User talk:Stormwriter

This user may have left Wikipedia. Stormwriter has not edited Wikipedia since January 2010. As a result, any requests made here may not receive a response. If you are seeking assistance, you may need to approach someone else.

I am very impressed with your contributions! Do you have any intention of tying the use of tools in with the anthro sections? --dgd

Thanks. Yes, eventually I will. At the moment, I'm just trying to get it all linked together with archaeology (which is, in the US anyway, a subset of anthropology!). It seems every time I create an entry, I end up with more things to write about -- a problem that I'm sure is common to other Wikipedia authors. -- Storm

Hi there. Welcome to the Wikipedia! The articles you've added look very interesting. Just a minor point: could you establish context in the opening, on Eraillure, for example. (see Wikipedia:Establish context, which I have just realised needs a good spring clean!) -- Tarquin 12:08 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. I'm having a lot of fun. I will definitely check out the page you've pointed out, and will modify my entries accordingly. -- Storm

Floyd, I really liked your poem, And Why?. --Ed Poor 16:58 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)

Why, thank you, sir. Always nice to have a fan. :)

Hi. I see you're settling in nicely. I'm kicking myself for not having thought of "adage" -- see Talk:Law (principle). -- Tarquin 17:20 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)

Well, thanks for making me feel welcome. I'm having a great time. Stormwriter

Illegitemi non carborundum -- Stormwriter, I've been working on Wikipedia off and on for over a year, and, indeed, there is a certain amount of annoyance we have to tolerate here. Unfortunately, some of it is from old-timers and admins who we would expect should know better but apparently don't. Try not to let them bug you too much, and try to do your best for the project. Unfortunately, doing good generally has to be its own reward - you probably won't get much thanks.

Excellent point; thanks. I'm afraid I just let Mr. High-and-Mighty get to me today. I know better, too. Stormwriter

Stormwriter, re Jimbo Wales (Jimmy Wales) and deleting controversial username: From the page Bomis: "Bomis started Nupedia and hired Larry Sanger who, while working on Nupedia, got the idea for Wikipedia. Bomis provides the webspace and bandwidth for these projects out of the goodness of Jimbo Wales, who runs the place." Personal note: In my Wikipedia adventures I have never known Jimbo Wales to be arbitrary or unreasonable (in sharp contrast to some other old-timers and admins). I'd trust him on this. Have a good one.

I see your point, of course, my anonymous admirer, but I just think they're making too big a deal of this. Yes, TMC is a provocateur, a gadfly; but he has made some decent contributions, and has made some good points. Shall we drive him away because we disagree with his name (the meaning of which we're choosing from an ethnocentric viewpoint)? Shall we make him drink hemlock? He explained very well that his name means something else in British English. Yes, I know he kept it unchanged to be provocative (or so I assume). I'm not trying to start a fight here; I'm trying to make a point. This name issue is not a big in the long run; let's focus on other things. Stormwriter

Issue 1

I enjoy Wikipedia most of the time, but I have a real problem with the level of incivility I see here, especially on the talk pages. I realize that this is merely an expression of the Internet tendency to be rude to people you'll never meet in real life; I know most of the folks making these comments wouldn't make them to a person's face. However. I try to be civil. I might occasionally use gentle sarcasm to get my point across, but I try to be nice otherwise, and I would like others to be nice back. In the last weeks I've found myself belittled and snapped at by sysop- and founder-level individuals when I was simply trying to mediate in a dispute. This is unacceptable. As an Amercian -- hell, as a human being -- I have a right to my opinion, especially if I don't insult someone as I express it.

What I've seen lately is a vocal minority ganging up on specific individuals when they do something somewhat unpopular. Yes, some of these people are outspoken and childish, but by and large they've hurt no one. Should they be forced to change when they don't want to? I'm especially concerned when the changes forced are based on ethnocentric assumptions. The vocal minority is especially vocal in their claim that there is no elite caste in Wikipedia society, but I disagree; these individuals often wield a good deal of influence, whether they admit it or not. In at least one instance, it appears that they appealed to the esteemed owner, Jimbo, to wield his own influence when they could not convince a person to stop what they were doing. Suddenly, what that person was doing is now deemed bannable. Some of this group claim that their decisions are based on "consensus", but executive fiat is not consensus. More than once, they've said that that if an individual disagrees with the "consensus" decisions or viewpoint, then they can shape up or leave. Voting aside, democratic society is not about "consensus". Gadflies are necessary, lest a society become too insular and undemocratic. I've observed Wikipedia becoming less and less of a democratic society in the few weeks since I've been contributing.

My suggestion: we can institute a clear policy making it clear that there is an elite "cabal" with the power to make these types of decisions, and then give those individuals clear intructions on how to use those powers; we can create a policy outlining exactly what is and is not allowed; or we can stop being so damned picky about minor things that do not matter in the long run.

