Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:18, 6 February 2006

Thanks for contributing the article on Nanako Matsushima. --DannyWilde 03:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for improving it! How do you get wikipedia to display the Japanese? --Pierremenard

I don't do anything special, I just type it in. I'm using a computer with a Japanese input thing in it, so inputting is no problem. 松島奈々子. I think I copy-pasted that name, actually, though. The standard for Misplaced Pages is UTF-8, so if you have a problem it might be with the encoding. If you need any more help with inputting Japanese, put a message here and I'll do my best to help. --DannyWilde 00:03, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Link on Pierre Menard Page

Thanks for restoring the link...I should have thought of using the wayback machine! --Pierremenard

I always try doing this on references or other apparently worthwhile links if they go dead. On references, this is pretty much policy, on ones like this it's just a good idea. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Sockwhacker Barnstar

Gzuckier 20:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

John Lott

Your attention is request at John Lott. Sockpuppetry Reigns. Hipocrite - «Talk» 00:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting it know - by the time I looked at its page it seems to have been protected. Problem solved (temprorarily). Is there any way to get emails every time someone changes the JL page? -Pierremenard 01:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

After editing the page, check "watch this page." Then the most recent edit will show up in the "my wathclist" tab. Hipocrite - «Talk» 03:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Xweb ??

- Just zis Guy, you know? can be a fiesty one. give me a message if you get into a nerve racking conversation. Sorry about my "lack of good faith." I've striken some of my comments off. --CylePat 02:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem! It is such a convoluted thread. --Pierremenard 03:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Lott

Accept I'm not convinced that it can be cited and I still think it has otehr problems, but am willing to compromise. Let's see what happens.Gator (talk) 20:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not? The Mary Rosh postings are still available. --Pierremenard 20:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

List of electrical engineers

Thanks for your recent contributions to this list and its discussion page. When you get a moment, I'd appreciate it if you could add your thoughts to the discussions on the inclusion of scientists who laid the groundwork for electrical engineering -- for example: Faraday, Volta, and Hertz. Thanks! Engineer Bob 15:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this discussion - I was unaware of its existence. I'd love to expand the List of electrical engineers, though I think this would make the list heavy on my own interests (which are communication theory/signal and image processing/control theory). --Pierremenard 16:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

I'm hoping I can maybe get you to rethink your oppose vote. Derex' comment in the "Comment" section of the RfA is on-point here. Basically, I agree it was a beginner's mistake (made a long time ago) to copy the original version of the David Mertz article from another Wiki (I did not write it, despite a bunch of mischaracterizations of this); but even then, I did it to fix redlinks, since I was mentioned in several other articles prior to that (for my computer programming writing). Nonetheless, the article overwhelmingly survived AfD (twice, the second time with no argument for delete ever made other than WP:AUTO; i.e. no claim on non-notability, and no claim I had ever made a POV or unverifiable edit on the page).

FWIW, I also created List of animals, which surely you should like :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I changed my vote to neutral (because I am not well informed about your RfA, and the autobiography thing was my only reason). By the way, kudos on the list of animals!!!!!!! --Pierremenard 16:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your willingness to reconsider this. I appreciate the open mind. Btw. your user page says you're doing grad work in math: what area(s)? I guess for practical the question is less abstract than for pure, but I'm curious. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. Basically I work in probability theory/discrete math studying things similar to belief propagation. I don't know if I'll be working forever on this - a lot of my interests lie elsewhere - but this basically is what i'm doing for the next few years. --Pierremenard 19:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It's been a long time since I did graduate level math, and in very different pure areas (transfinite set theory, model theory, etc), but I recently read a more popular Science News article on the surprisingly recent improvements to ECCs in reaching the Shannon Limit (e.g. Turbo codes, hence your field). Btw, have you been at MIT very long? Did you meet Shannon before he died? I wrote this little "data compression primer" just around his death, with the publication schedule letting me get in the little dedication at the end. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC). Hmmm... somewhere over the years, IBM seems to have messed up the formatting on their copy; it's baby stuff for you either way, but this is formatted better: .

