User talk:Mav/archive 19

Lower Yellowstone Fall.jpg[edit]

Media:Lower Yellowstone Fall-1200px.JPG --> *GREAT* picture. Very nice work. →Raul654 00:22, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is truly an awesome sight. Make sure you see it someday. That photo does not even give the place justice. --mav

Main Page Comments[edit]

Mav... I did not intentionally remove any comments from any talk page. If I did so inadvertantly, please revert my edit immediately. I apologize if I unintentionally caused any offense whatsoever. -- Seth Ilys 02:58, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No problem - except others have edited the page. I was pretty sure it was unintentional, but I thought I would ask anyway. --mav

Cookies[edit]

Dear Mav: I seem to have a problem: I cant log in to wikipedia cause my cookies are not enabled. I dont have this problem, for example, at Ebay.com or Airliners.net, only here.

Since I cant log in, Ill be looking at your page, I need to know if you can answer me how to solve this problem.

Thank you and God bless you!

Sincerely yours Antonio Incognito Martin

Telephone[edit]

This is the second time I've been called down on the "don't delete content" charge. Once here, and once on Shirt.

Mav, what is the appropriate action when an article is just bad? (Shirt STILL sucks.) The content I deleted ( a long quote from Munro's "Hero's of the Telegraph" ) is off topic _AND_ inaccurate. Is it ok to dump that stuff to a page like "History of the telephone - Bell's demonstrations" or something like that?

Telephone needs to become the hub of a set of pages not unlike Computer has. I would appriciate some hints then, which is considered better form --Telephone (History)-- or --History of the Telephone--.

I know, this harkens back to the whole "subpages" discussion, but I'm not sure I understand what the concensus decision was.

Thanks Rick Boatright 04:37, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The consensus decision was to not delete content. If you have an issue with a certain paragraph then move it to the talk page and give your reasoning why the paragraph should be moved, deleted, or how it can be fixed. I noticed your deletion when I looked for a fact that I added to that page but found that it had been removed (the date that Bell first tested his telephone). See Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes, esp Deleting useful content. --mav

Thanks for the note. I did see the recent work on North Korea, but I want to avoid all DPRK-related articles other than the one on Kim Jong Il. I'm ready to give up on NPOV when it's an uphill battle, which is usually the case when subjects induce strong emotions. Attempting NPOV where it's impossible has gotten me into enough trouble as it is. However, User:Jiang NPOVed this same article recently. Perhaps he'd be willing to clean up the article. His unquestioned anti-Communist credentials make him more or less immune to the McCarthyite tactics that I've been seeing from Adam Carr, among others. 172 08:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll take a look at the article this weekend. The problems aren't that bad -- at least yet. But then I happen to agree with the POV of the writer... --mav

So do I (barring the tendency to personalize history, which as a grievance is more pedantic than values-based anyway). Same with sex abuse coverage on Catholicism. Most users don't like pedophilia and Stalinism, so there's little pressure for balance. On subjects of this nature, one has to play devil's advocate for NPOV. Since you have almost a saint-like reputation around here, you'd be able to NPOV an article like North Korea without anyone raising a fuss. This isn't the case for me, since it's easier to make me into a straw man. 172 11:04, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Me a saint? My boyfriend got a laugh out of that. ;) Thanks for the note - I hope that my edits will improve the article. --mav

KEF

Hi - I am new to Wikipedia, so hope I am getting thru to "Heron"? You are the guy who edited the KEF (loudspeaker) page?

Comment - sure, I work for KEF and can see that you have made the article suitable for Wikipedia by removing the questionable "advertorial" stuff....... nice edit, by the way, which I am quite happy with:-))(Although I did try to be as factual and objective as possible). It will be interesting to see how this develops- I suppose at the end of the day, the very open Wikipedia system becomes its own largely sensible "police force"? all the best.... pity you have to deal with flames like from "Lord Kenneth"- waste of time! --81.105.54.46 10:35, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes - Wikipedia does take care of itself - at least in time. I haven't had to deal with his lordship lately, but thanks for the note. :) --mav

North Korea[edit]

Hi, Mav: all power to you for your intention to edit the North Korea article for NPOV. You have my best wishes. North Korea isn't even the most controversial Korea-related article, though, so after you're done, maybe you can try neutralizing Dispute over the name Sea of Japan.... Of course, you may not want to get involved in that debate in the first place. My own moderately pro-Korean bias shows through in my edits to that article, and many more edits by people on both sides of the debate have made an utter mess of the article. --Sewing 18:30, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I wish I knew enough about the dispute over the name Sea of Japan to help... Thanks for the note though. --mav

Bill OReilly1.jpg[edit]

Hi, it seems that Image:Bill OReilly1.jpg didn't upload properly. Could you try it again? It's currently listed on IFD for having no content. silsor 18:39, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

