User talk:Wik/Archive October 2003

Bye There.

OK,spaces after punctuation are a matter of personal style.

But if you can't tolerate the statement that the idea of countries deciding what the capital of another country is a controversial one, I am out of the Wikipedia.GoodBYE. (12.144.5.2)

Bye. --Wik 01:13, Oct 3, 2003 (UTC)

Jerusalem

Hi, Wik. It's me, Ed. Do you know anything about why only a handful of countries "recognize" Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? --Uncle Ed 01:36, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Because it's disputed territory. It's not recognized as capital of Israel because it's not recognized as part of Israel. --Wik 01:43, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)

Oh, I have a question too. I know that many countries physically have their Israeli embassies in Tel Aviv, but can you find a list of countries that actually "recognize" Tel Aviv as the capital? (192.55.20.36)

Probably all of them. In any case they don't recognize Jerusalem. --Wik 01:43, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)

BTW - just watched EuroNews, and I noticed how, in listing capitals and major cities for their weather, for Israel they listed Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem. And when showing a map of Israel in a news story, even though the story was about Jerusalem, they made a point of showing Tel Aviv on the map too, even though it was never mentioned. Another example, I suppose, of showing the non-recognition of Jerusalem and recognition of Tel Aviv. (I am amazed how few American wikipedians are aware of the international non-recognition of Jerusalem!) FearÉIREANN 03:59, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So far as I know, there is no such thing under international law as "recognising" a place as the capital of a country. I don't think anyone officially "recognises" either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Governments may say they do or don't recognise Jerusalem, but that's a political statement. Governments also have to decide where to put their embassies, and that is a kind of de facto recognition. Adam 07:08, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Gdansk

Wik, the history in Gdansk was taken verbatim from http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Gdansk. Vancouverguy 02:59, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Gee, this nationmaster site has a nice encyclopaedia in it... --Wik 03:03, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)

So, it is a copyvio then? Vancouverguy 03:06, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No, since the Wikipedia is under GFDL I guess nationmaster is not committing any copyvio. ---Wik 03:07, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)

"The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL. All other elements are (c) copyright NationMaster.com 2003." Multiple websites out there are quoting entire Wikipedia articles. The only possible violation is them abusing us. --Uncle Ed 03:09, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

First time I've seen that. Very well, the history stays. Vancouverguy 03:10, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Re Vergina: if someone wd fix the upload I wdnt have to make smart remarks about it :) Adam 16:17, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sometimes I think your brain and mine are of the same mold, so I thought I'd chime in and say hello. Our interests seem to overlap often. From Surrealism to Afghanistan, and all sorts of places in-between and notwithstanding. Kingturtle 02:40, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hello Kingturtle. Yes, there may be quite some overlap. I see you also enjoy old almanacs and encyclopaedias. I have a small collection myself. --Wik 22:34, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Bulgaria

Do you approve of the Bulgarian page now? Only a pretty small number of them had middle names (patronymics?) listed on rulers.org, so I added those on, but the list was basically sound. john 03:55, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No, there are still mistakes, e.g. "Konstantin Konstantinov" should be "Konstantin Stoilov". There is just no general way to determine the commonly used name from a full name, so you shouldn't try that. --Wik 22:34, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

You do know that the traditional way to make corrections is to, er, make them yourself, rather than badgering the person who originally wrote the page to make them. Eh. john 23:12, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I see a pattern of problematic additions of lists of incumbents on your part, so I'm badgering you in the hope that you won't repeat the same mistake over and over. --Wik 23:19, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Two makes a pattern now? Anyway, I think the list should be correct now. On last go round, I found three incorrect names - Konstantin Stoilov and two others. Anyway, you're certainly right that I should've been less sloppy about it. john 23:24, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm afraid those two weren't the only cases. But I won't badger you about the older ones; I'll just correct them as I see them. I just wanted to make sure the same kind of error isn't repeated. --Wik 23:39, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Doh! Thanks. Fuzheado

Do you seriously think that Finding child pornography on the internet is in need merely of cosmetic editing? Does this mean that you think an article instructing people how to view images of criminal acts being peformed on children is acceptable in an encyclopaedia, let alone an open-access one? Adam 06:13, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It shouldn't be "instructing", but describing what is after all a significant real-world phenomenon. It is not our concern what people do with any information here; we certainly shouldn't censor information based on what some people might do with it. We could also have descriptions about how bombs are built. It is not our responsibility if some people use this for illegal purposes, as long as publishing the information is not itself illegal. --Wik 17:31, Oct 10, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Wik, could you maybe point me to some guidelines for the general formatting of articles. I've tried to find something relating to stubnotes, but couldn't find anything. I'm busy correcting a whole lot of different variations of stubnotes to the official one, and would like to get the placement correct. Cheers, snoyes 02:36, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Regarding the stubnote on AARP: I removed it because I felt that it was incompatible with the statement that "This block is a disambiguation block; that is, one that points to other pages that might otherwise have the same name ...". Why should there be a stubnote if a disambiguation page should point to other pages. --snoyes 02:41, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I don't know about official guidelines, but the standard practice seems to be to put the stubnote at the end of the article concerned. The external links section is part of the article. AARP is not just a disambiguation page; it contains a stub about the AARP organization and then a block listing other meanings of AARP. --Wik 02:43, Oct 12, 2003 (UTC)

Typographical chars.

