User:Hoary/Archive02

thank you for the user page vandalism revert...

It's almost refreshing to get a good "You're a jerk because you won't let me be a vandal!" tagging, you know? Thanks for the revert. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:18, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• My pleasure! -- Hoary 01:53, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

My adminship

Thank you for voting for me for adminship. I appreciate the confidence you showed in me. Energy and patience are both very important in the field I'm going into, so I'm glad to see that I've been able to keep it up here as well. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:42, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations on acquisition of mop, bucket, and kryptonite! -- Hoary 08:51, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)

Garbage disposal

Hi Hoary,

Three months after Timo Noko I think I'm addicted to VFD. =D I must thank you for that by showing me the VFD for the first time back then. Now, I am nominating vanity pages for VFD almost daily! :)

- Cheers, Mailer Diablo 07:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to have pointed the way. Noko . . . right, I remember doing my best to preserve it, because of a gut feeling that it was interesting and moreover that it wasn't yet another commercial product or bit of fancruft. But deleting it was the right thing to do.

Actually I'm made to feel a bit queasy by the utter certainty with which some people write "not notable" on things to which (I guess) they haven't given much thought; see VfD/Asopos de Vliet for an example.

If I had oodles of time I'd search for "leveraged", which seems almost always to be corporatespeak for "used" or "exploited". Then I'd de-puff those articles that are dehanced by its appearance. Trouble is, many are written in such impenetrable corporatespeak that I don't know what they mean. Here is one recent and inadequate attempt to get the flatus out of one such godawful article. -- Hoary 07:53, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

Speaking which, a good number of articles are tagged to be sent for cleanup, while others for VFD under advertising because they are "too corporatespeak". Mostly are copied from the corporations' websites, though. - Mailer Diablo 08:41, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

True, but (i) "Cleanup" is usually for stuff that isn't smooth enough; the corporate material isn't just smooth, it's slick and oily. (ii) Corporate drones copy these blurbs to the articles and then insist that they are authorized to do so even though the original pages say "copyright" and "all rights reserved". See this inadequate clearup of "Babylon Ltd", together with Talk:Babylon Ltd.

Another silly word: "leading". Top three? Top thirty? Top three hundred? And "leading" in what -- efficacity, popularity, profits? We're not supposed to ask; we're just supposed to be impressed. (Meanwhile, we mustn't let in a rowing club with a Dutch name, must we?)

Perhaps I'm just in a "let's smash capitalism!" mood today. Well, these outfits can make loads of money if they wish, but why should they sponge off Wikipedia to do so? -- Hoary 09:38, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

That's why cleanup is not an easy job at all. Besides rewording an company article to fit with Wikipedia's MOS, we have to NPOV it, and finding "optimistic/positive POV" is more difficult than "negative POV".

Companies sponge off Wikipedia because it has sheer amounts of traffic daily, up to millions. They would try and tap some of traffic onto their sites to generate more bussiness. Well, I guess it's the human nature of greed; no matter how much one already has it's never enough for them. - Mailer Diablo 11:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, true. However, I'm puzzled by their liking of such flatulent prose. I suppose it's written by external copywriters and that it has to meet the standards expected by those who ask for it -- and that their opinions are formed by what they've seen put out by their competitors. I just wonder whether anyone actually digests this stuff and is persuaded by it. I might have, when I was twelve years old, but back then I didn't have enough money to pay for services like this. Now that I'm an adult, I see straight through it. It's boring -- though when it's particularly awful it can have an unintended comedy value. -- Hoary 04:15, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

Re : Mandarin, Japanese, and fustration

Hi Hoary,

The dispute on Mandarin (linguistics) (Mandarin, Japanese, and fustration) has been moved from my user talkpage to the article talkpage in question. I have never edited this article before, but I'll be more than happy in helping to ressolving this dispute if you request so. - Mailer Diablo 08:25, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If (like me) you've never edited the page before, I'd ignore the rather goofy comments. Mandarin (linguistics) seems well populated by knowledgable people. I think there's no dispute; rather, it's yet another instance of somebody feeling affronted because of an imagined slur to China and credit to Japan. Moreover, he seems to have cooled down a bit from his initial "fustration". -- Hoary 08:45, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

It's all in a day's work. I'm starting to get used to taking flak! I don't seem to take things that personally anymore! =P In a way. Wikipedia has changed me for the better. If I joined four years ago, being then still short-tempered with Asperger's I would have called for a ban. Now, I've learnt to assume good faith and just move on. :) - Mailer Diablo 09:20, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm short-tempered with overwork and severe vacation deficiency! -- Hoary 09:33, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

On a light-hearted note, this incident has some form of a happy ending. It's on my talkpage. :) - Mailer Diablo 06:21, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

They show you a form, but do not show the actual email. It's a method to prevent spambots from harvesting emails off sites. - Mailer Diablo 07:20, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

True, and it's a wonderful system. You write the message in the form and send it off. The recipient sees your address and replies to it if he or she wishes. It works fine. -- Hoary 08:00, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

I apologise on behalf on Sghan for what he has said towards you. I'll have to help him out instead since he has declined your responses. - Mailer Diablo 13:25, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Spammer

I deleted his spam page. RickK 08:24, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

They're not spam: they're services my company offers.--212.100.250.215 08:28, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stop spamming the "services" that your company offers. -- Hoary 08:30, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

Mister McSpammer is now making threats. Not only that he's going to tattle to Jimbo Wales that somehow are comments are racist, but also he seems to be making physicial threats. Since I'm in California and he's in Scotland, that might prove difficult, but I still don't appreciate it. RickK 08:35, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Can this be another reincarnation of John P.Ennis? (If there's a threat of a squillion-dollar lawsuit, the answer is yes.) Well, I gotta head off now to attend to the demands of the "real world". -- Hoary 08:38, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