Unfortunately, this is only my second year at MIT, so that I have missed Shannon by quite a while. Your compression article is quite good. For a while now I've been wanting to spend some time figuring out which compression algorithms are used in practice (as my knowledge of it is only theoretical).

Oh, thank you. It's just a baby introduction to compression; but there's an audience of people for whom that is relevant, I believe. I actually have done a slight bit of original research into compressing XML documents (published by IBM and Intel; and I have reason to think possibly now being used being used by the army, not to my pleasure exactly... if for no other reason than I didn't get the SBIR money :-)). Take a look in a search engine for "xml compression" (maybe add "mertz" to get there quicker). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

About the science news, I think you mean this article. One thing this article does not emphasize thats absolutely maddening from a theoretical point of view is that no one can write down a sequence of these codes that provably perform well. Theres just experimental results with randomly generated codes - which from the practical point of view is sufficient - but no theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. Incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, that would be frustrating, huh? I guess it's not quite the same type as frustration as, e.g. just having a strong hunch (and lots of empirical data) about the absolute normality of Pi. But I do kinda wonder if there could be any Chaitin type irreducibility issues here. Or maybe it's just that I really don't know enough math to know why that question is silly.

By the way, what is the relation between Foucalt's Order of Things (a book which I have not read) and the list of animals? --Pierremenard 20:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: Foucault discusses the list near the beginning of the book. Long answer: well, Foucault was a complex and funny guy. I guess you could say he was interested in the arbitrary constructedness of all categories, but that's still quite a simplification of what he's really doing. So really long answer: it's in books and academic papers on Foucault. I'm afraid I can't really recommend any by me on this topic (I like Foucault, but he's not really my "main guy" in my philosophy doctoral work, or since then)

Btw. Not to try too hard to belabor the point; but if you felt like actually reading a little of my edit history and whatnot (beyond my initial autobiography mistake), and moving your vote in an even more positive direction.... well, it's up to you. No hard feelings, and hopefully we'll intersect on some articles either way. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: equation labels

I replied on my talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see an equation label in

${\displaystyle \int _{0}^{t}3x^{2}\,dx=t^{3}}$(2)

Do you? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Somethings not working. --Pierremenard 02:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Got fixed, see again my talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

List of animals

Someone asked a question on the talk page, which probably understandably amounts to "I don't get it" :-). The questions suggests that the page might better be a real list of existing animals. There actually had been such a list at some point, but it was deleted on AfD/VfD (I think back in the old days when the "V" was used), probably correctly since it is absurdly overbroad (as opposed to literately absurd).

Now I quite admit the page is slightly frivolous, since it indeed insinuates something different.. but then, that's the point of the Borges story itself too. I thought as a Borges fan you might want to chime in briefly there. In creating it, I recognized that the page might wind up getting deleted, but I don't think a bit of literary levity hurts Misplaced Pages. A few charming little quirky corners seems sort of fun to me, as long as they are not just outright hoaxes like some people write (e.g. a bio of a fictional person... i.e. not of a fictional character in a real book, but invented just for WP; you sometimes see this on WP). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. And if foucalt discusses the list at some length, then the concept definitely merits inclusion in wikipedia. If it ever comes to an AfD vote, you ought to include something in there that describes the connection. What do you think about the name change? --Pierremenard 02:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks from Lulu

Storm clouds ...	and silver linings	Thank you for your support on my RfA.
		Unfortunately, it failed to reach consensus. Nonetheless, it proved an opportunity to establish contacts and cooperation with many supportive editors, which will be beneficial to editing Misplaced Pages in the future. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (t @)

Going through my list... how did I forget to give you a thank you note yet? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

68.199.110.255 issues me a vandalism warning

Thanks for experimenting with Misplaced Pages. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.110.255 (talk • contribs)

