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I was quite serious - thanks for saving me from myself. I'm too quick to reply to provocative statements, and that's what gets me into trouble. ] 13:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I was quite serious - thanks for saving me from myself. I'm too quick to reply to provocative statements, and that's what gets me into trouble. ] 13:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Anything related to something on another talk page. Don't split discussion across multiple talk pages, please, it's just confusing.
Thanking me for supporting you in some discussion/vote or other. It's a bit annoying to see that "you have new messages" thing all the time for things that aren't really substantive. So let me preemptively say, you're welcome.
Copyright abuses
Hello, I see you have had problems with Ta bu shi da yu before. Tens of thousands of images have been deleted by a small handful of wikipedians, citing "fair use".
Would you be interested in joining a group on[REDACTED] which counters the heavy handed tactics of the copyright police. We can't fight them on my own. User talk:Ed g2s has began deleting fair use image on every person's user page and on several other pages, inspired by WP:FUC which was written by another paternal copyright policeman with absolutly no legal training and little understanding of copyright law. Ta bu shi da yu created the WP:FUC page and was responsible for deleting hundreds of Time magazine covers and refused to stop even after Time magazine sent an e-mail allowing[REDACTED] to use the images.
Please tell others about this project. The paternal copyright police are well organized and are intoxicated with their own trival power here on wikipedia. Like most authoritarian personalities, these misguided copyright fanatics have finally have overstepped the bounds of good sense and restraint, when they began deleting tens of thousands images from wikiusers' pages. Only a large number of wikipedians will stop this abuse. Travb13:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
If you had done a little more research, you would discover that I'm no opponent of the fair-use policy. I would qualify as one of the "copyright police" myself, quite likely, although I'm not as hard-line as someone like Gmaxwell and I don't have the ability to delete anything. And while I'm not sure I'm a great fan of TBSDY, I don't disagree with the spirit of his copyright-related deletions.
Removing fair-use images from user pages is probably a good policy, except maybe for some purely promotional images (like, is Mozilla going to object if someone has a Firefox logo in their profile? they encourage people to use promo banners with their logos). Not many images in the user space would qualify as fair use, since user pages mostly aren't for any of the purposes fair use is meant to cover (research, education, commentary, etc.), and there's no point having to argue about whether any given picture meets the fair-use case when user space is supposed to be ancillary to the project.
Finally, with respect to the Time magazine covers, you correctly observe that our fair-use policies are mostly user-authored, but the policy that images licensed only for use by Misplaced Pages have to be deleted is due to the unrelated question of the GFDL. Licenses that restrict redistribution of Misplaced Pages content are unacceptable—otherwise, why bother with the GFDL at all? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
pseudomathematics, what do you think of speedy deletion as non-notable.
Even though I made most of the recent "improvements" to pseudomathematics, the term doesn't seem to be in use at all except as an ad-hoc term of derision, and this Misplaced Pages entry is the first hit on pseudomathematics, not because the article is so often linked (only one link to it from a domain other than Misplaced Pages! See for yourself: ), but because Misplaced Pages is the only site of any size that mentions the term!
Especially the "categorizations" of pseudomathematicians in the article are original research. I think the term is non-notable, and again, even though I recently thought to improve it with my edits, I now think deletion is preferable. Indeed, there are only 21 uses of the word "pseudomathematics" on every .edu site on the Internet:
, so that it certainly isn't a term in real academic use.
Certainly we need an article on crank mathematics. Possibly a better term could be found, though, and certainly much of the existing stuff could use sources. Speedy deletion (or deletion at all) is unwarranted, IMO. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I agree that an encyclopedia should certainly convey to someone the difference between real mathematics and pseudomathematics. However, it is not appropriate for us to invent a term to put this distinction under, and I have even more shocking news than in my above post: Googling "pseudomathematics" returns 9,770 hits, but googling "pseudomathematics -wikipedia" returns only 681 hits! (By comparison, a random word "pseudointelligent" returns 2,980 hits, which all seem to be someone making it up on the spot).
Please google "pseudomathematics -wikipedia" and look at the results, then try adding "pseudo" to some random words of your choice, and see how you get more results on non-existent terms! (Since pseudo, of course, is somewhat generative in our language, like semi-). "We need an article" is no reason for an article title that is all original research, since the term is not used (except in an ad-hoc way, like my saying something about a pseudoSimetrical edit, to talk about an edit that's not really "you".)
At a minimum, can we agree that however nice it is to have Misplaced Pages leave the reader (somewhere, as it does already on the mathematics page) with a sense of the difference between real mathematics and crank mathematics (a term which also doesn't exist much online), using what amounts to a neologism is not appropriate.