I deleted that image from my computer weeks ago. See the top of the village pump. --mav

Japanese place names[edit]

A couple of Wikipedians have taken it upon themselves to rename Hiroshima to Hiroshima, Hiroshima, and do likewise for every other Japanese city. Please help me beat some sense into them by voting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japanese districts and municipalites. -- Sekicho 22:48, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Done. Hiroshima, Hiroshima is very odd. --mav

Metric[edit]

Hi Mav, mostly I do just add metric measures, and leave the non-metric in brackets. The few cases where I remove the non-metric, are because I know for definite that the non-metric figure given is incorrect (e.g. a species of tree cited as reaching 40 feet, but I know it reaches 30m or more); in these cases I put the correct figure in metric, and can't be bothered with calculating new non-metric figures for a 5% reactionary minority. - MPF 21:21, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
See it was Mt Whitney you're concerned about - for the summit altitude, I used the exact conversion figure (x 0.3048), so there aren't any conversion, rounding and significant figure errors; for the height above Owens Valley, I used the exact figure (summit altitude minus Owens Lake bed altitude, off my US Geol. Survey California maps), so it is actually a lot more accurate than the "2 miles" previously given (it was me who added the 'just over') - MPF 21:31, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK - carry on then. Just please make those type of notes in edit summaries - we have a problem with people converting units one way or the other and then back again (thus corrupting the data). --mav

OK, will do! MPF 21:40, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Mount Tambora[edit]

I am trying to fill in a Selected Anniversary for April 10; in so doing, I found the Mount Tambora article which currently states that April 10 was the climactic day when the volcano blew its top. However, April 15 also is credited as the big day. Based on the page history, April 10 appears to be the consensus. If there are no objections, I would like to cite this day in Selected anniversaries. Ancheta Wis 13:19, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC) Mav, sorry for the misunderstanding on the number of allowed events per day.

First - Thanks for the help! :) Second - Volcanic eruptions are tricky since they last days to weeks and often obscure the damage they cause until literally the dust (well ash) settles. But it does appear that the most violent stage of the eruption occurred sometime between April 10th and April 15th with April 12th being the day I could find the most references for (at least twice as many as any other day in the period - there were a great many references to the eruption starting on April 5th). I say we should go with that and fix all the affected articles. Third - No problem about the misunderstanding (I only recently changed that rule to allow more). --mav

Kim Jong-il[edit]

Hi Mav. I'm not saying that you, personally, need to fix this but someone should and I figure you will know who. User:Adam_Carr and User:172 are slugging it out over at Kim Jong-il. User:Sekicho is valiantly trying to write a compromise, but to little avail. HELP - Gaz 13:33, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yep - that is an ugly edit war. I've protected Kim Jong-il but do need to go to bed. I'll see if I can spare an hour or two in the next few days to try to figure this issue out. --mav

172 seems to have gone right over the edge today. I don't know whether he is bad enough to try to have him banned, but he is a serious threat to this project because he drives away people who want to write serious articles without dealing with his ridiculous propaganda. Adam 13:43, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He's right. I have gone right over the edge today: I'm emulating his behavior! For once I've started to treat him like he's been treating other users for months. Adam, for example, charges me with Stalinism for removing a sentence like the following:

"Although attempts by the Clinton administration in the U.S. and by Kim Dae-jung in South Korea to settle the issues in dispute between the DPRK on the one hand and the U.S. and South Korea on the other hand had clearly failed, it did not seem that the U.S. or South Korea had any plans to remove the DPRK regime by force."

So, why not try fighting demagoguery with demagoguery for once? When he calls me a Stalinist, I'll call him a fascist. When he calls me an apologist, I'll charge him with McCarthyism. It's great to see Adam on the defensive finally. Usually he acts like a tough guy, ridiculing other users for seeking mediation amid his abuse. But now, it's Adam who's frightened for once because I'm the first user to see him for what he is and finally stand up to his months of abusing scores of other users, who usually cannot withstand his abuse as well as I can. 172 14:26, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Standard[edit]

When you are contrasting 'Standard' and 'Metric' what do you mean? I'm very confused about this, as in 90% of the world, they are the same. Perhaps you mean US customary? Morwen 13:50, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

95%, actually!

US customary = standard in US, yes. --mav

LOL. Still at it, eh?-SV

Thought so. Please bear in mind that this is an international encyclopedia. Telling non-US editors to use 'standard' units is likely to cause confusion or offence. I quite appreciate the logic of keeping them in the original unit first, then the converted unit. Morwen 13:54, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

I know that. We just call US customary units standard rather exclusively here. I will add a 'US' in front from now on. --mav

Copy from User talk:MPF - As a general rule, US topics should have standard units first (unless the measurements were made in metric). --mav

Metric is standard, imperial isn't! MPF 15:33, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I should have said US standard. --mav

Er, what is "US standard"?? - I understand that the metric system is the only measurement system that has ever been formally approved by the US Congress in legislation. The imperial system is of course in widespread popular use, but apparently has no legal status (so I am told by someone in the US!).