Thank You! from Carbonite

Thank you for supporting my RfA. I very much appreciate your confidence in me. Please let me know if you see something I should (or shouldn't) be doing as an admin. Regards, Patrick. Carbonite | Talk 13:46, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Page mover

You can move the original user page straight back over the vandal's redirect. No need to delete it first. However, don't forget the redirect you'll get on the vandal's page after moving it all back to its legitimate place. :) Mgm|^(talk) 10:55, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, Mgm, and sorry for (slightly) fucking up. Next time I'll be bold! -- Hoary 10:57, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

Thanks for your attempt at restoring my userpage. It is all restored now. Sjakkalle 14:22, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it. Let's hope the moron who first moved it has had his kicks for the day and has moved on to other little pleasures. -- Hoary 14:29, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi Hoary, just a note to say thank you so much for voting for me in my adminship nomination, and for your kind comment. I very much appreciate your support. Best, SlimVirgin 03:41, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

re: 'Shit'

Look, you can revert changes if you want, but you're stepping into an editing process that involves a lot more than the ones you reverted. I wrote the article.

The changes you saw are about 5% of the total just this evening, and while they may seem 'silly' alone, I think we all appreciate being able to work without people swooping in and tampering with things. Auto movil 08:51, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not appreciating that you continue to edit this article tonight without adding anything of value. If you'd like to improve it, please take more care and/or come back later. Auto movil 09:03, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"I wrote the article": Thank you, good. But it's now GFDL, I believe. Your work, like mine, stands, falls, is retained or is deleted on its merits or lack thereof.

What I'm attempting to add is concision, and freedom from jocular digressions and the like.

What led you to add a link to the non-existent article Pelican shit?

Of course you are free to revert my reversion, as you have done here. But why write "further line edit. please consult page history before changing" as the edit summary, with no mention that this is a reversion? -- Hoary 09:12, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

Because you stepped in right in the middle of a series of edits and decided that the ones on the latest iteration of the history page were 'silly,' which is fine. But then I asked you not to do that, and you went and played with something else on the page, making a change that didn't make any sense -- like when you ask a kid to stop touching something and he compulsively touches it again.

What's this 'pelican shit' nonsense? Some weirdo is accusing me of the same thing, and if either of you guys even looked at the history pages, it would be easy enough to find who added that link. Auto movil 09:40, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, WP allows you to put a flag at the top of a page to ask people not to do any editing on a page. (I forget what this is called, but I know it when I see it.) There was no such flag there. Thus there was nothing wrong with the fact that I was making changes (although of course you're free to argue against the particular changes). "What's this 'pelican shit' nonsense?" you ask. Good question! I indeed looked in the history page, and found that it was added in this edit, which wasn't by you. Sorry to have wrongly accused you of that; I think what must have happened is that I came across the page complete with nutty "Pelican shit" link, thought "aw, shit, it's the 'pelican shit' vandal again", sleepy looked at the diff between your latest and that of the preceding contributor, didn't like what I saw (but overlooked the absence of the "pelican shit" nonsense), and reverted. Sorry about that. Anyway, how do you like my later cleanup? -- Hoary 10:02, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

The changes help with concision, but some of them change the meanings of things -- the gerundive isn't the same as an adjective, etc., and the sentence where they're switched becomes an untrue statement (there's no figurative use of the adjective, 'shitting,' in American English, although the word necessarily has a gerundive form). Believe me: the article is a lot more difficult and complex than it looks. It's taken many hours to get it this far, and every time someone (usually myself) pulls it up to work on it, it attracts people who watch the 'recent edits' list, who swing by presuming vandalism. I restored some of your changes this morning. Auto movil 14:52, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, thanks for your good work on the article; and yes, I do notice that you restored some of my edits that you'd previously zapped. I've written more on the article's talk page; if this is worth pursuing, let's pursue it there. -- Hoary 04:16, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

Well, I don't mind your changes at all; it's that I was in the middle of doing my usual run of close-reading, one-phrase-at-a-time edits -- which is admittedly a bad habit -- and some other guy came in and started reverting things and accusing me of being the Pelican Bandit, or whatever that was about. So I had to chase him around the block a few times, and then everything started going all funny, with more reverts happening while I had the page in edits, etc.

Honestly, we're spending a lot of time and thought over an article on shit. I'm sure happy to let up a bit if you are. Auto movil 04:29, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes! This thread is now closed. -- Hoary 04:37, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

THE KING

I am so glad you're in on this. Frankly, I can't figure this guy out. I've tried extending an olive branch, but I'm honestly doubtful it'll do any good. Guess we'll see. Thanks for the update. - Lucky 6.9 06:40, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please witness the signing of a highly secret official cash-under-the-counter covert deal here: User_talk:THE_KING

Noted. This thread is now closed. -- Hoary 07:09, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)

Thank You!

Hi Hoary,

I would like to thank you for your vote of support and confidence for my adminship, it has been much appreciated. If you need anything in future that requires my attention, please do not hesitate to contact me. :)

- Cheers, Mailer Diablo 18:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re : Please help me resolve a pb that I have regarding some content that I have compiled, the matter has been ressolved. :) Anyway, I realized how hard work sysops actually deal with, I think I lost count on the number of speedy deletes I performed today! =P - Mailer Diablo 21:13, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Categories and subcategories

Check out Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) (sect.26: “Categories and subcategories” near bottom of page) Paradiso 14:01, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My adminship

Hi Hoary, Thank you so much for your support in my nomination. I look forward to helping out. - BanyanTree 04:25, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for supporting my adminship — I vow to use my super powers for good not evil. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:35, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My nearest local brew is Hook Norton (they do a very nice dark ale), as I don't live in oxford now — I've opted for the mixed pleasures of village life. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

appreciate the link, but...

just wanted to say that i do appreciate that you thought my unsquare.com journal entry on "Stupid Scientologists" was worthy enough to link from those two entries on Scientologists, but i went ahead and took the links out because everything i wrote in my entry i pulled from other sources. i figured the original sources might be more useful to folks, anyways. i do take the link as a compliment, though.