Wik, I have noticed that you remove en- and em-dashes from places in texts where I have entered them. They are standard HTML character entities and IMO they improve legibility, Can you please tell me why you remove them? -- Viajero 18:13, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The standard seems to be to use the normal dash, which is easier to type and more legible in the source. You still may prefer the longer ones, but how does it look when different articles use all kinds of different dashes? --Wik 18:29, Oct 12, 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be desirable for all articles to use metric measurements, Centigrade instead of Fahrenheit, UK spelling, and absolute consistency in a whole lot of other minor stylistic and formatting matters, but given the collaborative nature of this project that ain't gonna happen. So, I'll make a deal with you: I won't insist you use emdashes in the texts you edit and you don't remove them from texts I've worked on. -- Viajero 18:28, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That would certainly be desirable. You're right, it won't happen. But is that a reason against any move towards a relatively greater consistency? As I said on a similar matter before, I'm not doing an edit war over a matter like this, so if you want to reinstate your emdashes, go ahead. But in general I reserve the right to make such standardizations; most people don't mind. I am not trying to push my personally-preferred standards, just those that are already preferred by most people. On the other hand, you wouldn't have a case for insisting on emdashes, as this is a minority preference. --Wik 19:58, Oct 13, 2003 (UTC)

BBC 1

Why did you move BBC ONE? See the talk page. Myself and Jimfbleak were clearly against the idea. I think if you feel it should be moved then you need to discuss that first. Also, it would be silly to move BBC 1, but not BBC TWO. They need to be consistent. Angela 06:38, Oct 16, 2003 (UTC)

Two others were for the idea, so I thought I'd break the tie. The spelling "BBC One" is even widely used on the BBC's own website (e.g. [1], [2]).

Oh I see. I thought Arwel's comment was just a comment rather than a vote to move the page. I have asked him to clarify. I have also copied Jtdirl's comment to the page. Angela 23:47, Oct 16, 2003 (UTC)

Hello,
When reverting (Gdansk) be careful what you are reverting. I hope you are concerned with Wikipedia article being constantly improved and you do not want revert someone's proof-reading and correcting of typos.

Sorry about that, but you were reverting me first, reinstating a circular link and a nonsensical paragraph I had removed. In such cases I revert to my previous version, even if you did some improvements at the same time. --Wik 20:33, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)

Good work on the Paul Levesque page! He's been blocked four times already today. Angela 01:42, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

Czechia

FWIW:
IIRC: i set off the flurry of "Czechia" edits by doing something editing like Czech Republic into Czech Republic (Czechia) on article Europe; and i put back abt one reference after the big purge of Czechia occurrences. So i would hope i've demonstrated at least moderate concern that the term not be slighted.
And thus it may be worth my being on record that i support your revert of Qertis's edit. --Jerzy 03:11, 2003 Oct 24 (UTC)

Since "Czechia" is not in common use (Google test: Czech Republic - 10,500,000; Czechia - 68,500; a relation of 153 to 1) we should not use it here any more frequently either. I will continue to remove Czechia occurrences. --Wik 15:56, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Miniscule vs. Minuscule

Re your correction on Fairlie - my dictionary lists both as valid spellings, but minuscule as being the more common usage. Not going to revert it, but no need to correct it either. --Morven 03:31, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You're right, it wasn't necessary (though miniscule was listed on Misspelling - I've now removed it from there). --Wik 15:56, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

De-adminship

Dear Wik, apparently you know exactly what an admin should do and what (s)he should not do. But you might need a lection of policy as well: "If you're requesting de-adminship of someone else, you can do so here, but please first try to discuss the issue directly with the admin in question." Why didn't you just ask me to revert to another version? I would have taken that in consideration. You preferred to come along with wild accusations. If you really think that I have any sympathy with revisionist writers, you should have a look at these pages: User talk:Heine or User talk:Pius. I don't want to be your enemy, Wik. But I won't unprotect that page. The protection is not intended to conserve the current version, but to stop the edit war until the combattants agree on a compromise. Then we will have a version, that hopefully even you can live with. -- Cordyph 16:32, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I did ask you to revert to another version, and when you do it I will remove the complaint. What wild accusations are you talking about? I just note that you as a matter of fact took sides by not only protecting the page but reverting to the Nico/Ruhrjung version. I'm not asking to unprotect the page, but to revert to a neutral version. There won't be a compromise with Nico, so the page will have to be protected until Nico gives up. My patience is thin with sysops who don't look at the issues and just tell people to talk until they agree on a compromise. This won't work with people who are obviously trying to push a POV agenda. Those users should instead be strongly admonished to accept the NPOV principle and, if they refuse, they should be banned. --Wik 17:11, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Please accept my apology for "completely hopping mad". You won't see me again at the Silesia article - at least for the next months. -- Cordyph 19:44, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Minor and major edits