Looking on topozone, the USGS 1:25,000 scale maps use metres for the benchmark altitudes: Mount Whitney 4416.9m :-) - MPF 21:36, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And yet all the road signs I see, bolts I screw, and rulers I use are based on English units (which are called "standard" in the U.S.). My source used US standard, so that is what I put into the article (which is a US topic, BTW). Just to be clear, as a scientist I do prefer SI units over US customary, but I am writing on US topics so I conform to the spirit of US/British convention we have (respect the spelling and date format you see in articles unless that format is counter to the subject - using US spelling on a British topic, for example). --mav

User talk:Marcusvox[edit]

SVtalk 14:06, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"I hate Fox News and much prefer NPR. Is that M for multiple or for Mav? ;) Anyway, we can't say that Reagan was a terrorist since very few, if any people say that other than in arguments over the use of the term "terrorist.""

NPR/Fox - It often does'nt matter. "Cant say that Regan was a terrorist?" Well, forgetting what we can or can't do, isnt the statement based in fact? What exactly are we free to say in America then, if it's not the facts? I generally don't expect much in the way of a thoughful response Mav, but I understand its due the limits on your time, not your intellect. ;) -SVtalk 14:54, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read our NPOV policy - it is not our job to say that one set of disputed facts is correct or not and thus make a conclusion based on that (Reagan did x and y, x and y are considered to be terrorist acts, ergo Reagan is a terrorist!), but to say what the major views on a subject are. Extremely few people of note (if that) seriously call Reagan a terrorist outside of these pedantic and time-wasting type of arguments over the use of the term. I'm off to bed. --mav

LOL - Yes, its too early to really get down with wiki yet. But when you wake up, please note you're own various (adjective) contradictions of logic —which in the end, elimiate any NPOV use of the term "terrorism." Which is my point (and I think Erik raised the issue a while back...) So, in setting new heights for NPOV, lets you and I, each of us dogmatists in our own right, eliminate the use of "terrorist" on the wikipedia entirely, unless its contianed as a POV in itself. Gutensleepin,' -STEVE

The fact that a great many people call or think of a person as a terrorist, if true, is a fact that we should report. Keep Wikipedia's articles below 451° F. Night, day, morning, whatever... --mav

Off-topic criticism of User:Maveric149 by User:NetEsq moved from User talk:EntmootsOfTrolls/ban:

<< If you think that that type of activity should be encouraged by allowing him to continue to edit, then you have some emotional problems that need to be examined by a professional. So the only thing that is distasteful here is your accusation that the 142.177 hard ban is not justified. >> This comment, made by Maveric149 to GrahamN, is way out of line. I have worked with emotionally and mentally disturbed children in a professional setting, and I am extremely offended by the notion that anyone's opinions should be dismissed by an appeal to the allegation that said person is emotionally or mentally disturbed. Other things being equal, such allegations have no place in scholarly discourse, as such allegations are an insidious and subtle way of launching a personal attack. -- NetEsq 00:00, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hello Mav. I've been away for a while, and I've only just seen this. I disagree with NetEsq. I was not offended, and did not interpret it as a personal attack. GrahamN 04:58, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I thought the guy was already blocked? I guess I should check the regular RC more often... --mav

Pardon? What's a "regular RC"? All I meant was that, unlike NetEsq, I don't think it is offensive to say that if a person thought it was OK to make death threats then they would need their head examined. Of course they would. That's all. Hope you are well. GrahamN 05:57, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Section editing is messed up on this page - that response was for the message below. --mav

sorry to bother you...Fire Department Alert[edit]

But we're having trouble tonight with a vandal, see Wikipedia:Block log. Some suspect it is the same user as User:Bird....if you have any way to help us stop this individual, it would be much appreciated. We are in IRC. Kingturtle 07:46, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I guess I should check the regular RC more often... --mav

re your edit to hitler it should be "and also" . american youths have a natural sense of internal conflict. always be wary please of your conjuctions, usually "and also" is meant, BUT many people feel the need to spice up the sentance like you did.