Well, Unsquare, if you write a web page with a title as succinct as "Stupid Scientologists", you can expect to be linked to! (But I see your point.) -- Hoary 11:00, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)

Matthew Smith (games programmer)

I started changing all the linking pages, only to find that you'd got there ahead of me — three edit conflicts, after which point I gave up and left it to you. I hope that the solution is acceptable to you (it seemed easier to make him a games programmer than to go through the rigmarole of moving to MS (programmer) when there was already a page there). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:18, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit conflicts. I had no idea that this was going on: sheer good luck (for me) and bad (for you) meant I really was ahead of you here, and didn't encounter a single conflict myself. Ah well, it's all done now (to excellent effect), and no kryptonite was needed. -- Hoary 10:22, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)

vampire lifestyle

do you agree that saying rude things about any given cukture or subculture is not good? this is where i have issue with dreamguys edits. putting a better phrased " pesome say" thing would work, and no, i have not misunderstioood whats written, user dream guy skews the truth to his own ends, and plays mr victim a lot. please put in something on the point of discussion in the article that doesnt make it sound so rude. the rudeness is a point of view in the first place.

Gabrielsimon 10:41, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You seem to think that it's rude to talk of "poor interpersonal skills" in Vampire lifestyle. I don't know if it's rude or not; I agree that it's unfavorable. The list also includes "Improved night-vision..." and "Broader sensory range, and/or extra sensitivity". These are favorable. Should they too be deleted? But this is an encyclopedia, not propaganda or some kind, so what's true should be written. As for truth about people who believe they are vampires, I don't claim to know and I'm not sufficiently interested to want to find out.

Incidentally, while you claim that you understand what's written, you didn't understand how to start writing (how to format) Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress#user_DreamGuy although this can be inferred from other entries, and you didn't notice (or chose to ignore) the earlier Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress#User:DreamGuy. This suggests that you could profitably put more effort into reading whatever it is that offends you. -- Hoary 11:01, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

i try, but when i get home from work i am dread tired. on anoter note, i am not hteonly one who disaprooves of dreamguy. in fact, one thing i wish i could get him banned for is always playing mr victim when he does things cthjat can be considered uncivil nearly constantly. i tried asking him a qeustion and he called me a vandal and a harasser.. not ot mention whats goingo n with him and others.

in fact hes insulted me on more hten one occasion. uf at the time id knowns about the civillity standards id have asked im booted for that. i can quote where whens on that one

Gabrielsimon 11:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

paranoia

look at whats happened with a user and this dream guy fellow, he thinks evryones out to get him, this makes me think hois cries of vndal should go unheeded and he should grow up, the other user tried to make peace but got rebuked. Gabrielsimon 00:04, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I really don't know what you are talking about, as you don't provide any specific link -- and if you can't be bothered to supply me with one or more links I certainly can't be bothered to do any searching. You seem to have some beef with User:DreamGuy. If you're serious about this, take a look at WP:RFC. NB if you take this route you'll have to lay out your charges very clearly, with precise links. -- Hoary 04:04, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:DreamGuy&action=history

04:19, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand your point. This combination of DreamGuy's most recent edits to his own page seems excellent to me. Nowhere in his edit summaries does he imply that everyone is out to get him. Still, if you have some beef with him, you're welcome to take it up in an RFC. Conversation on this page about DreamGuy is hereby closed. -- Hoary 04:27, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

Copyvio

Thanks for adding Old 96 District to the Copyright Problems page. I added the Copyvio notice, entered the entry into the Copyright Problems page and clicked Save but it was very slow and I had to head off back to work. I guess it must have failed. Anyway thanks again. Cheers TigerShark 18:37, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I know; I've had similar problems before. Worst was the time when attempting to open the VfD page (after writing a new VfD subpage for a specific silly article) crashed my browser. This irritated me so much that I didn't even think of trying a different browser for the same purpose. (Everything was OK when I used a different machine.) -- Hoary 23:35, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

I do give a flying ... cow!

Thanks, Hoary! For your vote and very kind words in support of my RfA! And thank you, also, for pointing out the obvious about my best interests (and/or lack thereof) wrt that (overquoted) passage; indeed, a gross exception. All the best, El_C 02:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations, El Commandante/Caudillo. I have to confess that read very little of the interminable discussions that were adduced to back up allegations made against you. And if there were ten days in the week I still wouldn't -- I'd be doing something more interesting. Some people, and I don't think you're one of them, are obsessive about these things. This is an encyclopedia, not a theology school. Still, if somebody brings up a quotation like this, misinterprets it so blatantly, and is greeted with a silent (acquiescent?) response, I might as well point out what it actually says. 'Nuff of that. All the best with the mop, bucket, and kryptonite! -- Hoary 03:41, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