Sorry - what page are you referring to? I make a habit of deleting a lot of uncited content on wikipedia that falls under WP:NOR. --Pierremenard 16:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Would you kindly point to the place on WP:NOR where it gives you the right and the authority to go about deleting content contributed by other users, just because you personally feel that the content violates the "No Original Research" policy? Jimbo Wales has explained that the "No Original Research" policy was implemented to slow down "physics cranks". Nowhere has Jimbo Wales stated that a general user has the right to take it upon himself to delete biographical content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.110.255 (talk • contribs)

I can't say what page the anon might be referring to, of course. But I looked at his/her edit history, and noticed Charles Weldon. That was started by a User:Sam Sloan, whom the anon claims to be on his/her talk page (and edited as anon also). I made a heroic effort at getting it slightly more encyclopedic in tone, but I'm guessing you did the same on some other fan-fluff bio the editor created (perhaps under the username rather than the IP address). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it! Almost all of the content of Sam Sloan was just stuff copied from his webpage. I deleted all the content from that article that lacked reliable sources. --Pierremenard 21:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Certainly: WP:CITE states "any material that is challenged and has no source may be removed by any editor." --Pierremenard 21:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from adding nonsense, as you did to Charles Weldon, to Misplaced Pages. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Rv. Vandalism by User:Pierremenard Weldon's death and the unfortunate circumstances of his death were revealed in an obituary published in Chess Life magazine in February, 1994. User:Pierremenard is strongly encouraged to stop his repeated vandalism of subjects he obviously knows nothing about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.110.255 (talk • contribs)

I suggest you review the definition of vandalism over at WP:Vandalism. It says, among other things, "While having large chunks of text you've written deleted, moved to the talk page, or substantially rewritten can sometimes feel like vandalism, it should not be confused with vandalism." --Pierremenard 00:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Rv. Again. Who appointed you as the Misplaced Pages Policeman? Your repeated vandalism of the obituary of a deceased person is especially reprehensible because he will be remembered by your last words with no chance to improve or correct the record. I suspect that User:Pierremenard has been blocked under another user name, because his User Contributions show that he just started editing on 26 December, and most of his edits concern Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.110.255 (talk • contribs)

I'm bringing the article up to the standards described in WP:CITE and WP:RS. It is ridiculous on your part to claim that the material can be cited, without actually citing it. If you would actually find the citation and insert it into the article, everything would be solved. Until then, however, the material is unsourced and may be removed from the article.

If you feel my edits are vandalism, I suggest you leave a message on WP:VIP. --Pierremenard 19:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

And, by the way, your info above about the date I started editing is way off. See here for my first 50 edits. --Pierremenard 23:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sam Sloan

A lot of what you removed is documented on Sloan's web site (which apparently is not good enough for you), but I suspose its importance is marginal. -- Pinktulip 09:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I have decided to add back in just the custody paragraph. The custody case and Sloan's felony conviction are well documented. -- Pinktulip 09:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I replied on your talk page. --Pierremenard 19:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your approach. You might want to take a look at: Misplaced Pages:Wikipedians with articles and apply your approach fairly to all of them. -- Pinktulip 23:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm basically in the process of doing so...most of the time, the problem can be solved simply by finding the citations oneself; however, in the case of Sam Sloan and Charles Weldon I've been unable to verify the information myself.