Where to put the article is another question. Can we agree on this first question?
Here are the sources I mentioned:
Go ahead and try using "pseudo" in a generative way, pseudointelligent, pseudobiological, pseudosexual, pseudoencyclopedic, pseudo- anything. It's a generative root in English, and my unabridged paper dictionary even has a listing, without comment, of all the pseudo- words that are actually in wide use (it doesn't include pseudomathematics). HOWEVER, if there's no special meaning to a pseudoterm (any one of the ad-hoc terms I mentioned in this paragraph return more appropriate hits) then it's not appropriate to do original research on it! Agree? :)
Yes, yes, I agree with all that. The article should be moved somewhere appropriate, if a better name can be found. What would you suggest, however? Crank mathematics? The phenomenon is certainly real enough (people claiming to have squared the circle, etc.), and it deserves an article (although the current one needs more sources). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Republishing Magazine Lists
Thanks for your response on the copyright board about republishing magazine lists. Is there a particular written guideline you could point me to in case I come across other problem articles? Thanks. --mtz206 (talk) 12:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The basic rules are 1) don't violate copyright law, and 2) don't include anything that can't be licensed under the GFDL (or a compatible license) except for a) fair use and b) freer-than-GFDL things (public domain, BSD-style licenses, etc.). Point 1 is the tricky part, with reams of legal cases to consider; it's based on legal precedent that I say lists are copyrightable (I could come up with case names if you're interested).
The drawing that was deleted was drawn by me using colored pencil and watercolor.
It was modeled after the picture you refer to indeed. But I dont think that is a problem, as mine has obvious differences from the original. Just like the Elfen Lied drawings were modeled off of Gustav Klimt: See here:
Please restore my drawing back. It took me a week to draw it. I'd like to have it displayed. And we can say who I modeled the drawing after in the caption. That should leave no doubts I'd say.--Zereshk21:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
First of all, I would like to note that I wasn't the one who deleted your image; according to the log, it was User:Ral315 who did it. Second of all, I did advocate its deletion, and I regret that your work has to be wasted.
However. Under US copyright law, while your work is an act of creativity, and thus no one can use it without your permission, it's also based off of another person's creative work, and thus no one can use it without their permission either. While Misplaced Pages is noncommercial, we're dedicated to making our content free as in freedom—that means that people can reproduce it, even commercially, and that extends to userpages. (This stipulation allows more effective distribution of works; for instance, consider the reliability of for-profit mirrors such as answers.com as compared to Wikimedia servers, and realize that a paper version, say, would have to be distributed for a fee to cover costs.) As such, noncommerciality cannot be used as a defense.
The fact remains that in all likelihood, the creator of the base character (whose identity you didn't mention anywhere, I don't think) would probably be okay with you hosting the image on your non-profit website. He/she would quite likely not be okay with commercial sites hosting it, for money. Therefore, I would suggest that you use a personal website service such as LiveJournal to host your image so that others can see it (you do have a copy somewhere, right?). Misplaced Pages, unfortunately, cannot host it for you. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Rfc
Rfc is not necessary if the case has been throughly discussed on AN/I and remains unresolved. It says something about this (I think it is still there) at the top of AN/I page. Don't bring the question to both places or something like that. FloNight03:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I started on the RFC, but then decided to wait to see what others think. I think RFC is a better place for the dispute than AN/I, personally, but if the ArbCom accepts the case, it would probably be superfluous. I'll wait for what the ArbCom says, personally. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm frankly, stunned by your response to my RfC for -Barry-. I've been a fairly long-time contributor to Misplaced Pages, and I've never initiated an RfC before. In this one case, a user has come along to an existing page that was already listed as a Good Article; disrupted it to the point that over a half dozen other editors complained about his conduct (some uncivily, I'll note with a fair amount of shame, though I always tried to keep it civil, myself); and then he de-listed the article form the Good Article list. At the point that he then admitted that he had a long and very heated relationship with the community surrounding the topic, I just gave up.
Due to your response, I'm left with the feeling that this is considered acceptable behavior. How can that be? How can the input of so many other editors be cast aside so quickly? Why is it that one person with a long history of disruption of things related to a topic can hijack the presentation of the topic on Misplaced Pages? -Harmil14:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I considered the evidence carefully, and that's the conclusion I came up with. I'm only one person; I could be wrong. From what I've seen, I think that you're misperceiving the situation because he's in a minority. I could see no evidence of substantially disruptive behavior on his part, quite simply.
