User talk:MalcolmGin/Archive 1

Welcome

I know you've been around for a couple of months, but here you go:

Welcome!

Hello, MalcolmGin, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  -- Scientizzle 06:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Grups

• bonk bonk* -Etoile 14:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Geek that I am, I interpreted the above as a reference to "Miri" RahadyanS 02:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

So did I, truth be told, and knowing Etroile as I do, I would not be entirely surprised if that's what she meant. MalcolmGin 11:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Mwahaha! So much for being inscrutable. -Etoile 00:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Didn't Sulu say about himself in one of the novels (I forget which one), "I'm one of the most scrutable people I know." RahadyanS 00:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Response

Check out my explanation here. -- Scientizzle 06:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

lj

Great post at debunking. futurebird 15:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with Klinefelter's syndrome

Obviously I need to read up. Looks good, though. :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MalcolmGin (talk • contribs) 23:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

No problem, one article you might check out is Dosage compensation. That's the common view of what causes the symptoms of XXY. I didn't include it because I don't have any of that source material in front of me, but I can vouch for the fact that it's generally accepted. - cohesion 00:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't write that - I simply moved it. Back then, we didn't really have a move feature, so I simply copied the text from Klinefelters Syndrome to Klinefelter's syndrome. See [1] for the older history of who wrote what. --mav 14:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. I'll message that person instead. --MalcolmGin 14:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your help; I was beginning to get frustrated with everything. It's nice to know that there are people 'listening' who are willing to help straighten some things out. Greener grasses 20:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I went to the deletion logs, but all I could find as for as explanation was the sentence or so in parentheses next to each delete. Is there more that I am missing, or is that it? Thanks! Greener grasses 07:54, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been watching the progression on the deletion page, though staying silent. I've learned so much with all of this, as I have to follow all of the links in each person's comments to understand them. I am willing to try to recreate the article as a subpage of my userpage, as someone mentioned to you, and I would be very appreciative if you could let me know any information you happen to find in your research at your medical library, if any at all. SlimVirgin just responded on her talk page, which is a bit of a relief, saying that she will not stand in the way of the page's recreation. Greener grasses 08:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

I saw your comment at User talk:Pumpknhd, regarding User:Plastic Surgeon's addition of what you described as inappropriate external links. I agree with you that the inclusion of those links is not appropriate. (I cite WP:SPAM and WP:COI for this). I just finished removing them.

I noticed that in the comment you mentioned User:Alteripse. Alteripse "argued me to a standstill" too, just as you described him doing to you. I found Alteripse to be quick to make personal attacks, see Talk:John Money if you care to read it. Alteripse was quick to say that I was "insulting" him, but you be the judge.

Anyway, I just wanted to open communication with you since we both seemed to have had run-ins with these editors. I actually did not realize that the two had connections until after I removed the "plasticsurgery4u" links, so, we'll see how that goes. Have a nice day, feel free to reply. Joie de Vivre 20:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

DRV

Hi,

Unlike Badlydrawnjeff, you are not a regular contributor to DRV. If you were, you'd know that "consensus" has a special meaning at DRV -- it is synonymous with the "qualified majority" ("qualified," because a closer can still discount comments from new users, or others out-of-order.) It was decided long ago that "no concensus" closures at DRV cannot exist. As such, very difficult choices must be made. I'm sorry your view had less support this time; but, I will continue to close DRVs as always, according to the voice of the community. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Samuel Blanning‎ talk page

I figured that there's no point in you and I having a conversation on Sam's talk page, so I figured I'd move it here. My point in my comment was that there will always be people who will disagree with a ruling in a dispute -- that's the nature of a dispute. There was nothing about you in that comment nor any implications that you will always be disagreeable. Please don't take things personally, especially when I wasn't even thinking about you when I wrote the comment. I just meant to clarify what consensus is. Does that make sense? :) Rockstar (^T/_C) 02:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't underestimate your knowledge of consensus. But the consensus to which I was referring was not the concept of consensus but rather Wikipedia's definition of it (see WP:CONSENSUS for the official policy). There will be people who disagree in the end ("some vocal and unreconciled folk"), that's just a way of life (see the "Consensus in practice" section.) Rockstar (^T/_C) 05:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Consensus

Also, talk with User:Radiant, he might provide you with some useful info on what's being done to maintain a consensus system on en.wikipedia, and also what difficulties we've had and why. --Kim Bruning 22:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Other interesting people might be User:Durin, User:Mackensen, User:Jdforrester, User:Mindspillage.