Lahul and Spiti

Sorry, I should have left you a message when I did it. Your edits were, of course, perfectly correct — it's just that you'd tidied the English just after three edits by Mr Tan (talk · contribs) which had (inter alia) introduced the poor English that you corrected (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mr Tan). Somewhat lazily, I just rolled back to the pre-Tan version, and then did a bit more copy-editing. If it had just been the English, I'd simply have left your corrections in place, but he'd also made substantive changes to the article. Next time I'll explain when I do anything like that, however hurried I feel. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, that's OK then. I realized at the time that, together with other stuff, I was "correcting" some English that's universally accepted as OK, such as "is located at" and "prior to"; such phrases always remind me of Pentagon spokesmen trying to lull people asleep so they won't notice the latest example of "collateral damage" (i.e. unrelated homicide), etc. There's always a chance that some intelligent person somewhere is terribly proud of his use of "prior to" and the like, and I could have got up his nose. -- Hoary 13:00, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

Bremmer

Yeah, I'm watching it. Man, I've never seen so many words wasted on such an insignificant topic. Can't it still be speedied as a recreation so we can hope the matter will fade into obilivion? Shouldn't be long now. Or maybe whoever redeleted it should have let the VfD run its course, as it seemed it was doomed anyway. Well, if need be I'll re-enter by delete vote, though I would hope my previous 2 or 3 would still stand. -R. fiend 03:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Hoary, I admit to being totally confused by this. There have been two votes already, is that right? Why was the article not deleted after those votes? If it was, it should not have been recreated and can be speedy deleted, but only if the VfDs were properly administered and allowed to run their course. If you explain a little more, it would help me to decide whether I can go ahead and delete, assuming that's what you want. And if it's a copyvio, where has the text been copied from? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:36, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Hoary - I've never come across this sort of thing before, so rather than be bold and do the wrong thing, I've listed the page at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts. Hopefully one of the more trained mediators will know what to do about the situation before it gets too out of hand! Grutness|^hello? 05:52, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

If that's the summary, I'd hate to see the long version.  ;-) If the second VfD wasn't closed properly, then it's still open, so long as it wasn't too long ago (I forget the dates). If it's still open, the votes count. That's the part I don't understand: why the second VfD wasn't closed properly. If I were you, I'd restore the second VfD votes, probably without the confusing boxes, because the first copyvio situation isn't really relevant. But make sure that it's not too old e.g. from a month ago. If it is too old to restore, you'll have to start from scratch, I'm afraid. If you decide to restore the second VfD vote, let me know and I'll write to the other editor and ask him not to interfere with it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:08, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

I'm adding a link to the suppary you posted on SlimVirgin's page to the Wikiquette alert notice. PS - grutness, yes; James, yes; but not "Grut"! :) Grutness|^hello? 06:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, James! -- Hoary 06:23, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense to cut and paste the votes in the blue/lilac box at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Brandenn Bremmer (copyvio) into the new VfD page set up by Mirror Vax? The boxes on your version are very confusing. His looks cleaner, but you need to transfer the May votes (the blue-box votes), but without too much explanation or it'll confuse people. I've written to MV asking for his take on this. I still don't get why the second VfD wasn't closed properly, but I suspect I'm never going to understand it. ;-p SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:39, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Hoary, regarding your recent query, I would keep the May votes (not the March ones) as part of this VfD, and simply cut and paste them over. However, I should add that you're supposed to have a reason to delete that is consistent with deletion policy, and it seems in this case that you don't. Read Wikipedia:Deletion policy. The fact that the death wasn't specifically mentioned in The Guardian is neither here not there. The death did receive international press coverage e.g. The Daily Telegraph, and was covered by the New York Times. During his lifetime, the boy also received press coverage and was interviewed by Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey. Even if he hadn't died in an unusual way, he was notable enough for a WP article, which could easily be made encyclopedic because there are plenty of reputable, independent references. I suspect that many or most of those voting to delete may not realize what they're voting for. In any event, even if it is deleted, it will almost certainly survive a Vote for Undeletion if it's written properly. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:39, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

The Guardian does mention him. [1] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:00, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Garbage Disposal II

Hi Hoary,

It's a long time since the last time we talked. I guess real life has gotten a bit better of me for the past few weeks and had to go on a semi-vacation. Now I'm back. :D

Anyway, the moment I returned I actually met into problems with quite a number of Singapore-related (to me, local) articles. I posted on the WikiCountry noticeboard, here's a cc anyway :

1. Public Transportation Map of Singapore - This map has been repeatedly put on WP:CP, even thought it should be under Fair Use dealing. What I've heard so far is that there's no Fair Use in Singapore and LTA has properitary rights over the map. However, I did a check on the Internet and Singapore's copyright office (Intellectual Property Office of Singapore) does have a "Fair Dealing" clause. [2]. Unless ressolved once and for all, WP:CP will always come back to haunt this map.
2. Anglo-Chinese School - May have over-emphasised on its achievements. Previously talkpage had comments that the article looked more like an ad. One of my friends actually questioned the validity of this encyclopedia althogether, especially when he felt that the criticisms of the school being elitist/snobbish is somewhat downplayed. I would be interested to hear on what you think on this one.
3. Singapore gay movement - Needs a proper cleanup, or listed on VFD. Sometimes we just fail to know how many actual visitors look at our articles for research and information, as well as trusting that these articles are neutral and reliable. It was listed as an problem article some time ago for its advocate nature, and surprisingly some joker in my JC actually used this information to his research paper on prejudices and discrimmination.
4. Nanyang Girls' High School - Listed for POV Check months ago for some alleged prejudices of its students, annoyed NYGH alum-mata has removed the offending section and now it's a very poor stub. Needs to be reworked on. See Talk:Nanyang Girls' High School
5. NPNT - Going, going, gone on VFD. If it doesn't qualify as a full-fledged article, then at least it should qualify to be on Wiktionary. (Notable abbrev. in Singapore jargon context)

Would love to hear your comments about them. Looking forward to your response. ;)

- Cheers and Best Regards, Mailer Diablo 19:25, 7 May 2005 (UTC) :)