Hi, Simetrical, as far as possible, can you try, when giving evidence, not to link to anything that might lead to further damage to a victim of harassment? I know it might be hard to decide where to draw the line, and I know one could argue that the damage has already been done; but if you weigh up how necessary a particular piece of evidence is, whether other links supplied can sufficiently verify the truth of a statement without it, and what likelihood there is of causing further harm or distress to someone, you should be able to make a good decision. Generally, anything that gives the real name and/or contact details of an editor who has tried to remain anonymous should not be posted on Misplaced Pages. Thanks. AnnH♫21:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If absolutely needed for the case, the information can be sent by email to the artbitrators (and other parties on a need to know basis.) --FloNight21:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I hadn't thought of that, I'm afraid. I've removed the last vestiges of the links from my post, but of course they're still in history. Until oversight becomes rather more sophisticated, I'm afraid it would be tricky to remove the info from page history. I'll ask, though. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
First, you presume I am more guilty just because you incorrectly assume good faith. Barry has many times been incivil, and then turned around and hid behind a false premise of following the rules, in a transparent attempt to show himself to be acting in good faith, when he clearly wasn't. You look silly in falling for that trick. He's the little kid who hits another kid and then cries when the other kid hits back; the difference is that I, the other kid, don't back down when the adult in the room looks our way. He is the one who is starting it, and pretending he is being nice and good, and I won't play his game. I lack the normal human ability of pretense. I'll call a spade a spade, and an asshole an asshole.
Worse, you attack my form and not my content. The problem is content, and Barry's lack of useful content. That's what the point of the RFC is. In fact, Barry is a troll; so what if I say something everyone, including you, can see is true? You went out of your way to not say so, but come on: "He has on a number of occasions made statements that could be construed without great difficulty as implying that he intends to provoke other editors, intends to sabotage the Perl article, or similarly negative things." Are you kidding? On the contrary, it would take great difficulty to construe his remarks in *any OTHER way.* He has said them explicitly and with no room for equivocation, and you know it. For anyone to criticize me calling him a troll as a matter of substance is just laughable.
And I've never seen one valuable edit made my Barry that was illegitimately reverted. How about YOU provide some evidence?
The fact is that Barry is a troll. The fact is that Barry's goal is to waste time and abuse Perl editors and the language itself. Don't quote AGF nonsense; he's proven, time and again, he has none; just because he smacks someone in the back of the head and smiles later, doesn't change the fact that he smacked someone, and that he will do it again (because he has, every time, done it again). You can only assume good faith until the contrary is proven. And the fact is that this whole time-wasting mess is because people like you have naively fallen for his antics, in some misguided attempt at "fairness," or simply being ignorant of the actual content issues involved (such as jbolden not understanding that there is *no possible way* to quantify popularity by looking at book sales or job availability).
As I noted in the Perl mediation page, this whole thing is nonsense. Everyone except Barry should shut up and just treat his edits on a case-by-case basis, which means, of course, that most of them will be reverted, because most of them are useless and against consensus. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pudgenet (talk • contribs) 00:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I have addressed some of your issues, specifically the accusation that he's a troll, etc. I do not accept your characterizations of -Barry-, for the reasons I've stated. I do not accept that it's ever necessary to explicitly insult anyone. In response to your request that I provide productive diffs, I haven't done that yet, you're correct. Here are diffs by -Barry- that I think are constructive: (possibly factually incorrect, but no one appears to have contradicted him) (maintaining the status quo, while providing a specific reason for why it's correct) . . . etc. In fact, most of his edits to the article have been kept, including all but a few of the handful I just linked to. I find your behavior far more objectionable than -Barry-'s. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Fine, you don't accept my characterization. So what? That makes it no less accurate. And whether you find being insulting to be necessary is unimportant. That you find my behavior, which is in direct response to his initial bad behavior in an attempt to fix his incorrect, NPOV, abusive, and otherwise bad edits, to be worse than his, speaks volumes about your credibility.
Even if my behavior is "far worse" than his, which I do not buy for a moment, because I see through his antics while you do not, you still should focus on the *content* and stop being distracted.
