User talk:JRM/Archive9

Recent change to wikipedia?

Hello. I'm a fairly long time wikipedia editor. Recently wikipedia seems to have undergone a huge change. There are now messages such as "Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaddon"" every time I visit a page, leading me to believe that wikipedia has been backed up or something like that.

The search/find box is now at the bottom of the page, the link for editing an entire page (rather than a section) is at the bottom and looks different, and generally wikipedia looks worse.

However I recently reinstalled Windows on my computer, and it could be that my computer is messing things up. I don't have access to the internet anywhere else, at least not until next Friday at the earliest, so I can't really confirm that it's not just my computer messing things up.

Has there been an announcement of a big change at wikipedia? If so, is there a link to the announcement? Does wikipedia look the way it normally does on your computer? I hope you don't mind that I asked you. I figured I should ask an administrator and couldn't find any info on this in the village pump. Kimera757 17:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

What you describe sounds very much like Wikipedia as seen without a style sheet. This is either the result of faulty preferences, browser misconfiguration, a proxy server partially blocking access, a faulty cache, temporarily failing Wikipedia servers or a wizard meddling in your affairs. In any case, I can confirm Wikipedia hasn't changed on my end.

It's been two days since you posted this, so I'd expect the problem may have resolved itself in the meantime. If not, try using a different browser (like Firefox) and see if this changes anything. Fixing the problem if it persists is trickier, since there could be quite a lot of things wrong. JRM · Talk 18:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Self-reference

Please see message from 172 on my page. Bishonen | talk 07:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC).

I've taken the liberty of trying to make clear that WP:SELF is of absolutely no relevance to the discussion. JRM · Talk 18:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal on Notability

Because you're a member of the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians, I'm notifying you that the inclusionist proposa Wikipedia:Non-notabilityl is in progress to define the role of notability in articles. Please help us make this successful! Also note the proposal Wikipedia:Importance is a deletionist proposla that seeks to officially introduce notabiltiy for the first time. Make sure this is defeated! --Ephilei 04:36, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It's unlikely you'll read this message, since you're obviously firing this off to every inclusionist, but this is not so important that I have to post it on your talk page to ensure you read it.

Wikipedia:Importance is plenty old. It never really made it as policy because, well, it's demonstrably flawed. It tries to argue why some articles ought to be deleted by telling us why some articles shouldn't be deleted, and being very vague about it.

More generally speaking, there are easily a dozen pages in Wikipedia (if not more) that attempt to lay down what notability is/isn't and why it does/doesn't matter to Wikipedia. This schizophrenic nature is reflected faithfully by WP:AFD, where articles are routinely judged on notability. The articles we can all agree should be deleted are blatant OR or demonstrably unverifiable, but moving beyond that there are still plenty of articles that might be verifiable/sourceable but currently don't appear to be, and articles that are not verifiable/sourceable but appear as if they are (a surprising amount of nonsense lingers in Wikipedia because it's well-written). It's extremely doubtful we can ever get consensus on any policy that attempts to either define notability or dismiss it as a valid criterion for judging inclusion. Everyone will have their favorite bugaboos that the policy will supposedly make reality ("oh noes, this means they'll delete/keep articles on X, and no encyclopedia should be with/without those!")

The current state of affairs (have AFD sort it out, accept that mistakes in either direction are made, and hope they'll eventually get sorted out) is flawed but workable. Although I'd personally love to see a "use only NPOV, V and NOR as policy and ignore notability" policy, and I'd equally love to convince deletionists that this is what they really want, too, I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. Notability is what is left when all the rational policies have been applied, and I think this space between the cracks can't really be eliminated. JRM · Talk 18:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

unprotecting main page articles

In the case of cryptography, I have to disagree with your unprotection. I'd been watching most of the day and was leaning that way myself. The degree of vandalism which was happening justified the protection in my view. This may an issue which should be taken to the Pump for a concensus perspective. Thoughts? ww 02:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

No! I forbid this! My word is law!

Er, in other words, of course this should be taken to the Pump if there are different opinions on it. Consensus is a shifty beast; maybe people's opinions on the matter have changed with time. Nevertheless, I think the big honking warning at Wikipedia:List of protected pages still has consensus: don't protect articles linked from the Main Page unless we just can't keep up with the vandalism (which would be very uncommon), and even then make the protection as short as possible. I saw a page that was protected for at least an hour. JRM · Talk 11:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia Conferentie in Nederland!