Correlation

Do note that (interestingly) most supporters of consensus also strongly support ignore all rules. You're actually the first person I've encountered who does not at this moment in time. It might be interesting to talk with these people and see why they hold their views. Some are even present on irc. :-)

--Kim Bruning 22:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, in that case, our opinions might be very close indeed. I can't believe you have only been here since january! ^^;;

But the minor differences that turn up do force me to think rather hard, and test all my assumptions. :-)

In the case of when IAR is used and why, I'm going to have to ponder a bit.

In the mean time, try talking with some of the other folks I mentioned. --Kim Bruning 23:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey...

Just wanted to let you know that I really like the way you think, and although you haven't made all that many edits, it seems like you understand quite a bit about WP policy. There should be more people like you on this project. I'd give you one of those WikiSmile things, but I personally think they're dumb, so I figured I'd just drop you a note saying that you're going to be a valuable asset to Wikipedia. Keep up the awesome work! Rockstar (^T/_C) 23:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thought you might like this:

Here's an example of Doc Glasgow deleting a possibly encyclopedic article using IAR: [2]. Rockstar (^T/_C) 02:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely... I would love that too. I think I said in the IAR talk page that I think GTBacchus has, I think, IAR's spirit pretty much spot-on, though none of that is expressly written in the policy. It would be pretty neat to work with him on rewording the policy somehow. However, the question as to where comes up -- it's pretty near impossible to have a civilized discussion on the IAR talk page without some die-hard IAR status quo fan coming in and disrupting the conversation, saying "You just don't understand the policy." But then again, I don't want it to seem like we're just moving past consensus and having some secret meeting about it. Thoughts? Rockstar (^T/_C) 03:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow

I'm very impressed! How long did it take you? Rockstar (^T/_C) 20:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't stay behind

So I started out on this essay, that I'd been meaning to write for ages now. :-)

Wikipedia:Follow consensus, not policy

It's also about IAR, but probably applied in a way that you haven't experienced often enough, I understand. :-/

--Kim Bruning 21:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I should be thanking you btw, because basically I'd been writing this in my head, as a consenquence of my talks with badlydrawnjeff and yourself. Thank you! :-) --Kim Bruning 22:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Exit triggers

I hadn't quite expected you to challenge IARs status, though I should have known you might try.

Typically for most things I work on, I typically maintain a set of plans on What To Do In Particular Situations. Beforehand, I also try to find objective criteria for when those plans should be triggered. This because in real life, the situation on the ground can become murky, and you can get caught in things like the boiling frog effect.

So this is relevant, because at some point in time, I identified IAR as essential to the operation of a wiki, and I have an exit trigger that says I should leave en.wikipedia if IAR becomes deprecated.

<scratches head> So depending on the outcome of the conversation you started, I actually risk leaving en.wikipedia. Interesting times indeed.

--Kim Bruning 02:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm! --Kim Bruning 16:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

medal

Place it anywhere you like! It's you that own's it know:P --13:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)~

Please do not remove other's comments from talk pages

Please cease your actions such as this [3]--Dojarca 14:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Since there's apparently an autoblock on my IP address (shared proxy) because of another user, I can't usefully respond anywhere but here. When I left my comment on WP:Helpdesk, I used the "+" control, so I don't know how your comment got removed. I'm sorry about that. But also please notice that when you restored yours, you blew my request for help away. Can you do me a favor and restore my comment too? --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 14:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I did not remove you comment as you can see: [4]. Please do not spread lies.--Dojarca 14:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you're right, sorry. I'm discombobulated by my blocking. Sorry for the brainfart. It would help, also, if you would assume good faith. I'm not actively trying to screw with you. Please don't get hostile. I never meant you harm, and I think the "+" I used to add my comment got us both. Sorry to be part of inconveniencing you, but please don't think I'm out to get you. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 14:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You deserve a cookie

(Moved cookie to userpage -- MG) Buddhipriya 23:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanx for your support on L3 Internet TV Article

I appreciate that you at least gave me the benefit of the doubt. I feel I was wronged, but I withdrew anyway. 59.95.31.149 08:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

How's this?