More importantly: I did not ask you for useful edits, I asked you for useful edits that have been "illegitimately reverted." The first several you mention still stand, so they do not fit my request, and I do not care to look at the others to find out if any of them have been "illegitimately reverted." Again, can you provide examples? Pudge02:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
We disagree on whether -Barry-'s behavior is better or worse than yours, fine. You're correct that I misread your request. Here are some examples of -Barry-'s edits that I think were illegitimately reverted: (no critical articles were linked externally prior to that; reverted rather than provisos added to the link), (simpler and less verbose, reverted seemingly because of the edit summary; it was however resolved quickly by compromise), (addition of benchmarks, reverted rather than adding provisos), (readded benchmarks with appropriate provisos, reverted again), (more external links, reverted on the grounds that a link discussing Perl had nothing to do with the language), (addition of POV template in response to repeated reversions of his additions, reverted because of nonspecificity), (readdition of more specific POV-section template pending discussion on talk page, reverted with no reason given in edit summary), (POV-section readded, reverted again with no edit summary), and probably one or two in the revert war from May 15–30. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
The style edits you mention, I could not care less about. Someone thought some other style was better; good for them. As to reverting benchmarks and "popularity" nonsense, you're simply wrong: those were discussed in the Talk page, consensus ruled. There was nothing illegitimate about those reverts. As to the POV template, that was an absolutely terrible edit on -Barry-'s part. He was, as you well know, attempting to insert his OWN POV, and then he complains about someone else's, and you think that's reasonable? On what planet? Again, you are ignoring the fact that this was one man, who admitted he was out to harm the Perl page, against *everybody else.* That is not enough to justify the POV template.
Shlomi Fish's article is a stupid one that makes no sense, and has no business being on Perl. It's not about being negative, it's about Shlomi Fish being not very bright and making few, if any, reasonable points. Same thing with the Garshol article: it is simply a bad article, that makes *maybe* one or two good points. But it is not a worthy criticism. Come on, it actually uses a soundex algorithm, which is ugly in any language, as an example of how Perl is illegible, and does not make mention of the fact that Perl's version could be rewritten to look almost exactly like his Python version. It states that merely being different means that Perl is worse than Lisp! It gets many things simple *wrong*, like not even knowing the difference between lexical and dynamic scope. It's a muddled and stupid article from beginning to end.
So I disagree that any of these reversions was illegitimate. Maybe you think the form in which they were reverted (without proper notice that he was going against consensus, etc.) was substandard, but that is not a direct reflection on the edit itself, all of which were entirely good and absolutely justified (except for perhaps the style ones, which I don't care about). Pudge15:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I didn't say consensus wasn't against him. I said consensus was wrong. You continue to say he was attempting to harm the Perl article, etc., which I continue to disagree with. If the article he linked to was stupid (entirely possible), then put up better criticisms, or put up a response, or qualify the link, don't just remove it and leave nothing. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Who cares if you think consensus is wrong? Consensus is, and it is therefore right. And that you disagree that he was attempting to harm the Perl article, when you admit he said he would on several occasions, means you're simply being dishonest, and therefore I will cease to believe you are acting in good faith. Pudge17:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Consensus is not always right on Misplaced Pages. See, for instance, Jimbo's imposition of WP:CSD T1, overriding the policymaking process; Jimbo and the ArbCom are permitted to overrule consensus. More to the point, look at Misplaced Pages:Consensus: "At times, a group of editors may be able to, through persistence, numbers, and organization, overwhelm well-meaning editors and generate widespread support among the editors of a given article for a version of the article that is POV, inaccurate, or libelous. This is not a consensus." If any consensus is supposed to be binding, it's going to be a consensus of all Misplaced Pages, not a "consensus" of about five editors on a single page. It's telling that both outsiders in the RFC generally favored -Barry-.
And -Barry- never said he was attempting to harm the Perl article. That, I'm afraid, is an example of wishful thinking on your part. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Duh. Of course consensus is not always right. But you have to actually show how it is wrong if you are going to assert that it is wrong, and expect anyone to care. You did nothing beyond asserting. YOU disagree; so what? You obviously don't understand the issues. If you really think that either of those articles was a good and reasonable article, then you do not know Perl well at all, and are unfit to have an opinion on whether the removal of them was legitimate.
You can't "show" that something is POV or otherwise bad, in any kind of rigorous sense. You can give general principles that you believe should hold, and then explain how the principles fit; whether the reader agrees with the principles is up to him. I've explained that I don't think external critiques should generally be removed, and thus object to the removal of the critical (if perhaps not factually accurate) articles -Barry- linked to. Likewise, all potentially useful info should be kept with any relevant limitations noted, rather than being removed entirely, and therefore the benchmarks (of various implementations' speed measured against each other) should have been kept. POV templates serve a purpose and shouldn't be removed until the issues are discussed to everyone's satisfaction, or else discussed extensively with substantial outside input until as many people as possible are happy with the result.