Welcome back Diablo! Right now I'm connected via modem and Japan's overpriced phone system, so I'm not at all inclined to read up on any of the above, let alone the whole lot. But within the next 24 hours I expect to be connected via LAN (fast, free), so I'll look at one of them. I'm a bit nervous, though: Singapore is a part of the world about which I know very little, and the Singapore+WP combination has in the past brought in a certain, er, somewhat angry and incoherent writer known to both of us. Still, I'll do something. -- Hoary 22:48, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

1. Public Transportation Map of Singapore I'm not at all sure that this is fair use. Yes, yes, WP's reproduction of the map would do nothing -- or anyway nothing that I can think of -- to diminish the revenues of the copyright holder, and I'd be surprised if the copyright holder would be upset. But "fair use" can't be inferred from that. I'm also disturbed by other arguments used for reproducing it. You're in Singapore; why not just ask the copyright holder?
2. Anglo-Chinese School A bit ridiculous. I might do a bit of trimming, but I can't do much as I neither am familiar with the facts nor have the time/appetite/energy for educating myself in Singapore education.
3. Singapore gay movement Bloated and absurd. Yes, it's a piece of advocacy. Sorry, but I really don't have the stomach to get involved with this one; I've a hunch that any editing would bring charges of "homophobia", etc., from fanatics. I'm not going to nominate it for VfD (mostly as I don't think it should be deleted), but if somebody else did that might actually be rather useful....
4. Nanyang Girls' High School If people want to say that this is snobbish, excellent, overrated, underrated, or that the girls do or are said to date (fall for, run off with) guys from some other school, then I think they have to provide links for this. ("Writing in the Straits Times, XXX has claimed AAA, and YYY has commented that BBB." etc.) And, reliably or otherwise, this page tells me that cheena (a word I'd never encountered before) is "pejorative".
5. NPNT I can't speak for the wikidic, but really this seems no more than a little-used neologism. It may indeed be important in certain forums, but then surely very many terms are important in this or that forum. So sorry but I voted to delete this one. (Hope we're still friends!) -- Hoary 03:11, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for your opinon, it does helped me a lot in how to deal with the articles. Don't worry I don't mind about that NPNT article, I guess it's belongs to Urban Dictionary for now. :D - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 10:08, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Time Travel

How are things in the year 2025? android↔talk 15:35, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Er, come again? As far as I can see, all I did was change from [[MPP]] to [[Member of Provincial Parliament|MPP]] -- because [[MPP]] now redirects to [[Member of Provincial Parliament]] but also because it should not do so (eventually I intend to turn it into a disambig page). Something wrong? -- Hoary 23:13, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

Look closely at the date on which it shows you made that change. (If it only shows up as May 10, 2025 when I click on it, then something's really goofy.) android↔talk 12:14, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

I hate to disappoint you, but I read "12:00, 2005 May 10" here. Hm, still, it's interesting. What puzzles me a bit is how you happened to notice this rather obscure change to this rather obscure page. (Was it via the "latest changes" page? A change twenty years in the future would appear at the top of that list, after all.) -- Hoary 15:39, 2005 May 11 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly it. Three entries popped up on Recent Changes as having been made in the year 2025. Bizarre – and it's still that way now. Recent Changes is broken for me as a result. Any idea who I should notify about this? android↔talk 16:12, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser. I've just checked Recent Changes and it's as I expected: the most recent changes are today's, in boring old 2005. I'd start by taking a screenshot your browser displaying this extraordinary phenomenon. Then view the source within the same and take a screenshot of the relevant chunk of that. I suppose the correct place to report it would be at the relevant part of "Village Pump" or Mediazilla. Do let me know if/when you do either. -- Hoary 02:43, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

I made note of it over at the helpdesk and a cookie purge fixed the problem. However, it looks like I was not the only one affected. Weird stuff. android↔talk 02:57, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

initialisms

Hoary, thanks for your recent work in replacing MPP by Member of Provincial Parliament. Avoiding the dismabigaution page is a useful service to the reader.

I encourage you to continue this, and to go one step further. Standard writing style dictates that, at the first instance of an initialism or acronym, the phrase that is initialized be spelled out in full so that the reader who is unfamiliar with it doesn't have to try to guess.

In Wikipedia, we have the wonderful linking process that helps out the reader, but it is even more convenient for the reader to follow standard writing style. Writing "[[Member of Provincial Parliament]] (MPP)" makes it even easier for the reader to follow the article through without having to jump to other pages. Later references can use just "MPP", because the reader can easily refer back to the fully-spelled out version if he/she has forgotten what MPP means.

Also, "MPP" was not adopted by the Ontario legislature until 1938. Before that, members were known as MLAs, as in most other provinces.

I like your header about replying on the same page. I hope that you don't mind if I steal it for my own talk page. Thanks, and keep up the good work. Ground Zero 15:02, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

You're right. Also, I was already vaguely aware of having blown a few of these would-be improvements. In my defence, I'd say that I was making the changes as fast as possible in order that I'd have them all done, and have MPP converted from a redirect to a disambig, before most people had woken up to it and could write to me about how there was nothing wrong with things the way they were, thereby starting time-consuming correspondences. Now that it's a done deed, I hope and expect that they'll understand. However, I must confess I'm not in the mood to revisit any of the thousand (it seemed) pages that I altered -- I hope people aren't too annoyed about the occasional cock-up therein.