I just spotted your vote on my proposal to give sysops the power to hand out 24 hour bans for revert wars. Could you mention it on the mailing list please? I'm not subscribed.... I've linked to it on the village pump, current polls and community portal, so I think I've covered all the necessary wikipedia places. :) fabiform | talk 09:25, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sure. --mav

Cheers. :) I've left a few comments on talk:yellowstone park, I think it's a good article. I've also played around with one of your photographs, of the north gate, to try to bring out the gate against the bright sky (300px, 750px). Revert at will of course. fabiform | talk 22:09, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Mexicana de Aviacion photo[edit]

Dear Mav: Hello! Go to the Mexicana de Aviacion page and see what I did. I tried mightly to put a photo of a jetliner of the airline there, and all I got was what is there. I already have permission from Jorge Rocafort to use the photo. I was wondering if you could help me put the photo in the main article. I copied all the instructions on the upload page, put together commands, erased a few dots, I did everything to try to see if the photo came on the article and all I got is what you will see. I hope you or someone can help!

Thank you, and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Sneaky Snaeky Martin

Er? I see this photo: [[Image::MexicanaDC10.jpg]] as a thumbnail. --mav

Hey Mav: Yeah somebody else fixed the photo and now its there. I wonder if my computer has a problem , I can not transport files to disks or the internet. Anyways, the only problem now is that Mr. Jorge Rocafort was not credited with the copyright , the photo has no photo history page. How do I do that or do you know anyone who can do that for me outside you and Arpingstone? I mean I dont want to overload you 2 with work.

Thanks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Funaholic Martin

There was an extra colon. Fixed. Exit Image:MexicanaDC10.jpg. --mav

Passing this around... I made a general topics sidebar for biology - at Mediawiki:biology - use {{msg:biology}} tag to put it on articles as needed. Sub-field article sidebars like psychology can be worked on as well. -SV(talk) 18:13, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

RfC[edit]

Thanks, it's nice to know my efforts are appreciated. I agree the page probably needs a steward, but I'm not sure that I really want the job. I much prefer to tackle discrete projects as I find them, rather than camp out in one place to monitor things (for example, I avoid adding pages to my watchlist if at all possible). But I do periodically revisit things to see what has become of my handiwork, and certainly I'll try to prevent RfC from degenerating into the state its predecessors were in. --Michael Snow 17:49, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

bighorn sheep[edit]

Excellent and informative page on desert bighorn sheep! One thing that struck me was that the USGS guy doesn't agree with the State of California about the definition of the subspecies. I've heard the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep are a separate subspecies, which is why California protects them. See, e.g., [1][2]. I need to do more research in order to understand this, myself. Subspecies definition may be difficult to NPOV correctly. -- hike395

Found a more thorough (less press-release-y) explanation, at page 2 of [3]. According to Wehausen and Ramey (2000), there is a species O. c. californiana that is only limited to the Sierra Nevada. So, the figure from the USGS may be out of date. That makes 4 real subspecies, I think... -- hike395 13:04, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Cool - thanks for taking a look. --mav

Lead sections[edit]

Mav, we need to agree on the length of the lead sections. I favor a maximum of two paragraphs. Is there a place to talk about this already?—Eloquence 21:52, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:News style. Paragraphs can be fairly long, but I would still put the range in 2-3 good-sized paras. --mav

Now there's Wikipedia:Lead section, also linked from the MoS. Let me know if you have any objections.—Eloquence 22:42, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for creating that! I tweaked it a bit. --mav

Past tense[edit]

Oy. There are so many votes floating around I lose track of what I've voted on and what I've voted. RickK | Talk 23:13, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No biggie - February, March and the first part of April are now consistently in the past tense. --mav

Media Wiki Cults[edit]

Hello Maveric149,

I adapted the Media wiki cults I hope you find it okay now and that you reconsider and change your comments from neutral to keep on Vote for deletion of media wiki

It is a complicated but important subject and I think the Media Wiki cults helps people to understand it. Andries 20:03, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Better - it can be improved more later. I changed my vote to keep. --mav

Flag of Canada[edit]

Shouldn't the Flag of Canada be consistent with Dannebrog, Tricolore, Union Jack? The page is about the flag, so I would make it big. --Henrygb 03:16, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Other way around. Fixed. See Wikipedia:Image use policy. If you see more like that, then please fix them. --mav

No - if you are keen, you could start with Gallery of national flags and click on the "Flag of" links. Wikipedia:Image use policy says "Scale and crop images to a size appropriate for the article": the flag pages are big versions; the small versions appear in the country pages. --Henrygb 09:51, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

300 px is half the screen and the un-thumbed image completely dominates the article. Images are only part of the article - thus they should not dominate them. I'll take care of all the other countries this weekend. --mav

I think it would be polite to discuss this with people who set up all the flag pages first. A page about a flag should be dominated by the flag itself. --Henrygb 10:24, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No it should not - it should be dominated with text about the subject. Just like every other article here. The only reason why the flags dominated those articles before is due to the fact that the images are so hig and until recently is has been a real pain to create thumbnails. Now that this is easy, those articles should be converted. --mav