I read everything in the RFC, and addressed point 10 explicitly. To wit:
He never, in other words, announced any kind of intent to damage the article. ("e said he would do something to the Perl article if he were a troll, and then proceeded to do that thing", with its implicit "therefore he admitted he was a troll", conflates a conditional's truth value with its converse: p → q does not necessarily imply that q → p. His exact wording was "go crazy in", in any case, which he didn't by anyone's standards except perhaps those of a few pro-Perl editors.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
You are wrong on several counts. First, YOU may think that an external link should not be removed, but your opinion on that subject has no bearing. Consensus agreed it was incorrect and therefore misleading and therefore should not be included. The end. Regarding the POV template, what you say is just nonsense. By your logic, I can add that to every single article and no one should remove it, until I agree, or after much time-wasting discussion with others. On the contrary, simply being overruled does not justify the POV template. This could not be any more clear: your view is nonscalable and logically unsupportable.
Your hyperparsing of his language is willfull blindness. Of course we all know what he actually meant: he said "if i was a troll, i would do X." He did X. Therefore, he admitted that he was trolling. This is absolutely clear and true, despite your willfull attempt to not see it. You are taking AGF way too far.
Oh well. You do not matter, and I am done bothering with you. You've proven you are unfit to comment on the issues at hand. Pudge19:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
This isn't a thanks-for-voting message (at least, not now I've read your talkpage it isn't!), just a quick apology for any concern I may have caused with the whole rapid-fire editing thing earlier in the year, and a personal reassurance that it won't happen again – Gurch17:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
"Words to avoid"
Hi. I noticed your edit on Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse where you link in your edit summary to Misplaced Pages:Words to avoid. Please read that page completely! Just because "claim" is mentioned on that page, doesn't mean it must never be used. Your change was actually to a sentence which is pretty similar to one of the examples given on Misplaced Pages:Words to avoid as an "acceptable case" :-). I won't revert you because your phrasing is no worse, but please don't go around blindly changing all occurrances of "claim". — Timwi16:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi! I filled an arbitration request concerning the usage of "liberation" in WP articles. If you are interested in, please add your name to the list of the involved parties and type your statement.--AndriyK20:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee does not settle content disputes. I can predict with some confidence that unless you put forth allegations of misconduct, your case will get rejected in short order, and even if you do put forth such allegations, the ArbCom will only rule on those and not on the dispute itself. I suggest you try to show a clear consensus of the Misplaced Pages community by means of a survey and put it up on Misplaced Pages:Current surveys. If no clear consensus emerges, the rule of thumb is that you don't change anyone else's wording over to your preference, and vice versa. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Copyright types
I recall seeing your response to a question regarding the different types of copyright licenses. (Can't find it now.) Do you know if there is a table of license type characteristics which might help a user of anyone sellect the best license for the particular work and its application? Thanks. ...IMHO (Talk) 13:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Okay thanks. This will certainly get me started. What I want to end up with is a table I can republish to the Misplaced Pages that lists all of the characteristics of a copyright at the top and the various copyrights along the side with the body of the table filled with the states that relate each characteristic to each copyright type - job I will definitely need help in accomplishing if it is to be of value to everyone else as well. Thanks. ...IMHO (Talk) 22:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Simetrical, for your kind words and your trust that you have placed in me, as you have echoed here. Thank you, and God bless. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 00:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi, me and another person drafted a guideline proposal at WP:NNOT and if you're interested I would appreciate your comments or edits. Cya around. Fresheneesz09:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
I thank you for keeping a calm head about this. I do not think we are at the point yet to issue this yet, since I was still able to get some images deleted by using email. Also, we are still in the process of redrawing images for yall in the SVG format, so I am going to wait and see what is left before any action is taken. User:Zscout37006:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Liquid Threads
Hi, you're one of the few people that's listed over on the Liquid Threads pages that's actually reachable. I'm trying to locate someone --- anyone! --- who is associated with that project. Do you have any idea who that might be? Please contact me at david AT masseventslabs DOT com. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.157.16 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi, just thought I would leave you a message just so you know that your recent addition to the requests for adminship page is not showing up properly, I think the problem is that the USERNAME section has not been replaces by your actual username. Just so you know :-) Dbertman00:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
In your nomination it says you have 5000 edits, but Interiots tool only lists 2000 How is this the case? Have I missed something? Viridae09:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Simetrical, this is Willow, one of the people working on a better categorization of the clothing articles. We took your comment about parentheses on the Toga discussion page to heart, and we're considering categorizing "toga" and its relatives under Category:Clothing in ancient Rome, with similar text as now found on Category:History of clothing (ancient Rome). Does this seem OK to you? Perhaps you have an even better idea? Inquiring minds are inquiring. ;) The general discussion is on Talk:History of Western fashion; you're welcome to join in, if it's not too boring or silly for you. Thanks muchly, WillowW01:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Your RFA