Yes, you're most welcome to steal what's at the top of this page. Please reword, recolor, etc., to taste. After all, that's what I did when I stole it myself. -- Hoary 03:47, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

I understand. I do a lot of work on Canadian political pages, but I think it's nuts to link to an initialism. There is no way that "MPP" could possibly refer to only one thing. Ground Zero 13:22, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

What worries me is the hunch that "Member of Provincial Parliament" could, soon or perhaps even already, refer to more than the Parliament of Ontario. If I'm right, then some poor souls -- perhaps including myself, but definitely not me all by myself! -- are eventually going to have to rename this to [[Member of Provincial Parliament (Ontario)]] and fix another thousand links. -- Hoary 04:49, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Viv Stanshall

Re the pictures you have posted a comment on:

These are both substantially and artistically altered pieces based on fairly well known photographs of VS - and as now shown these are both now completely new pictures (of mine), albeit with an ancestry, and which I release under GFDL.

As regards the quotes removal -

• Rawlinson end - quoting a few lines is allowed as I understand it as fair use.
• Ginger Geezer - again I would have thought its quoting in an article like this would be allowed as GFDL
• Opening quote was Rawlinson - who was a character of Stanshall's and written by him - so it is a quote by him - and neatly sums up his drinking problems..

Well He Ho Brookie:the wind in the grass 15:46, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

On the images, please see my response in Image_talk:Viv_in_Headdress.jpg.

(i) Simply plonking a chunk of a literary work somewhere doesn't accord with my understanding of "fair use", for which one uses what one quotes in advancement of one's own critical or research purpose. (ii) No, there's no copyright issue involved in pointing out that it was VS's ginger hair that made him a ginger geezer; I simply thought that stating this was stating the obvious. (iii) Yes, HR was invented by and played by VS. However, he was fictional and if autobiographical then arguably no more than fleetingly so. It seems hugely unfair to say this without clearly indicating that it was spoken by a fictional character. Further, I don't think WP's encyclopedia entries either do or should start with epigrams or epigraphs, no matter how appropriate particular examples may be. -- Hoary 04:07, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Survey on Prefixed-Styles

So you know, the Alternative 1 you used the adjective "sucks" to describe is the current Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) policy, and the reason for the survey is precisely because a number of people made it quite clear we thought it a bad policy. However, we were assured, the policy had been adopted in a prior consensus, and much discussion ensued. The reason for the complexity of the ranking system is simply that any simpler approach would have been subject to manipulation. Indeed, only because we are using the Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping method is it possible to arrive at a conclusive result at all, given present votes.

I have scored your preferences as 5>2=3=4>1 in accordance with your First choice for 5 and implicitly Fifth choice for 1. Please take a look at the Current Results section if you want to see what a mess this would have been if we had opted for any other approach. Whig 08:36, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Let me chirp in: The voting itself is pretty straightforward (rank as many choices as you like), but I think that the format we're using now makes the page to long to bother to read.

Hoary, Judging by your comment,you would probably prefer #4 (don't employ styles, but describe them somewhere else then in the opening sentence) to #5 (throw out the vote), and definitely to #2 (employ styles for noncontroversial people). Zocky 14:16, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Just a preliminary response, as I'm on dialup right now and it's past my bedtime. It's quite likely that I misread something, and I'll reexamine my vote later. I do appreciate the thought and work that has obviously gone into this page; please take my pithy comment "sucks" to apply only to alternative 1 and the way of thinking that I think it seeks to resuscitate. (Well, "Majesty" and suchlike folderol are extinct in the books and periodicals I read and the conversations I take part in.) I expect to be back to you with a more thoughtful comment within 12 hours. -- Hoary 15:53, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

PS, I now see that #5 means "Throw out the vote", but it also means "None of the above". I don't see any option for my choice, a polite (and alas sleepy) version of which is "This so-called information only peripherally belongs in an article and certainly isn't important enough to go in the first paragraph, let alone the first sentence." -- Hoary 16:03, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

My understanding of your comment is that you really support Alternative 4 more than 5. That is "throw it somewhere (later) in the article" is alternative 4. Alternative 5 is more like "let the people who keep inserting the style for Catholic popes and English royalty (but not for anyone else) keep doing what they do, and bless the (non-)policy. The status quo is a problem, IMO, and the vote helps move the WP MoS towards something more reasonable. I'd also recommend clarifying your "sucks"comments to explicit read "last (fifth) choice". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:38, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Again, my thanks to what were two and now are three of you, politely pointing out that I may have made this or that misunderstanding. Sorry, but I see no reason why an WP article should be obliged to say anywhere, let alone in the first paragraph, that any chauffeured personage should be addressed as majesty, excellence, holiness, etc. This stuff doesn't belong in any newspaper I pay money for (though I suppose I'd have no choice if I had the misfortune to find myself in Pyongyang), and I think it belongs in Fantasized Social Climbing for Dummies rather than encyclopedia entries on particular people. On the other hand I'd have no objections to an article on Prefixed honorary titles. And stuff like this could briefly be noted in Prime Minister, etc. -- Hoary 05:23, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Not that I presume to influence your vote in any way, but I completely share your opinion on the matter, so it seems that we have read the options differently. I mean, that's why I voted for #4, "No, don't employ styles, and don't describe them in the fisrt sentence", hoping that we'll get the convention to describe the styles in the articles about offices that bring them, not in biography articles. Zocky 14:09, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Okay, yer excellence! -- Hoary 14:42, 2005 May 14 (UTC) (with a tug of the forelock)

Queen Elizabeth II

Please note that I have disputed the neutrality of this article. Jguk reverted my NPOV template, claiming that the NPOV dispute is just a personal campaign of one person. Whig 09:47, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Hmm, I'll sleep on this one: I've been up for 16 hours and right now I rate my capacity to think straight even lower than usual. -- Hoary 13:20, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

Thought thieves

The fact of accusatons and convictions of IP theft by Microsoft is important in understanding the irony. But you are right that the itemized list is better refered to rather than relisted in thought thieves. Thank you for helping to improve the article. 4.250.198.126 10:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to have helped.