All flags done. --mav

Request[edit]

Dear mav, i am sorry to abuse your time, but i need your help. The custom messages for copyright infringements are not good. They must include a link to [[PAGE NAME/Temp]], otherwise is a mess to check if the copyvio was rewritten. The previous boilerplate was much better. Can you do this, or explain me out to do it? I tried but i'm afraid of messing things up. Cheers, Muriel 12:31, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi Muriel, mav apologies for barging onto your talk page, but I happened to read this and it seemed like a general request! Note the custom messages do not take parameters (not yet anyway) thus the custom message cannot include any page specific information such as where the copyvio came from and the name of the correct temp page to right at. This could be solved by splitting the copyvio custom messages into 3 parts instead of 2 and inserting the temp link between parts 2 and 3. I have to question whether it's worth effort in this case - we don't have to use msgs: at every possible opportunity. I am going to use copy and paste boilerplate for the time being. We can use msgs again when they support parameters. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:27, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for barging in! :) --mav

Thanks Pete and mav for the talk page. It would be indeed more practical to use the older boilerplate. Cheers, Muriel 08:55, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey Mav. The MGM Lion screenshot image you uploaded to [[Image:MGM lion.jpg]] is broken due to what someone described as the "January Gap". Can you re-upload it? The MGM article has an ugly broken image link in it. Thanks :) - Mark 16:18, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sadly I deleted the image right after I uploaded it. For now it is commented out. --mav

You win[edit]

If you recall our little argument about the policy for updating the Main Page, you may be amused to know that I'm now policing the rule too. See the page history for Template:Itn. --Michael Snow 23:40, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My evil plan is working! Muwahaha! ;) --mav

Daft ideas[edit]

Probably my daft idea. Originally had it a Presidential campaign of John Kerry, but then someone had to go and add the damn year--because John Kerry has had so many presidential campaigns we have to distiguish between, you know? Grr. At that point came the swap, because I think the guy's name is more important that the year, although some would disagree, I'm sure, because it's the goddamn internet and that's what we do here. So, I am here to announce: Wikipedia:WikiProject POTUS Campaigns

Cool - we can work on a better standard there. --mav

Bad Images[edit]

Image:Cheers1.jpg seems to be missing. Should it be removed from the article or replaced? --Spikey 03:07, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Comment it out. It should be fixed soon. --mav

Image:Conan OBrien1.jpg is also missing; I commented it out too. Is this a trend? :) --Spikey 23:51, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Syro-Malabar Catholic Church[edit]

Hi Mav, some goofball (who didn't bother to log in) restored the copyright violation at Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. There was a previous stub article that I restored, but the copyvio text is viewable in the history. Can that copy be deleted from the history with a minimum of fuss? TIA -- llywrch 06:19, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. --mav

Image thumbnails[edit]

Hiya. I noticed your page User:Maveric149/Images - Yellowstone National Park. Would you like to use the new thumbnail feature for them, and list the manually-created thumbnails on Images for deletion? Thanks if you do. — Timwi 03:06, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I already plan to do that - busy now though. --mav

Unknown yellow flower[edit]

Hi. While browsing your vastly impressive contributions, I noticed this sweet little thing. I felt sorry for its anonymity, so I did some research. I'm fairly sure it's a "yellow cup" or "golden evening primrose" (Camissonia brevipes) of the evening primrose family, Onagraceae. I came to this conclusion based on comparisons with [4] and [5]. It's reportedly common in the Death Valley area.

I'm no botanist, however, so there's always that smidge of uncertainty. So, I'll leave any caption alterations to your discretion. :) Cheers, -- Hadal 07:35, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! :) For a while I was pretty sure it was a golden evening primrose too but the really high res photo I have of it shows fuzzy leaves and the golden evening primrose example photos I have seen did not have that. But everything else looks to be in order... Perhaps the angle and lighting conditions I shot under made very hard to see features stand out. --mav

You're welcome! :) I wondered about the leaves too; but the angle and lighting are (pleasingly!) unusual, so I agree with your hypothesis. It's also the only yellow flower listed among the Plants of Death Valley with even a passing resemblance to the specimen in your photo. That's not to say it couldn't be an as yet unlisted species/variety, but I'm satisfied. :) -- Hadal 08:19, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Alexa Top 50 Reference sits[edit]

I wrote Alexa today; that's all that was necessary. They were most polite and said we should be on their list "within days". +sj + 05:25, 2004 Mar 23 (UTC)

Sweet! :) --mav

Featured articles[edit]

For what it's worth, I wanted to let you know I appriciate the effort and trouble you're going through to keep only properly approved articles at Featured articles. If its any support, I'd oppose the Origins of the Civil War article, if I could ever bring myself to read all 34 (in my copy of MS word) pages of text. Gentgeen

