairs? --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 19:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Our various and numerous weaknesses are our opportunity to build strengths. Pedro :  Chat  19:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There is a strange similarity between wikipedia, some editors, and Daleks. For a real answer, sometimes overly fawning coverage of quackery and pseudoscience is my own bugbear. Verbal chat 19:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Daleks eh? -- M2Ys4U 20:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If only the Daleks article was the worst article in the project, then this might be funny :) Verbal chat 20:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't know about "our children, and our children's children", I edit to build a strong encyclopedia now. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Stair climbers. rootology (C)(T) 20:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Search for "Professor X had one weakness!" on YTMND if you want to see what my post was about. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 20:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipeda's weakness: Damn good articles! Verbal chat 20:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What the hell. Shit happens in the best of toilets. :)prashanthns (talk) 20:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Surely our weakness is in our factual errors, everyone says wikipedia contains fantastic information but treat any particular fact with a pinch of salt. Improving our mistake ratio is surely the best way to further strengthen the project. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree. Misplaced Pages is as reliable, or as unreliable, as Britannica, or any other print encyclopedia, because it's written by human beings. Indeed, I wouldn't trust anything I read without verification. –Juliancolton |  14:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've changed my opinion above slightly. Verbal chat 14:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you'll find this essay I found on the net of relevanceShadowmorph (talk) 21:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks for the link. –Juliancolton |  01:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It's easy to list Misplaced Pages's strengths, they are obvious. And it's pretty plain to see that generally its weaknesses are derivative of its strengths. One weakness that I might bring to attention that is not often discussed is one of the editor (or administrator) taking on the task of "protecting" Misplaced Pages from various people, forces or ideas he percieves to be unsuitable or undesirable. The moment an editor strays from contributor to self-styled sentinel and guardian, it's my opinion he begins to do the project nearly as much harm as he does good. JBarta (talk) 19:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Misplaced Pages's principal strength is the contribution from editors of varying nationalities, ethnicities, occupations, political and cultural persuasions. As soon as an administrator decides to clamp down on an idea or person which he/she feels is not part of the Misplaced Pages status quo, Misplaced Pages's original concept of open editing fails.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

About the Macedonia case and ethnic profiling of (possibly) Greek editors

Greetings,

Firstly congratulations on this great project, Misplaced Pages.

I would like to know if you have any opinion on the Macedonia articles situation, one of the longest standing Misplaced Pages debates. The relevant discussion I'm talking about is this arbitration. Of course I will wait for you to express that opinion without influencing the arbitration if that is not your wish.

The really important thing, I wanted to inform you that came up, is the danger of having or maintaining any kind of lists of Misplaced Pages editors (lists of Greek editors, list of editors that support nationalists, or whatever else) inside the wiki. I won't link to any specific list here of the ones that have emerged, there are detailed arguments on the above arbitration. I just wanted to say that such McCarthyist list-making practices should not be tolerated even if they are temporary or only for displaying obvious ad hominem arguments about specific subjects. Ethnic profiling should not be treated with indifference and all complaints that it has occurred by an administrator of Misplaced Pages should be listened to. Note that the previously good reputation of Misplaced Pages is being right now damaged inside Greece, one Greek blog going as far as to call it "the fascism of popularity".

In my opinion it is of outmost importance to keep the ethics and the principles in your user page. Cabal administrators that can move one move-protected article while still keeping it move-protected should not be endorsed. Especially when they go against a 5-year old consensus. As a new editor I have been accused of many things, called stupid, intimidated, or even been included as part of a group, with speculations of my ethnicity, by established administrators of Misplaced Pages. I'm sorry to say that I didn't expect this welcome. Misplaced Pages is practically showing me the door, that's why I wrote to you personally.

Thank you very much

Shadowmorph (talk) 19:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: "I am a Macedonian (Greek)" just like "we are all Greeks"

Is it needed that Jimbo gets involved here? I truly don't see the point, what can 1 person say that has not been said before ? To quote Ixfd64: "This isn't just a Misplaced Pages dispute; it's an international one. Since this conflict has been around for over a century, I doubt the Misplaced Pages counterpart will be resolved very soon." —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

your userpage

hi jimbo do you have a problem if i use your userpage templates User talk:Matt037291 02:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Just copy the code (this is valid for all templates). :) -- 200.234.47.252 (talk) 09:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Would you like to sign my user page?