I think I understand what you want to express. It's difficult but not impossible to reconcile this aim with being encyclopedic. Note that the cooler this article seems, the more persuasive it's likely to be. -- Hoary 10:30, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

After reading your discussion page, I have great confidence in your intentions. Further I agree that "cooler is more persuasive" as a rule. The facts in an article are best known by those who care the most about it and thus are typically biased (POV). Anytime I create an article, I try to keep that in mind. I'm just happy I generally recognize a superior edit when I see it, even when my emotional involvement in a topic prevents me from coming up with a NPOV way of expressing the thing in the first place. If a naive reader doesn't get the irony, then Thought Thieves is inadequate. "Many people believe Pol Pot's contributions to population control might possibly be an inadequate compensation for what some might perceive as politically incorrect behavior." I KNOW you would not turn Thought Thieves into some such mush !! But there are those who would. Maybe. Anyway, again thanks. 4.250.198.126 11:25, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Maryhill

Hi Hoary - you wrote - WP has a keen new contributor... I've reverted all those to Glasgow (of which 10% might have some merit, but I lacked the stamina to look); but those to Maryhill, etc., are quite beyond me. As you've done some work on these pages, you might like to keep an eye open for further contributions.

I doubt I know enough to help - my contribution to that page was minimal. I stumbled across the page when I was working on Maryhill in New Zealand, and remembered that Taggart was set there, but that's all I really added. I see what you mean about his contributions though.Grutness...wha? 05:40, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

From Babyoil

thanks i will try and learn what you have shown me i intend to go over my punctuation, though i feel what has been written about Glasgow is wrong and very negitive) p.s dont know how else to reply to your mesages thanking you.

Mr Tan

You're right (and JMBell can get overheated) — but Mr Tan (talk · contribs) has been a problem for some considerable time (not only in this incarnation, but under an earlier user name). He has insulted other editors for their use of English, has aggressively taken over articles wholesale in order to impose his own peculiar notions of grammar and style on them, the RfC on him (and another on his earlier self) is unanimous in criticism of him, yet he continues to insist that he can copyedit pages, and that the fault is in others. His English is, in fact, about the worst I've seen of any regular editor's (and I can only recall one of my undergraduates whose English was worse — than which there can be no more damning comment); his insistence that he's in a position to correct others consequently tends to send the temperature of debate soaring. He claims, incidentally, that English is his first language, and that the problem is simply the difference between British and U.S. English and his own rather vaguely Asian (he doesn't give away his origin, though he says that he lives in Singapore at the moment).

This shouldn't have spilt over onto the Village Pump, but I hope that you can see that it's understandable if not excusable. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:01, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I've encountered Tan before, and while I haven't seen much of his work, your summary here seems a reasonable one. (Somewhat on the harsh side, though; and if all but one of your undergrads have written better, you've been lucky. I've seen worse from graduate students.) -- Hoary 00:37, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

And don't call me a liar or a belligerent soldier when I say that Tan's grammar is indeed the most appalling I have ever seen. While that may be an exaggeration, it is true. And though I do get overheated sometimes, I always double-check my posts ten times to clear them of any possible insults or uncivil remarks. To tell the truth, what you see here is really my personality watered down and diluted 20 times. And as for insulting and unhelpful remarks, I think you should look at Tan's edit history before jumping into his boat. I take pride in being able to solve disputes well (even in real life), but saying that I post personal attacks on talk pages is too much. Once more, I make sure that no insults, curses, or anything similar (on my part, naturally) leak into Wikipedian talk, so if I call you an *******, you have no grounds to accuse me on. I only attack in self-defense. Understood? And don't humiliate me in public again. JMBell° 16:40, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

• You've lost me. Are you perhaps confusing me with somebody else? I don't believe that I have addressed anything you wrote, and indeed can't even remember having encountered you, other than here, where I say that a remark you make "is (if one attempts to take it seriously) plain wrong, and that such remarks are insulting and unhelpful". Even this came after an earlier comment of mine that could have led you to agree with Mel that this was a digression: had you agreed, I should not have commented further. Quite aside from the question of relevance to the issue discussed, you spoke, perhaps in jest, of "the most appalling form of English grammar known to Man". I addressed this comment of yours, not you. As I reread this comment of yours on Tan's English, and my comment on your comment, my own comment strikes me as justified, measured, and indeed polite. -- Hoary 00:37, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

No, I did not, repeat, I did not confuse you with someone else. You addressed me indirectly, so I responded. And don't confuse me with your wordplay or your logician's mind tricks, because it's obvious that if you comment on my comment, you're commenting on me, albeit indirectly. And you feel justified, and so do I in defending myself from these misconceptions and misinterpretations of me and my behavior, which is my duty as a responsible, respectable, and honorable member of Wikisociety, American society, and human society. And if you'd like an insight into my character, I'll tell you straight to your face - I'm a blunt person. I don't like a lot of segues and passacaglias, I get straight to the point. If your grammar is bad, I'll tell you to your face, no matter how flattering or insulting it may seem. If you refuse to accept, I exaggerate it a bit. If you're a smart kid, you'll see that I was not insulting Tan - it was merely criticism, and friendly at that. JMBell° 10:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that any comment on anything that you say is a comment on you, and thus any criticism of anything that you say is automatically ad hominem. Is this right? If so, it's quite the most extraordinary thing I've read in a long time. I tentatively take your reference to my "logician's mind tricks" as a compliment on my mental dexterity, and thank you for it. However, my username might prompt you to reconsider any notion that I'm a "kid". -- Hoary 11:54, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