Beste,

Er wordt een Wikimedia Conferentie in Nederland georganiseerd. Er is al een voorlopig programma met lezingen van Jimbo Wales, Kurt Jansson en vele anderen, workshops en discussies over bijvoorbeeld de Easy Timeline, pywikipediabot en de toekomst van wiki[p/m]edia. Het zou me leuk lijken als je ook kon komen! Meld je snel aan op de inschrijfpagina, want we moeten snel weten hoeveel mensen er ongeveer komen! Stuur deze uitnodiging vooral ook door naar anderen die geïnteresseerd zouden kunnen zijn door {{subst:user:Effeietsanders/wcn}}~~~~ op hun overlegpagina's te plakken. Hoe meer zielen, hoe meer vreugd. Met vriendelijke groet,
effeietsanders 22:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use image on your userpage

Hello, I have removed the following text [[Image:Foxtrot wikipedia.jpg|center|thumb|400px|[[FoxTrot]] comic from May 7, 2005 discussing Wikipedia.]] from User:JRM/Evaluations of Wikipedia because the image is copyrighted and could only be used under fair use doctrine. Wikipedia policies do not allow fair use images outside article namespace. This userpage was created a year ago and I don't see great prospects of it becoming an article. If it does, you could restore the image provided there is a reasonable fair use claim on the image description page. Also, Wikipedia's spam filter forced me to comment out external link to komunism.net. Don't hesitate to ask any questions on my talk page. Renata 14:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Right, I threaded that off ages ago in a halfhearted attempt to restructure the page. Obviously it's horribly out of date as it is, so I'll go ahead and delete it. JRM · Talk 20:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

At the same, you should also delete User talk:JRM/Evaluations of Wikipedia, no? Renata 02:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. And the reason I missed that is because I never created that page, and I'm mystified as to why someone did just to stamp it with a spurious welcome note. In any case, it's gone now. JRM · Talk 12:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

WCN - etentje

Beste JRM, Aanstaande zaterdag is het zover, dan vind de Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland plaats waar je je voor hebt opgegeven! Mocht je nu onverhoopt neit kunnen komen, kun je dat dan svp aangeven? We hopen van harte je te mogen begroeten in Utrecht. Kijk op deze pagina voor informatie hoe je er kunt komen. Tot 31 augustus kun je nog vooruitbetalen voor zover je dat nog niet hebt gedaan, je krijgt dan €2,50 korting op de toegangsprijs. Er zijn nog plaatsen vrij, dus als je andere enthousiastelingen mee wilt nemen, zijn die van harte welkom. Wel graag inschrijven op de inschrijvingspagina.

Je kunt je ook inschrijven voor het wokken na de conferentie. Schrijf je svp zo snel mogelijk in, dan kunnen we plaatsen reserveren. De extra kosten bedragen €17,50 excl. drankjes.

Ik hoop dat jullie een geweldige conferentie zullen hebben komende 2 september, en dat er ook veel mensen mee gaan uit eten.

Met vriendelijke groet, effeietsanders 16:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

A request

Hello! I hope you are feeling fine. I would like to comment on what you wrote about two years ago (yes two years ago!) on this aricle Blunsdon United F.C.. I totally support your comments (and hope that you have not changed your stand on this after all these years) and found them insightful. I was just wandering whether you are aware of the recent deletion of this article. Do you think that it is about time to send this article for a deletion review? Your support in this matter is crucial and moreover, you are a long time user as well as an admin. Your comments there would carry a considerable amount of weight as well! --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 14:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, Blunsdon United. That takes me back. :-)

I have to point out right away, though, that my status as admin should count for exactly nothing as far as article content is concerned. Adminship in general and my adminship in particular cannot be indications of how much weight my opinions should carry, and I'd like to disabuse everyone of such a notion whenever I can.

Should the article be taken to deletion review? I don't see how this would help. Deletion review is for overturning inappropriately conducted deletions, not for disputing the reasoning used in the debate. You want to take up the gauntlet on Wikipedia:WikiProject Football to argue that those guidelines are wrong on the whole; there's no point into getting this done for a single article.

Two years ago I fought for Blunsdon United, and it got kept. It illustrates how fickle decision making is on Wikipedia: I strongly suspect that if Blunsdon United was nominated this day for deletion, it would get deleted. It's a fundamental clash of ideologies, really: I believe that whatsoever is independently verifiable and could conceivably appear in an encyclopedia with no size limitations can become an article, while others want notability to matter—either as a shortcut to establishing that something is not independently verifiable, or as a separate axis of quality (the "having Pokemon/local football clubs/high school articles makes us look unprofessional" argument).

Those people who argue for deletion on notability do have a point, even if I still don't agree with them. Look at the Blunsdon United article. It's barely been edited, and content-wise it's a mess. More importantly, it has no sources. Nothing in the article even proves the club exists! The reason is simply that not enough objective people care about the article to maintain it—I edited it once to trim the worst parts down, but it just deteriorated again. The notability people would argue that in such cases, having nothing is actually better than having something. I still disagree, but it's an opinion; having articles full of unverifiable statements which are only edited by fans is certainly not optimal to say the least. JRM · Talk 13:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello JRM. I am a very-newbie on Wiki and don't know what to do with this problem. But I noted that you awarded this man a star of some sort for contributions to Wiki. OK, then will you please ask him WHY he continues to use interchangeably the English words "legacy" and "legend." (This is involved with a discussion of Kit Carson, the American frontiersman...I'm sure you remember the comics of the 1950s?) My point with him is that the actual person that lived from 1809 to 1868 is ascertainable from documents and that makes the "legend" of Kit Carson, the "reputation", false. Will you, as a 3rd person, help me force him to use the English language properly when describing Kit Carson? Go to Kit Carson/talk for all info.-Caz

Title for User:Lupo

Kim suggested this to me in IRC, but he thinks that you should give Lupo the title of "Copyright Tsar." How does that sound? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 19:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)