Is this version acceptable? Please let me know. Thanks! --Techieguru 18:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:CIV

Kindly refrain from making any more personal attacks in Wikipedia. >Radiant< 14:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? Rockstar (^T/_C) 14:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Because, you know, we have a policy against it? I'm sure MG knows what I mean. >Radiant< 14:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but, you know, the policy states that it's best for an outsider to call out personal attacks, as an involved party can often misinterpret comments. Rockstar (^T/_C) 15:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Telling you that you know better than to behave in a non-consensus way is a personal attack? Are you referring to my mis-comment on the DRV about Jewish mathematicians? Should I have just deleted it or would it have been unmannerly to delete it too? Or are you referring to my DRV_talk comment? Please specify so I can know for future learning opportunities. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 14:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Since you appeared to object to the wording (even though it was struck out and I apologized for it in later edits) of my comment on the Jewish mathematicians DRV, I removed the text completely with an edit comment in the note. When I struck out the text the first time, I did so because I'd understood that in general it was best to leave struck out material in a conversation if at all possible, and only devolve to article history if absolutely required. Since I didn't find the struck out material objectionable or in contravention to WP:CIV and apparently no one else but you did either, I left it there. But since you seem pretty oversensitive to criticism, I'll keep that in mind for when I feel compelled to make similar comments.

I do not, however, apologize for the essence of what I said to you in that comment. I feel your behavior was inappropriate in the DRV for the category of jewish figure skaters, and I think you know better, both about avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest and about acting without editor permission and without consensus. I think that you probably implement IAR and other interpretations of policy, guidelines and essays to justify that behavior to yourself and make it all okay, but I don't really think it is okay, and if you keep it up, I'll probably try other measures aside from just talking to you about it (since it seems ineffective) to try to hammer it out with you. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 16:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving of comments

Hmm, Consensus (actual form of rough consensus for once, I figure ;-) ) has it that moving talk page comments between talk pages is an acceptable form of refactoring. Not well documented (yet). Common problem with consensus on wikipedia. Long story on the how and why, though I'll walk you through it at some point, if you'd like to hear. Too bad you and Radiant don't seem get on well... maybe your ideas are close together in a way that they actually fail to mesh rather more spectacularly, as a result? --Kim Bruning 18:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Your protection of WP:IAR seems a bit hasty

From my perspective, IAR's had much heavier edit warring before, and it's cooled off without protection. I guess it's no big deal either way, but why bother protecting it? The primary dissenter seemed to leave off edit warring yesterday. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 13:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe we can wait this out. Alternatively, if things come to a (calm) standstill on the talk page, unprotection can be requested at WP:RPP. -- tariqabjotu 15:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

But why protect an essentially quiesced article? Do you have something against undoing your own actions? --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 18:48, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

An edit war is an edit war, regardless of whether is it occurring over the span of three days or three minutes. No, I do not have "something against undoing [my] own actions" and the allegation that such is the case is unfounded. I was aware of the situation when I made the protection and I am aware of it now; you have provided me with no new information regarding the page. If you want to request unprotection at WP:RPP, no one is stopping you. -- tariqabjotu 19:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Sorry to offend. Offense was not intended. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 21:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone's been paying attention at Wikipedia:Edit warring. That's cool! :-) Even so, it might be better to engage the people messing with that page in conversation. Page was unprotected by Steel359. :-) --Kim Bruning 23:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Cool that Steel359 unprotected the page. I'm not sure I understand the Edit warring link you made though - it seems like most activity there is months old? Or am I missing something obvious? --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 23:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Eh, the wording changed. It used to say pages can be protected and people can be blocked when there are edit wars. (heh, and I just wrote a page that captures that feeling too ^^;;) :-/ --Kim Bruning 00:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to say the Lamest Edit Wars page is both amusing and informative. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 00:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh?