I left an oppose comment on your RFA. I am open to changing my mind if you can reassure me that you will not let YOUR opinion be your compass when performing your sysop duties. FloNight11:21, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
You asked me to unprotect the template so you could make some changes to it. Just reminding you that I did reduce it to semi-protection, so whenever you get around to making your changes... Later. — Jul. 1, '06 <freak|talk>
Thanks for the tip, I will go add my opinion there. Just as a comment, I used to leave the template without substitution, until I read WP:SUBST and was, at a later time, suggested to substitute it. I am not sure the thread will get replies, though, as it is already over 3 months old. Maybe you should (I have never done this before) move the thread to the bottom to prevent someone else from archiving it and give it some life, or creating a new discussion section? Note that the policy has been changed without objection 3 months ago. -- ReyBrujo22:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
It is my regretful task to inform you that your recent request for adminship failed to achieve consensus to promote, and has been closed. Please do not be discouraged; a number of users have had their first RfA end without consensus, but have been promoted overwhelmingly in a later request. Please continue to make outstanding contributions to Misplaced Pages, and consider requesting adminship again in the future. You may find Misplaced Pages:Guide to requests for adminship helpful in deciding when to consider running again. If I can be of any help to you, please do not hesitate to ask. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 04:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry about not making admin, but we can clean together
Regardless of whether you Photoshopped it or sketched it, it's a violation of the original work's author's exclusive right to prepare derivative works of their property. It will have to be deleted. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, allright! as soon as I finish filling a complaint, I'll turn right around and do the same thing thats been done to me. If you can't beat em, join em. I think the best approach is to simply delete with a single entry derivative work, nothing more, and use the speedy tag. I have lots of energy and can acomplish a lot in a short period of time. --BrittonLaRoche03:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but regardless, the two images you posted appear to be fine, since the bases for them were public-domain. I couldn't find anything much on Sir Francis Bacon's image either, but since it seems almost certain to be a period portrait, I'm not going to bother trying to claim it's a copyright violation. As for the signet ring, it was also public-domain, so I uploaded a shot of it directly to commons: Image:Lion signet ring.jpg. Generally, while your drawings are very nice (certainly a hell of a lot better than I could do), if the base work is free it would typically be better to use that directly. I encourage you to try making artist's impressions of things where no free image can be easily found, out of whole cloth—you might be able to find some suitable requests at Misplaced Pages:Requested pictures. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Background is sneaky
Hi. You recently wrote that background is a sneaky attribute. This is true and also funny. (One minor quibble: technically, it's a property, not a attribute. But it's definitely sneaky.) Thanks for the great aphorism, CWC(talk)06:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Do you know of any examples of the term "edit war" which occur without reference to a wiki? Ptcru21:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Erm, okay, it's not a "common Internet term" — I was thinking of flame war. It (or "revert war") is the term of choice on wikis, though, as far as I've seen, probably influenced by flame war, and it does use the word war in a perfectly standard way: compare to terms such as battle of wits, war against drugs, war on poverty, war of words, editor wars, the aforesaid flame war, etc., etc. The general usage is ubiquitous in English, and the specific usage deeply entrenched into Misplaced Pages jargon, so while you may be of the opinion that it trivializes war, saying so outside talk pages and your own userspace isn't the right way to act on those opinions. Maybe you should put up an essay in your userspace about it, use your alternative terms whenever you talk about the phenomenon on a talk page or wherever, and encourage likeminded people to do the same. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
You wrote "Readd bit about substitutes being inferior " but it was already there if you read it. I did not remove it. And what is wrong with 'claim'? That is exactly what it was. However, the way you wrote it still is better. I am going to have to remove now a redundant comment about substitutes being inferior, since it was already there. Finally, I removed again the redundant comment about critics not believing numbers of asbestos deaths. It already said 'generally accepted'. And Fox News is NOT a reliable source. jgwlaw21:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
First of all, Fox News is as reliable a source as any other general news outlet (i.e., reliable enough for us to cite if nothing better is available), prejudiced though many are against it due to its political slant. Second of all, it's definitely reliable enough to guarantee that the person who made the criticism is in fact the comparatively notable critic in question, which would be good enough to make it usable even if the actual news part weren't reliable. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
To the people who have supported my request: I appreciate the show of confidence in me and I hope I live up to your expectations! To the people who opposed the request: I'm certainly not ignoring the constructive criticism and advice you've offered. I thank you as well! ♥! ~Kylu (u|t) 06:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your vote of confidence in me during my RfA. I really appreciate it! ~Kylu (u|t) 06:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Hrmm...