Thanks for the support. BTW, you don't have to read it to note that the article is too long and thus violates our page size guideline. --mav

Doomed numbers?[edit]

Dear Mav: Hi! I had to express this with someone. Its not really related to wikipedia but reading wikipedia articles, I found out three fatal airline crashes with the number 191 on them, American Airlines Flight 191, Delta Airlines Flight 191 and Prinair Flight 191. This combined with the 911 air tragedies makes me think that the numbers nine + two ones in a flight could be doomed. What do you think? Mystery legend on the making? Perhaps some day we might see a are the flights with numbers 9,1 and 1 in any combination doomed? on a future remake of Unsolved Mysteries? hehe...you gotta admit, thats interesting to think about.

Oh and congratulations on going back to college full time again. I wish I could do that!

God bless! Sincerely yours, Antonio Unsolved Mystery Martin

Interesting, but almost certainly just a coincidence. Even so, I will not get on any flight with a 9 and two 1s. Thanks for possibly saving my life. ;) --mav

Mercury[edit]

Maveric, I do not think the mercury page should be rewritten to play-down the dangers of mercury. There has not been any news media exaggeration of the risk that I know of. It is one of the most toxic things in existance. There are some people who work in dentistry who completely reject that it can be harmful (that editor who rewrote it may be one of those). Crusadeonilliteracy 09:03, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It still says that mercury is highly toxic, no? As with most elements, the effects of different compounds/salts and with the elemental form will differ. --mav

Actually, I'm a chemistry minor and have discussed this topic at length with some of the professors at my college. Technically speaking, elemental mercury is harmless. Only it's compounds, more specifically its ions, are dangerous. However, elemental mercury *IS* converted to organic compounds inside of living organisms. Hence, its danger.

Darrien 03:24, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

but it was rewritten to make it sound far less toxic, and more in league with kitchen cleaner rather than radium and uranium. I think it was fine the way it was before Crusadeonilliteracy

It says that some compounds are so toxic as to cause death quickly and with very low doses. The hand waving version made it sound like anything with mercury in it at all was going to kill you. That is over-simplified and not really correct. --mav

As someone with mercury poisoning, I do not consider it hand waving. It really is as toxic as the hand wavers make it out to be.

How were you poisoned? Was it constant long term exposure to elemental mercury, or was it mercury salts/compounds?

Darrien 03:24, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

Colors of Chemicals[edit]

Don't just blindly revert articles. I pulled out several duplicate entries and made other changes. The reason I pulled the intro was that I don't think that it was particularly well written. It read like a 6th grade remedial chemistry text, not an encyclopedia. I'm of the mindset "Do it right or don't do it at all". Darrien 03:24, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

I'm of the mindset of leaving things as they are and they will get improved in time. If the text is too bad for that, then move it to the talk page and ask for it to be improved before it is put back in. But removing text like that is a Wikipedia faux pas. --mav

Faux pas or not, you still shouldn't blindly revert pages. Especially when the summary outlines other changes that shouldn't be reverted.

Such a large amount of text was removed I assumed the other edits were also bad. I see now that I was wrong about the other edits. But violating our faux pas list will very often be responded to by reverts since that is almost always the most appropriate thing to do. For you at least, I will be more careful in the future now that I know you are reasonable. --mav

July 2002 date redirects[edit]

It is no longer July 2002. A few date links, e.g. July 16, 2002 you created redirects to current events. I corrected a few, but there are still some left. Please fix the rest to redirect to July 2002 instead. --Jia ng 06:51, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wow - that was a long time ago and IIRC was before we converted the current events archive into [[{month} {year}]] pages. Back then the sidebar had a link to the current day instead of to current events. So I made some redirects. On my mental ToDo list. --mav

Posterity should recall our exploits forever at Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars ever - we've earned it. But doesn't this make you nostalgic for the days when we saw edit wars like "User talk:EntmootsOfTrolls/on applying Sharia to RK?" 172 10:54, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

RfC again[edit]

User:GrazingshipIV seems persistent about listing users on RfC without following the 2-people-contacting-on-the-talk-page guideline. I've removed another one, but this guy seems to be picking up vendettas against people who criticize him. I've added this conduct to his own listing on RfC, and I'm going to alert him to the breach of the guideline, at the risk of getting added to his hit list. I'll try to monitor RfC in case he continues, but it would be nice to have your help. If he keeps this stuff up, I'm inclined to conclude that he's a troll. --Michael Snow 20:10, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, he's promised to follow the guideline. But given the amount of trouble he's gotten into in a short period, I still have all kinds of alarms going off in my head. --Michael Snow 21:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on the RfC page. --mav

Rest assured gents, there is no 'hit list' and I have no vendettas-well at least online. I am not a troll, please visit my user page and note my contributions. I plan on keeping a low profile after the rather explosive situation that occured. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one to have a problem with Rickk and the junta ;) cheers. GrazingshipIV 05:30, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Oh no - not again[edit]

For the main page purge value I set - "Oh no - not again" - is a reference to what most people (myself included) consider the funniest part of the hithiker's guide series. I googled for it and here's the quote (sorry if this is unduly long, but it's hilarious) →Raul654 00:42, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)

Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existance several miles above the planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.