Mind you, this is my opinion only. For these comments, I fully expect to be told that I should "go hang out at my own doomed wiki," to quote one contributor. I might, if I don't see some changes soon. I'm a patient person, but I'm starting to get really tired.

SMASH THE STATE! Lir 23:30 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

I can't agree with you, Lir. In fact, your statement is directly juxtaposed with what I'm trying to say. The state needs fixing, not smashing. Stormwriter

I'm sorry to see you go, Stormwriter. I hope you'll come back when the TMC business has blown over. -- Tarquin 18:06 Nov 22, 2002 (UTC)

Issue 2

I've been thinking, which is always scary.

I have an unfortunate tendency to see all sides of an issue, which is not good whenever I want to be decisive. Hence my indecision about whether I should stay with Wikipedia or not. On the one hand, I am sympathetic with the argument, presented by many, that Wikipedia is Jimbo's property and that he has the right to do anything with it, up to and including banning anyone for any reason -- or even trashing the server, for that matter. As an American, property rights are something I hold dear, so I certainly understand this viewpoint. It doesn't help that so many who support it are grumpy and rude, but I can see past that.

Then there's the middle stance. Something has to be done about both the vandalizing and all the frivolous, poorly-written articles in the 'pedia. Many, many articles get by that are choked by poor grammar and punctuation; some are virtually incomprehensible. Perhaps we need an editorial board. Otherwise, can we institute a true hierarchy with a few at the top who can change or delete anything they feel is inapprpriate? How about we make it impossible for an individual who is not signed in to contribute? Something has to be done soon, or Wikipedia will collapse into chaos.

On the third hand, my understanding was that this was a wide open experiment in literary democracy. The above suggestions would make it into an oligarchy, which it seems in danger of becoming anyway. It seems to me that it isn't just Jimbo exercising authority over the project; there are plenty of others who do as well. To see people get banned for minor issues like their username or their high annoyance factor is worrying. There are names on Wikipedia that I find amusing, and there are some I think are either weird or inappropriate for mixed company. But that's OK. I thought the whole issue here was the literature -- the actual wiki entries. I fully support banning someone who vandalizes articles, or someone who directly threatens someone else. I've never seen the latter here, but I've seen the reactions of those who felt they were threatened. Then there are the edit wars, where one fanatic does his best to rewrite another fanatic's non-NPOV prose, over and over again, ad nauseum. This is foolish and unproductive. I for one find religion of all kinds to be a frivolous waste of time at best and a danger to the survival of the human species at worst, yet it is an undeniable fact of human existance, and I would never dream of reverting or blanking a well-written NPOV article about Islam, Christianity, or any other belief. I find some frank sexual entries to be offensive, but I won't delete them (my recent call for deleting some of them was meant to make a point).

Short version: Can't make up my mind, guys. Help me out. Stormwriter

Glad to help, Stormy. Two things: (1) I agree that those who are given power should be given clear limits on that power and clear instructions on how to use it. As we grow from campsite to village to small town, we will need to become more democratic. (2) Take an occasional day off! :-) Ed Poor

I'm coming increasingly to think that wikipedia itself is a problem I can't figure out; the Jerry Lewis with the muriatic acid is me. What I'm trying to say is, I'm apparently part of the problems you mention above. --KQ

Grimes Graves[edit]

I'll look through my stuff tonight and do something on the site. I never knew that Wikipedia would make my undergrad notes come in so useful! In the meantime can I make a request too? I've never been all that clear on the whole microburin/microlith relationship and exactly what purpose the microburins served, if any. I'm very impressed with your lithics entries and wonder if you could do anything on that whole thing? Cheers! adamsan 08:26, 27 May 2004 (UTC)~[reply]

Frank Bunker Gilbreth[edit]

Hey Stormwriter, thanks for the fine stub on him! I was surprised to find that Wikipedia didn't cover him already, but didn't have the time to do it myself. Good job! Lupo 08:51, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi Lupo -- thanks for the kudos. Actually, I had a good time writing it. I remember the original movie with fondness, and I have a copy of Cheaper By the Dozen in my stacks at home. Stormwriter 13:29, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Invite[edit]

Hi

I'm posting this to invite you to participate in WP:LCOTW , a project you may be interested in. Please consider nominating and/or voting for a suitable article there. Filiocht 12:39, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing[edit]

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Prehistory in the Americas[edit]

Hi Stormwriter, have you any expertise in the Archaic, Lithic etc stages of prehistory in the Americas? Some of us have been discussing expanding the currently rather exiguous entries on the subject over at Archaic which has now moved to Talk:Archaic period in southeastern North America. There are so many different phases and subphases that it would be good to decide on a structure for it all early on. adamsan 13:51, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from talk page[edit]

Wow, u did a lot of stuff. Puppyest08

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]