Someone just told me you were bashing on me (on IRC awhile back) for changing my signature a couple of times. What's up with that? :-) My bad... --LV02:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Heh, I wasn't serious. It was more a single passing remark expressed in a somewhat hyperbolic fashion so as to be more interesting than "I just got momentarily disoriented by Lord Voldemort having changed his signature for the second time in whatevertheactualtimespanwas". This is why posting logs of the IRC channels is banned — people are rarely very serious there, and it's very easy to misinterpret what people say if it's taken out of context. The exact quote was, "* Simetrical wonders why User:Lord Voldemort feels compelled to change his sig, like, every five days", about two months ago. A few hours later, someone else remarked that WP:SUBST "changes more often than Lord Voldemort's signature".
Don't take it personally or anything. You did change your sig a couple of times in rapid succession around then, I think, didn't you? You don't seem to have changed it for a while now, but sigs can be disorienting if changed often. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your support in my RfA! Unfortunately, the request did not pass, with a vote of (43/16/7). But your support was appreciated and I'll just keep right on doing what I do. Maybe I'll see ya around -- I'll be here! Cheers! - CheNuevara17:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Sure. Look at, e.g., Misplaced Pages:Public domain. Of course, we may sometimes be stricter than US law is, but never more lenient. Most of the Wikimedia servers, including the ones hosting the English Misplaced Pages, are based in the United States, so we can't break US law. (It's actually somewhat more complicated than that, because the WMF itself is protected by various shield laws, but they certainly can't encourage copyright infringement under US law and they have to remove it if they see it and know it's illegal. Regardless, you'll find that US law is what most of our copyright policy is based on.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Assume good faith during RFA
Hello Simetrical : - ) I think that you need to assume good faith in regard to people voicing their opinions during RFA. Your voting stacking comment is troubling to me. I saw several comments that you made on a Misplaced Pages IRC channel during your own RFA that lead me to believe that you were critical of the people giving their opinions. I ignored them at the time, but wonder if we need to talk about this to clear the air. Not meaning to pressure you to discuss this if you do not want to discuss it. Want to let you know that I'm avaialbe to discuss this if you think it would be helpful. Take care, FloNight21:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
If you would be interested in discussing it, I would be willing. Is here fine, or would you prefer this to be private? I don't have any problem with people voicing their opinions per se, but as I've stated in various places, I view various discussions as a means of determining community consensus, and consequently I find attempts to skew the demographics of such a discussion (and thereby the outcome) troubling. My suggestion at RFA talk just now about jury voting is largely how I think such things should be worked out; allow anyone to discuss, but keep in mind that they might not be representative of the community. I do realize that some disagree, but I was still somewhat upset that by all appearances, a major contributory factor to my RFA's failure may have been due to someone's attempt to invite many opposers who would not otherwise have commented, yes.
I don't believe I've failed to assume good faith. Whoever contacted those of my opposers who were contacted (you know that there was such contact?) was undoubtedly acting in good faith, I just strongly disagree with his or her good-faith action. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm always on IRC when I'm on the computer (otherwise I just idle). I don't see anyone with nick FloNight on freenode. My nick is Simetrical, you can message me. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I am the executor and sole legatee of all intellectual properties of a late photographer who was in his nineties when he died. What would be the proper tag for a cc image on en.Misplaced Pages or the commons? So what are the appropriate tags for photographs that I did not take, but for which I own the copyright and wish to release with attribution? All suggestions appreciated. Thanks Doc ♬ talk02:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you or your answer. So yo say that as the person is missing then thewhole intention is to diseminate the image as far and as wide as possible.--Lucy-marie11:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, yes, but it's best not to rely on that rationale too heavily (what if they suddenly turn up? or in the case of Amanda Dowler, what if they're believed dead?). The image should be used under our regular fair use policy, as Image:Millyinuniformsmall.jpg is. The basic answer to your question is that an image is not fair game just because it's released by the police, and it should be used only under our fair-use policy. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 14:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
nature of consensus, from RFA Talk
You wrote: I strongly disagree that that's a part of the ideal of consensus. Consensus is of the entire community, not just of people who happen to be there. The people who happen to be there may be better-suited to make the decision . . . or they may be just the opposite.