This is a complete record of its thought from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah....! What's happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I?

Hello?

Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?

What do I mean by who am I?

Calm down, get a grip now...oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It's a sort of...yawning, tingling sensation in my...my...well, I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call and argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I'll call that...wind! Is that a good name? It'll do...perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What's this thing? This...let's call it a tail--yeah, tail. Hey! I can really trash it about pretty good, can't I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn't seem to acheive very much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now, have I build up any coherent picture of things yet?

No.

Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with anticipation...

Or is it the wind?

There's really alot of that now, isn't there?

And wow! Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming toward me very fast? Very, very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide-sounding name like...ow...ound...round...ground! That's it! That's a good name--ground!

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as if fell was "Oh no, not again". Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

Srange - yet oddly funny. :)

KR[edit]

Well, Hanpuk (aka...) seems to have desisted after your last revert, although I had to comb through the Pol Pot article. I wrote as conciliatory a note as I could muster on Talk:Khmer Rouge. But, most likely a "new" user will show up in a few days and attempt the same changes. -- V V 08:08, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, I guess the next place to take this matter is the Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship page. The page protection of Wikipedia:Featured articles was a blantant attempt to arbitrate in favor of one side over another in a two-way edit war. If the page is going to remain protected, either we'll both be amenable to a compromise protected page, or the this argument will really become one over de-sysoping. 172 19:16, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/172[edit]

Please take a moment to express your thoughts on this page, if you have the time. Sam Spade 19:42, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In case you're curious what's going on in RfC/VeryVerily, in particular why 172 is saying things such as "unacceptable", it's all some childish game of copy-cat. This is just him copying this, the "reference" at the top is a word-for-word copy of the text on /172, the listing for me on RfC is identical to his, and if you look at the page history for W:Rfc, his edit summary about "Reinstating an outside party's..." is just copying Michael Snow's edit summary (inapplicable, since he is not an outside party). Also, he put messages such as this on people's user pages, matching exactly what Sam just wrote above to you (and to others). -- V V 07:40, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Could you want to e-mail me your ideas regarding the article? I have to go offline soon. I know that you're dying to work on this article, but why not work on some of the other articles in the US history series before we get to origins? Some of the articles are skeletons at best. 172 21:17, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm at work now, but will send you an email later (5 hours or so). --mav

ARRRGGH, they ARE making RfC about as bad as CbU was. Thanks for your intervention, I don't have time to do much right now but I'll look into it tomorrow. --Michael Snow 07:33, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

RfC user conduct dispute template[edit]

It's an interesting idea. I have an assortment of reactions, both to your proposal and the general problem:

I like the Complaint/Response/Outside views format of the template. Adding some structure like this could force people to be more disciplined in using the dispute resolution process.
However, in practice I'm skeptical about whether people will actually stick to the format, and I doubt anybody wants the job of enforcing its use.
I think we definitely need some kind of barrier to entry against people who want to air every complaint they have about other users.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure the present barrier (two people contacting the user in question) is working very well, for these reasons:
1. Easily circumvented, either by bringing in sock puppets, or by "recruiting" people to get someone listed on RfC.
2. Difficult to enforce in terms of requiring any real effort to resolve the dispute. Basically, if any two people have mentioned the problem, it gets on, even if there's no dialogue about it. It's working like a quota you have to fill, hence the recruiting phenomenon - "Hey, do me a favor and post a complaint on X's user talk page so we can list him on RfC" without actually discussing the problem or even giving X a chance to respond.
I strongly dislike the idea of using polls in this context, in any form. I can see the value of quickpolls in more urgent situations, but otherwise polls about individual users are a very bad idea.
1. A 'poll' could easily amount to "Michael Snow is a troll - Support, Oppose, Neutral". I don't think this has any constructive result.
2. Too many people treat polls as binding, or nearly so, and I don't think we can afford to create that impression. Nothing is binding for these problems except arbitration.
3. I don't like the idea of making "findings of fact" at this stage of the process.
4. In general, I think polls and poll results would mostly turn into a club for the user's enemies to beat him over the head with.
Citing applicable policies is good, and citing evidence is even better. I think if you can't provide links to examples of the problem, the page probably should not go up.
I would not segregate discussion to a talk page. We're already creating subpages, and the whole idea of requesting comment is to invite discussion.