Since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, moving discussion to a more appropriate forum does not require extensive discussion beforehand. Discussing deletion review is obviously done on the talk page of "deletion review", not on the talk page of an unrelated policy. >Radiant< 10:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

• The difference is that you feel this is a personal affront from me to you, whereas I feel that I am moving posts about DRV to the more useful spot, i.e. the talk page of DRV. This is not about you; this is about the encyclopedia. I do quite a lot of such moving - for instance, if someone requests that a user be blocked on the talk page of the blocking policy, I move it to a more useful forum, e.g. the admin board - because interested parties will see it there - and asking permission for such on a wiki is frankly a bit silly. Throwing around loaded terms like "unilateral" isn't all that helpful. >Radiant< 11:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for the kind words. Pats on the back like that make the effort worthwhile, even if it doesn't stick. I just lost half the lead, which I quite liked - even if it was a bit wordy.--Kubigula (talk) 03:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Practice what you preach

If you suggest that other people avoid editors with whom they've had conflicts... >Radiant< 13:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• That wasn't my point. I neither avoid nor seek out anyone in particular, and neither do I ask that others avoid me. You are quite welcome to, as you recently suggested, bring up disagreements with me. Incidentally none of this has anything to do with Barberio. But out of curiosity, how would you suggest that Wikipedia deal with people who have misconceptions about how Wikipedia works, and refuse to listen to evidence (not just opinion) that they're wrong? >Radiant< 13:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, no. I don't want you (or anyone) to geld yourself. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. >Radiant< 13:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • You said that I "see new users with different ideas as a problem." In fact I don't. I welcome new ideas and suggestions; it's misconceptions that I have a problem with. Sometimes new people say "because of A, we should do B", then if it is pointed out that A is in fact false, they either persist in claiming A anyway, or claim that we should do B regardless. >Radiant< 14:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment.

Thanks to User:Barberio and User:Kim Bruning. I've relocated the barnstar and supportive comments to my user page. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 18:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

IAR editing

You guys seem to be revert warring, in any case if you need to do tweaking, I would suggest starting up a draft version. Then when you have agreement on that draft version request unprotection. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 01:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I think MalcolmGin is doing a great job trying to actually apply consensus. It's quite cool to see him work. (though it's a fairly tricky page to get right, since it's watched by so many people) --Kim Bruning 08:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh well, now it's protected because some people decided to crash the party. I guess we can wait a while for the protection to end naturally. --Kim Bruning 10:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it takes a large helping of patience and a large helping of good humor. I was going to explain to you objectively how -apparently due to your previous experience with consensus- you were performing far above the norm in one of the trickiest kinds of situations you can find yourself in on wikipedia. But I'm sort of stuck on how to do that without giving you too big a compliment for your health. I am going to tell my friends about you though. :-) --Kim Bruning 16:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC) Now I just I wish there was a way to transmit extra helpings patience and good humor across the net.

Heh, well, you never know. :-) --Kim Bruning 19:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Kim Bruning is awesome, but he's dug himself way deep down into the meta hole, and his compliments come at a terrible, terrible price. Turn back now lest he make thee an administrator, whence thou shalt never produce any useful content ever again. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 19:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC) He made me start using an account somewhat regularly, and look what it's got me.

Well, I'm sorta a meta kind of guy, so that wouldn't be so bad. Besides, I don't know if I would accept Adminship. :) --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 00:10, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee,

David Mestel(Talk) 18:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sidaway & his signature alterations

• just wanted to say word to this. everything i was thinking. best, tomasz. 17:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey you!

Where'd you go? The IAR talk page is stalling. Rockstar (^T/_C) 18:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Email address

Writing out email addresses in full form is not recommended as spambots will usaully pick it up and suscribe it to spam lists. Some people write it out as (name) at gmail.com or (name) at gmail dot com. If you are already aware of this and don't care, I apologize. hbdragon88 00:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)