I appreciate that you disagree, but one of the reasons consensus (in the real world sense, not the "rough consensus" bastardization we get here) is supposed to work is because instead of relying on quorums, procedures, and Robert's Rules, it tries to discern the best possible answer available to/for the group. The more people that are available to arrive at that consensus, the better the answer will be, but it never tries to say that everyone must take part. If we assume that people on RFA are working for the greater good of the encyclopedia, then they are well-suited to the task. People who don't show up at RFA may not have the impetus, or experience, or whatever to make the same decision. And they might, after all; that's the whole point! But changing it to a juried system without showing that there's a problem in the existing system, or that a randomized jury will be better, is premature IMO. Thanks for listening. -- nae'blis17:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, first of all, rules need to be decided upon unless everyone is genuinely willing to compromise and accept when others disagree. That's the kind of circumstance you can maybe get some places, but not here: rules must exist to decide when not everyone agrees (thence the "rough consensus" bastardization we get here, which is largely voting in different words). Second of all, I disagree with the idea that RFA regulars are better-suited to the task than others; I think they're probably a bit worse-suited to the task if anything, for the reasons I explained.
You added a line to this template saying that it doesn't apply in the United States. Can you provide a reason why you think this is true? And if so does this apply to all the other PD-OTHER COUNTRY templates? savidan18:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Since we're on the same boat, both learning to code MediaWiki gradually, have you figured out how to make new Special pages yet? I've spent the last day trying to make a Special page extending Special:Userrights (to test if sysop/bureaucrat granting and removal of a validate flag would be possible), but I haven't had much luck yet hooking up the page to MediaWiki... any tips? Titoxd21:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for taking part in my RfA! Unfortunately, it ended with a final result of (62/23/7), and with only 73% support, no consensus was achieved. Nevertheless, I'd like to thank you again for your support and I'll continue my work as a vandal fighter. :)
"Misplaced Pages, the 💕" means that we are an encyclopedia of free content, not copyright infringements of other people's works. WP:NOT YouTube. This is a Foundation Issue and if you cannot comply with this, you must leave. 02:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I assume you reverted this because you realized that I agree with Kelly's interpretation of fair-use policy and my YouTube comparison was with respect to Cyde saying that a fork that didn't have copyright policies as strict as ours would be sued out of existence, yes? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was confused about who was saying what where; sorry for that. It's still a useful thing to remind people of when they ignore our copyright policies though. 02:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello. I'd like to ask you about your TOC edit on the Paris page last night. In all my research I was unable to find any protocol for or against a 'custom TOC' - only against modifying sub-headings - and you are the first to complain. The abbreviated TOC was doing no ill to the page, nor to any inter-wiki navigation, but by the tone of your comment there must be some specific rule somewhere, so please tell me - what have I missed? Thanks. thepromenader11:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
My edit summary was "Do *not* use custom TOCs. They're uniform for a reason. If you think it looks better to only have the first-level headings for long articles, please bring it up on the village pump and do it sitewide." I did think there was a guideline that essentially said "don't override defaults except with good reason", or else I wouldn't have been so forceful. I was partially right, in that Misplaced Pages:Manual of style#Formatting issues says
Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Misplaced Pages site-wide style sheet and should not be dealt with in articles except in special cases.
Aha, okay. Entendu. I for one would like to join in that discussion. What better way to find indication of a road to better style than to examine a Wikipedian's ways of improving/dealing with/bypassing present design shortcomings? I'm sure this would be a popular discussion were it made public enough. Thanks for the explanation, and cheers. thepromenader19:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding ==New Section On Article Content Policy==
On 24 August, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Rodef, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
I just saw the change you made to Pulley. What was the point of that edit? The text, format, layout, content, everything were identical before and after the change. All you seem to have done is to very slightly slow down the loadtime of the page by making the server call the template in addition to the page. What purpose is that template supposed to serve? Rossami(talk)04:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
If it's ever decided to change the format for two-other-uses disambigs, or decided that only one other use should ever be in the hatnote, or whatever, then it will be possible to make the changeover in a systematic fashion.
It's not exactly the same: it added <div class="dablink">, which will affect display (it won't be printed).
It teaches new editors about the existence of the template, so they'll be more likely to add disambigs in a consistent fashion rather than misremembering some of the punctuation or what have you.
I was quite serious - thanks for saving me from myself. I'm too quick to reply to provocative statements, and that's what gets me into trouble. Guettarda13:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Simetrical, for your kind words and your trust that you have placed in me, as you have echoed here. Thank you, and God bless. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 00:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