Why, that is not at all extraordinary. If I say "the comment made by User:Foo is very insulting," does that not imply that User:Foo is indeed insulting another person through his comment? Yes, that would be automatically descriptive of the person who said that. And my use of figurative language should not be taken too literally, unless you're somebody like George W. Bush. Is there anything wrong with my being "blunt" or "straight to the point?" Because you wrote in your edit summary that you're responding to the "blunt" JMBell, and before that you even "tweaked your appalling English." If there's anything wrong with my standards or anything about me, I don't think we should be talking. JMBell° 12:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

You'll notice that the word "blunt" was in quotation marks. There's also a difference between the application of a word such as "appalling" to one's own work and to that of others. You may wish to consider how your use of exaggeration and figurative language to express or enhance your "bluntness" is likely to be taken by people unaccustomed to such robust prose. (If it were directed at me, I'd laugh it off; less secure teenagers may not.) This is an encyclopedia project, not a frat club. Meanwhile, I'm delighted to assure you that I'm not at all like George W. Bush. -- Hoary 13:27, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

What makes you think I'm a teenager? You think I'm a teenager? You're wrong. JMBell° 13:30, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

And I did not join a frat in high school. It is totally against my personal philosophy. JMBell° 13:34, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I didn't think that you either were or weren't a teenager. Indeed, I hardly thought about you at all: I was concentrating on your rather odd messages. Well, now I know that you're not a teenager. -- Hoary 13:52, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

JMBell, since you claim you're blunt, then I shall drop my tact snd hence like to say that your comment on Tan's talkpage is in violation of No personal attacks under Negative personal comments and "I'm better than you" attacks, such as "You have no life.". [3] Oh dear, you even bolded your attacks! ;) Having a go at another editor because the person attacked you is still wrong. No violence or attack is ever justificable. "An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." (Mohandas Gandhi) - Mailer Diablo 14:05, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• Now that was a deduction and, more importantly, a hypothesis, not a personal attack. JMBell° 19:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I never said that I'm tactless or that I'm rude. And I do not violate Wikipedian policy for no personal attacks for the simple fact that criticism is different from personal attacks. If your professor went up to you and said "James, this is the worst thing I've read in a thousand years," would this classify as a personal attack? NO. One needs to state the fact to a person, and, yes, sometimes even exaggerate it, so that the addressee may be able to fix his mistakes straightaway and not wonder what or how severe the problem really is. If my professor were to say "James, your work is really good, but could use some improving," would I know how bad it is? Of course not. What I am doing is an act of consideration, which cannot be seen directly as a considerate act, but the motive of which spells the difference between this type of criticism and a personal attack. A personal attack is obviously a malicious deed. My criticisms are not. And though I am blunt, I try as much as possible to be tactful, though sometimes this is not apparent. I can assure you that my motives are completely innocent and of friendly nature, though if you want, you can always launch an RfC against me where I can properly defend myself from all these misconceptions. JMBell° 19:20, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

JMBell, you are tactless and rude. (Not to me, but to Tan and perhaps others.) If a professor came up to me and said that my work was the worst thing he'd read in a thousand years, he'd better be a professor I knew well and smiling when he said it; if not, I'd report it to the Student Affairs office. No, I wouldn't make a big deal of it; I'd simply report it. In any well-run university, an accumulation of such reports would lead to advice to change his style; and if that didn't work, he'd get a reprimand. But if you were the professor, I wouldn't be around for you to make the remark to me: I'd have already dropped out, tired of the bombast and repetition. -- Hoary 03:02, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Let's pull some other people into this discussion, okay? I am not tactless or rude. I only criticize! What would the world be without criticism? A planet full of idiots, I would say, whose "friends" never quite tell them the truth about themselves. And they would have massive inferiority complexes. And yes, you were right about the necessity of familiarity with this professor. And I am already quite familiar with Tan, so what you said does not apply. Period. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to check on my projects. JMBell° 10:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Which is the best standpoint from which to judge alleged rudeness or tactlessness, and who would you like to be pulled into this discussion? (Although I too have other things to be dealing with.) -- Hoary 10:49, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Let's just say that we ask them to comment. JMBell° 10:57, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Me! Me! I'm an extra third party. ;) - Mailer Diablo 20:38, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

cc: You may be interested to see what he has left on my talkpage. - Mailer Diablo 05:40, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for alerting me, MD. I'm sorry to read this. I think I had the misfortune to encounter JMBell at his most abrasive; I get the impression that in general he's a great asset to WP, and I hope he soon returns, refreshed. -- Hoary 06:57, 2005 May 27 (UTC)

Birmingham

Could you please have a look at the entry for birmingham, the information is copied word for word from the web site >>>> [encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Birmingham] Also just over 20 million people visit the U.K each year you have my assurance that not every single tourists visits birmingham, It is of no significant historical value except being mentioned in the doomsday book and of no great commercial importance compared to manchester and London or not like cities like Liverpool, Brighton and Oxford i don't see how this person claimms that 22 million people visit the city each year, its a completely bias and grand opinion of the city. it's a very industrial city. - Babyoil (originally posted to your user page, sig added by Hadal 04:50, 25 May 2005 (UTC))

Since I'm here, I'll point out the obvious: laborlawtalk.com is actually copying from us, rather than vice versa. Note the line at the bottom of that page: "This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Birmingham"." Unfortunately, mirror sites like laborlawtalk.com often come up ahead of the source Wikipedia article in Google searches. There are hundreds of mirrors using Wikipedia's content, and not all of them clearly indicate where they're getting it from. -- Hadal 04:50, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Hadal!

Babyoil, I have written more in the talk page for Birmingham. -- Hoary 07:15, 2005 May 25 (UTC)