All I am doing is applying wikipedia policies already in place. And, personally, my view is that if wikipedia is going to include entries with uncited information, based only on the say-so of the editors, there is no way it will ever achieve any kind of reliability --Pierremenard 23:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I am going to ask you to use a little more judgement (as in, wisdom). Look at all of the Sloan's contributions since he started with Wikipeida six months ago. He has added a lot to the online knowledge of Khowar and that area of Pakistan. He may be a joker and occasionally POV, but he has lot to offer in his areas of expertise. He is not loading up Misplaced Pages with information about garage bands, TV shows or discographies (which are much more easily verifiable but ammount to little more than mass-produced informational junk food) but he is a genuine and reliable expert on Pakistan culture, chess and chess biographies and some aspects of his Supreme Court case. He is a bright, honest and civil person and he can provide this information because that is how he lived his life rather than waiting for it to appear on television or in some book. It is very easy for you to go butcher some obituary that he has written, but I can assure that it is not-so-easy for him to write those obituaries because he met and gotten to know these world-class chess players before they passed. He is simply trying to preserve some of the more obscure aspects of the World's civilization before they get buldozed into a parking lot by the great homogenizing force of Western civilization. I think even you can see that now that the best Chess players in the world can be beaten by machines, that Chess' as an aspect of our civilization is waning. I am asking you to cease your contribution that that obliteration process. If you give it a moment's thought, I think that you will see that that inexorable obliteration process is part of what Misplaced Pages was supposed to try to slow down. -- Pinktulip 01:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that his intentions are good. And I agree that wikipedia needs more chess biographies (I even created one chess stub myself). But the information needs to be cited. --Pierremenard 01:35, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- You have admitted that you know nothing of the game of chess and are not familiar with the literature of the game. You are just a crackpot. Who appointed you as an Misplaced Pages policeman? They have administrators for that, and you are not one of them. What gives you the right to delete content just because you, who know nothing, have "been unable to verify the information" yourself? Sam Sloan 12:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Your statement "You are just a crackpot" is a personal attack in violation of WP:NPA. I've left a message on the administrator's noticeboard. As for the rest of your questions, I have already answered them in the preceeding paragraphs. --Pierremenard 22:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

3RR

Please do not keep undoing other people's edits without discussing them first. This is considered impolite and unproductive. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Misplaced Pages under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. (okay, so you probably already know that but just be careful... and remember that even if you do let 24 hours lapse, it's still "gaming the system" sometimes and that's not very good either...) Sasquatcht|c 10:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was a bit overeager. I apologize. --Pierremenard 10:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

He apologizes and is polite to you, because he knows that you are an administrator and can block him, but to the rest of us peons, he is nasty. Sam Sloan 03:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems admitting that I am wrong when it happens. Please indicate a single time when I've been personally rude to you. --Pierremenard 04:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

tinyurl

I added some hyphens the the tinyurl URL. You must have a firewall issue on your side. -- Pinktulip 22:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Pierremenard 22:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

That whole Japanese entertainer thing? To me, it is just entertainment. The veracity of some statement about a specific entertainment product does not recieve much of my time. It is nice that the page links to some of her works. You and Sam seemed to have concerned, but with differing perspecives on the matter. This not like the Eternal Trvths of Math. I am usually of the opinion that entertainment is vastly overrepresented at Wikiepdia, relative to its Importance. I am an unusual U.S. guy: I have not owned a TV in my adult life. For me, the exciting part of Wikipeida is biography of living people. My advice: forget about Nanako Matsushima and give me a critical review of this page: Elizabeth Morgan. -- 03:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

All right, I will go through Elizabeth Morgan sometime tomorrow. And yes, entertainment is not really important. But still, my perspective is that if there is an unencyclopedic statement somewhere on wikipedia, then some day someone will stumble upon it, notice that its unencyclopedic, and as a result will be less inclined to think wikipedia is reliable. --Pierremenard 03:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

AEL

I am not trying to censor valid accusations but I would like to see specific accusations attributed to specific sources rather than very general and vague POV accusations documented in a very sloppy way ("all the unsourced labels can be found in this Salon article"). --68.214.59.196 02:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I will try to make a new version of the article that addresses your concerns. --Pierremenard 02:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, note that my sloppy documentation was an attempt to improve on the current state of the article, which had no documentation at all! --Pierremenard 02:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

And now that I've inserted a source for every statement, you've reverted it back. --Pierremenard 02:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Complaining about 3RR

This is called wikilawyering. When you do not like someone's edits, instead of working to improve the article, try to manipulate the rules and processes to get them blocked. Then you can have your way. Good luck. --68.214.59.196 05:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)