Hello, Wik. Nice work for correcting misspellings. I am here to just want to ask you to put those edits as minor edits? If you mark them as minor, then those edits don't show up in recent changes. Because probably no one disagree with spelling correction, those edits don't need to show up in recent changes. Keep up good work! -- Taku

Please explain why you ATTEMPTED to revert my addition to the Bush dynasty page. RickK 07:21, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You reverted me, I reverted to my last version. --Wik 11:43, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

No, I didn't I didn't revert anything you wrote. RickK 18:42, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Check the history. You reverted my spelling corrections. --Wik 18:47, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

I didn't REVERT anything. All I did was to ADD an entirely new paragraph. I am NOW going to re-add that paragraph to YOUR most recent reversion. I am not attempting to get into an edit war over this, but I see no reason why MY paragraph can't stand beside yours. RickK 19:35, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Don't you see in the history how the first paragraph got changed by your edit? --Wik 19:40, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

I didn't do it. I have no idea how that happened, because I was only doing an edit. But besides that, just reverting my addition was wrong. You could have re-added your changes, which were only one spelling change and the deletion of a word. RickK 19:42, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Normally that happens when someone hits an edit conflict and then simply copies his revision over the previous one, so I assumed that was how it happened (and I revert in such cases as a matter of principle). --Wik 19:50, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

This might have been the simultaneous edit bug. Occasionally if two people make an edit at the same time, only one of them is shown in the history of the page. It happened to me once. Best to AssumeGoodFaith. You should never be removing good content "on principle". Angela 19:55, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

But it was far from simultaneous. And as to my principle: it is not my responsibility to sort out other people's edit conflicts; when I revert, the other one will notice it and ultimately re-add his content properly. This problem has happened too often for me to act any differently. There are some people who very consciously ignore edit conflicts and just copy their revision over; I don't want to encourage such behaviour. --Wik 20:20, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

I'm saying it might not have been an edit conflict. It might have been a bug. You are only going to upset people if you revert their changes without reason. You also can not assume that person wil notice and make their edit again. Some people don't put everything on their watchlist. Angela 20:29, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

It might have been a bug, but I have never heard about that and it would be extremely unlikely. Usually it is an ignored edit conflict, and I won't accept that, even on the risk that some content is lost. --Wik 20:43, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

Wik, I think you are being unfair to Lir. He did make major mistakes in the past but since he came back as Lir he has not put a foot wrong. Even 172, who was bitter critic in the past, is impressed by his work and is giving him the benefit of the doubt. I did clash very strongly with him in the past but I do think he has changed and is acting responsibly. If he returns to old ways by all means criticise him, but I don't think that is going to happen. But it is unfair to criticise him when he is acting correctly, doing very competent edits and working with people, on the basis of what happened before. This time he is upfront about his identity and is back because Jimbo and many others (including myself) think that he wants to make amends and be a genuine contributor. Judge him on what he does now, not on mistakes he made previously. We all have a right to learn from our mistakes and have a right to be given the space to learn from them, not have people constantly attacking you today for things you did six months ago. If your judgment on him is right you will be shown to be right. So save your 'told you so's until then. But if you are wrong, it would be a shame to drive away someone trying to correct past mistakes and to act genuinely this time, and who is doing first class edits, all because you couldn't let go of the past when he was trying to. lol FearÉIREANN 03:54, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wik, do you just like reverting or do you actually have something against EncycloZine being listed on the List of encyclopedias page? As there is an article on EncycloZine, I can't see what your objection is. If you have an issue with it, you need to say so on the talk page. You cant just go on reverting pages and refusing to discuss it. Angela 20:09, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

I did so in my original edit summary. EncycloZine is commercial junk, even if you call it an encyclopaedia it is certainly not worth to be listed on List of encyclopaedias as long as thousands of better encyclopaedias are not mentioned there. --Wik 20:20, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Wik, EncycloZine is lame enough but it is using Wikipedia stuff and the folks which run it do have some skills. Please leave it alone. If you wish to list thousands of others have at it. Fred Bauder 22:02, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, we already have Wikipedia listed. Why should we list a clearly inferior, advertising-laden subset of Wikipedia, just because it may have a few original articles? If I were to add thousands of lame websites, the real encyclopaedias would not be discernible in the list. --Wik 22:08, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Compared to Nupedia it seems pretty substantial. Fred Bauder 05:33, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That and some others should be removed from the list too, but I'm particularly allergic to commercial sites being advertised here. --Wik 05:36, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Wik, I was in the process of starting a philosophy of copyright page when you removed the cross-reference from intellectual property education. The reference might be useful, just because people's attitudes to IPE will depend strongly on how they believe copyright to be justified (as well as their attitude to civil disobedience). -- Pde

Hi Wik, please use the talk page rather than engaging in an edit war. I know about your policy of not talking to trolls, but Lir is a user in good standing, having been specifically unbanned by Jimbo. By not conversing with him, you are violating the cooperative spirit of wikiquette. Cheers, Cyan 21:15, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)