By the way, I quote your reaction to the poll attempted on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lir, "Also, up till now, polls were used for article content disputes. We should act slowly on extending their application to user conduct disputes." I don't mean to use your words against you - if you believe this is the place to extend, I respect that - but I feel that quickpolls are as far as we should extend at this time. Otherwise, polls should only be for content and policy issues.

I'm still racking my brain for ideas on how to create a better barrier to entry, and encourage people to resolve more of their disputes privately. If I think of anything, I'll let you know. --Michael Snow 22:18, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Have you seen the dispute page at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example user/Page status disputed? Would that not be enough to stem the flow of trivial complaints? If not, we could make that a prerequisite for listing in the first place. We could also require that at least a majority of users of at least 5 valid (non-sock puppet) users must vote on whether or not to have an RfC page on another user. I think that poll after the first week is very important and would be useful if the questions I proposed are used instead of "is this user a troll" type questions. We could explicitly forbid those types of questions from being asked in a poll. Edits to the example pages are most welcome, BTW. --mav

Yes, I've seen the dispute page. I may not have been clear, but I would lean toward a prerequisite along those lines. Perhaps by merging that with the Complaint/Response section on the regular page. And if the existence of the page is still disputed, a poll on its existence could be useful.

I don't think you'll be able to overcome my objection to other polls, though. Even sticking to the example you provided, it leads to votes about whether to sanction the user and what sanctions to impose, when there's no authority for the RfC process to impose anything. We'd have to have a poll on whether it can. Also, if the case ends up in arbitration, you'd probably have a lot of people demanding that the arbitrators accept the poll results on whether there's been a violation. --Michael Snow 23:01, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK - I've commented the poll section out for now. We can deal with the other issues in time. Best to move slowly. --mav 23:23, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Good call. Whether polls are desirable or not, they're a separate feature that can be added in later. The rest of the process doesn't depend on whether we go in that direction. --Michael Snow 23:49, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for the tone of my comments on Talk:Cold War the other day. 172 22:25, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Apology accepted. I'm sorry I complained instead of trying to perform consensus editing. But I've been greatly hampered by the fact that the computer I'm editing from (my Mom's since I am house sitting) sucks and makes anything but minor editing fairly difficult. --mav

Hi Mav. Thanks for your note in Talk:Iran. I verified it and indeed it seems that April 1 is the official day of the establishment of IRI and not some kind of a prank. --K1 04:31, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

NP. :) --mav

Mav, a Talk:May 19 event needs a home article, or I'll have to delete it before the display date. Any suggestions? Thank you. Ancheta Wis 13:25, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC) It was too fascinating not to include, but I need to place the event in some article. Where should this question go, if you don't have time to respond. ... Even though logic says this is an undocumented ash cloud from a volcanic eruption, I have decided to push the event to the talk page of May 19 Selected Anniversaries, and let it lie there awhile until an article pops up which can serve as a home for the event. Ancheta Wis 17:40, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC) No need to respond, Thanks.

Yeah - it is interesting but I don't know of any article where it could go. I'm sure one will show up sooner or later. --mav

Message[edit]

I was hopeing you would consider removing your complaint against me in the user comment section now that the dispute about creating pages incorrectly has been worked out between micheal snow and myself. I was not aware that was the improper use of such a page but having been so informed I shall not engage in such behavior again. I would henceforth like you to withdraw your current complaint and take down the page as my conflict would then be only with Rickk. thanks. GrazingshipIV 23:45, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

What page? Where is my complaint? Sorry, but I comment on a great many things every day. --mav

Mav, I think this is simply because on his RfC page, I cited that he had listed two RfC pages for other users without following the process (see above, at RfC again). I mentioned you because you had removed one of the listings. As far as we're concerned, his issue is really with RickK. Anyway, I told GrazingshipIV I would archive the dispute if there's no further activity on it for a little while. --Michael Snow 02:43, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Cool - thanks. --mav

Madness, RFC style[edit]

So how is this going to be handled? You said something about delisting pages without support. As requested, I enumerated my complaints on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/172/Page status disputed, and so have others. I don't know what this process will accomplish, of course; 172 dismissed it as "grade school nonsense" (contrasted with his behavior?). Meanwhile, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/VeryVerily/Page status disputed was fairly underpopulated, although now Richardchilton is using his army of sock puppets to register complaints. None, however, are substantiated; the only specific edit he ever mentions for his case is the French Communist Party one, which wouldn't be hard for me to explain. Of course, 172 is with him all the way. Anyway, I'd like to know where this is all going. Nowhere? -- V V 06:02, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm inclined to de-list both, but don't have time to argue my case right now. --mav