My Lord. Please sign my book of names with your glorious scribble. Yours ever, Marshall Williams2. --How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 01:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If you wish Jimbo, feel free to sign mine two. :) Ross Rhodes (T C) 13:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Swine Influenza

Just want to ask, shouldn't we mention something about the swine influenza on the main page? And have an image of the countries affected by it too? I've got the image on my userpage, but since its a serious world-wide issue, I think it should be on the main page; just until its over. Ross Rhodes (T C) 13:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Put your suggestion at Talk:Main page. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Or WT:ITN. –Juliancolton |  14:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Centrifugal Force

Jimbo, Since you are the last word as regards all disputes on wikipedia, I would be grateful if you could monitor the centrifugal force pages. There has been a dispute on those pages for over two years. The reason for the dispute has been that I have been trying to insert a perfectly legitimate perspective on that topic. That perspective is fully sourced, but unfortunately I didn't find the sources until recently. When I started trying to fix up that page in early 2008 I was doing so from memory of my old applied maths notes of 1979. There is a perspective on centrifugal force in which the centrifugal force is an outward inverse cube law force that is totally independent of the inward centripetal force. An equation which includes both the inward inverse square law force of gravity and the outward inverse cube law centrifugal force is used in modern textbooks (such as Goldstein's Classical mechanics) to solve the planetary orbital problem. It is a second order differential equation which solves to either a hyperbola, a parabola, or an ellipse. This perspective can be traced back to Leibniz in the 17th century. (the interesting thing about this perspective is that planetary orbital stability can be accounted for by the two different power laws. Hence the planets don't collapse into the Sun if they are disturbed from their orbits)

I have been trying to get this perspective recognized on the article but to no avail. At first, they tried to tell me that it was my own original research. Eventually I got blocked, and at one time I got blocked permanently. Administrator Antandrus realized that I was genuinely trying to help the article and he unblocked me after repeated requests by myself. But I made a pledge to Antandrus that I wouldn't engage in any more edit wars. I intend to keep to that pledge. However, I have recently uncovered some sources. Some of these sources are sterling quality. I made some edits yesterday using one such source but they were immediately erased by user dicklyon. Dicklyon insinuated that Leibniz didn't understand classical mecahnics and dicklyon also totally ignored Goldstein when making that statement. I would be most grateful if you could check the whole matter out. I do not intend to have an edit war. If you genuinely want to have a single and concise unified article on centrifugal force with a balanced treatment of all perspectives, then you need to do something about a certain group of editors who are continually deleting anything which I put on the centrifugal force pages.

I look forward to hearing from you. David Tombe (talk) 11:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Since I'm not qualified to say anything about the underlying content issue, and since I've not monitored the dispute, I'm not really in a position to say anything specific about it. However, from your description, what I would recommend is that you raise the issue on the talk page and that you asked for more eyes on the situation. Probably asking the folks at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Mathematics will be helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo, Thanks for the reply and thanks for the suggestions. But my experience in the last two years has been that there is absolutely nobody who edits on that page who wants to openly acknowledge the existence of the Leibniz approach to centrifugal force. I'll walk away from the topic for a while, and I'll return again only if I see the involvement of somebody else who knows what they are talking about. It's hard to exactly pin down the reason why there is so much resistance to acknowledging the Leibniz approach. When I did physics at university, they taught us that centrifugal force doesn't exist. The lecturer drew a circle on the board and indicated how the centripetal force caused the circular path and how it is the only force acting. However, over in the applied maths department the next year, I was introduced to the Leibniz approach which showed how centrifugal force and gravity work together in tandem to yield elliptical, hyperbolic, and parabolic orbits, according to their relative magnitudes at a given radial distance. The next year, I did the course on rotating frames of reference in which the centrifugal force is a fictitious force that is only observed from rotating frames of reference.

When I saw the wiki article two years ago, I tried to introduce the Leibniz approach (I didn't know then that it actually was the Leibniz approach) to clear up all the confusion, as the existing article was totally confused. I encountered strenuous resistance from editors whose knowledge of the topic was generally limited to simple circular motion scenarios. This year, I finally reached the stage where the existence of the Leibniz approach has finally been acknowledged, but editor dicklyon is trying to mask it out by claiming that it is just the same as the rotating frames of reference approach. See how he removed it today from the disambiguation page. And it most certainly isn't the same as the rotating frames/fictitious approach. It would seem that when students learn the topic of centrifugal force from the rotating frames of reference perspective, that they dig into it, and they will forever refuse to acknowledge that any other approach exists. Once they've been taught that centrifugal force is fictitious, that's it. Neither sources nor rational argument will ever persuade them otherwise.David Tombe (talk) 00:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Hi, sorry for bother you, i know you always have a lot to do, but i need help, im searching for justice. In wikipedia spanish, I have contributed very well for more than 2 month, at first i without knowing did copyvio, but they told me what to do, and i was doing it the best i could, as i always try to do. However, since a few days ago, i have had a few problems: a user named amadis: http://es.wikipedia.org/Usuario:Amad%C3%ADs ; have been erasing my contributions, saying: "you only do copyvio, just put cites of the press or the radio, o references from the radio". the second part is true:i have a pentium III-im from peru- and i go to the university so i have no time, and also my computer doesnt support well the press-webs because its to heavy for my 56 of memory.So i have to go with somre review of press of RFI: http://www.rfi.fr/actues/articles/113/article_11794.asp; because theyre a different news that i copy to wordpad, make a resume, and edit to wikipedia, and also I say what the newspaper says as i have seen before. And I dont do anymore copyvio, it wasnt my intention, i was copying a lots of sentences from article of WSJ, and I didnt referenced it well but they told me how and i do it now! But Amadis says i that its not enough, but once a Gons make a edi1t of an edit i did so i copy her the way she reference the article as you can see here: http://es.wikipedia.org/search/?title=The_New_York_Times&diff=25237585&oldid=25228150; its very similar to my last contribution: http://es.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Citigroup&diff=26076641&oldid=26072650 and i didnt do copyvio, and instead of helping me or go and look that he is right, he just say "momoelf is suspicious for copyvio" and erase it at once, and also say that that is a press review what is false its a new of WSJ like people do in a lot of wikipedia article. I told the library Lucien: http://es.wikipedia.org/Usuario_Discusi%C3%B3n:Lucien_leGrey#Hola_lucien but he didnt give me and answer, so i dont know what to do, i have proof of what im saying, ive been doing the same as i have seen, i just want to contributed but they erase everything i do, plz help this are my contribution: http://es.wikipedia.org/Especial:Contribuciones/Momoelf; i havent vandalized instead i have created article always with references, i do sometimes only a few lines, because i think that little by little things go bigger and i dont have a lot of time also. Plz if im doing something wrong tell me and i wont repeat it, i always ask and nobody answer me i have a lot of proofs about that. Here is the user, http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Lucien_leGrey ; nobody dare to answer anything, they didnt give me any proof the way i do it, they just say you are banned you are banned you dont deserve any explanations.

I just want to contribute, i feel useful when im making wikipedia better plz answer me--Momoelf (talk) 17:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This user has now been blocked indefinitely. Griffinofwales (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The user has received 4 blocks. 1 for violating the etiquette rule, 1 for trolling, and 2 for block evasion, the last one being indef. Griffinofwales (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much!

I've just been checking my subpages to realise you had signed my guestbook. Thank you very much for doing that, I really do appreciate that. Ross Rhodes (T C) 18:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I like to do it and usually do when people ask, but sometimes I've accidentally overlooked requests or meant to get to them later and forgot, etc. People shouldn't take it as a slight if I screw up and overlook requests. I like guestbooks, maybe I'll start one of my own. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you should; you'd definitely have the largest guestbook by a day! Let me know if you do make one, cause I'll want to sign it first (or second if you sign it). :) Ross Rhodes (T C) 18:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to look at some of my subpages. I like people to know more about me, especially great and honouable people. Just by looking at my userbox page, you'd probably know more about me than some of my friends. Ross Rhodes (T C) 21:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)