User talk:Mav/archive 17

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Aspen I'm curious to know where your Aspen photo was taken - could you add a brief note of the locality to the photo please?
Thanks, Michael MPF 00:26, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. --mav

Re Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization): I'll respect that convention if it is accepted on wikipedia--I don't wish to disregard established custom. I agree that it would avoid ambiguity with those particular species names that begin with common adjectives. However, the cons are that it's contrary to established English grammatical rules for capitalizing nouns, and I don't see it being used consistently at all from entry to entry. Do we then capitalize every occurrence and form of the common species name "human" as well? --Postdlf 1:58, 3 Jan 2004 (EST)

I argued for using the common rules as well but was over-ruled by the people who were most involved in creating the articles. Make appropriate links - that means use the downstyle link if you think that is best for the article you are linking from. --mav

On nude celebs you made an edit: M 21:32, 30 Nov 2002 . . Maveric149 (See alsos do not get there own headings)
Where is this on the editting/style pages? I apparently missed it.
~ender 2003-10-27 11:48:MST

What do you (and Fantasy) think of my latest addition to m:WikiImages.org? -- Tim Starling 08:46, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Medical Wikipedia Followup

I'm afraid you misunderstood what I'm proposing. There would be no exclusion of anyone from reading or editing its material - it would be a completely open Wiki like Wikipedia. The only difference would be that just like those seeking instruction in a specific subject go to Wikibooks or those seeking quotes go to Wikiquotes, someone seeking information specific to the medical profession would go to MediWiki or whatever it will be called. It would be out of place in Wikipedia because (a) most of the info wouldn't be comprehnsible/useful to laypeople and (b) medical professionals don't want to have to shift through a database as large as the 'pedia to find what they're looking for. Besides, medical vocabulary is easily as large as the entire English language, so placing it inside Wikipedia would probably be unweildly. --Alex S 03:21, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Humanity would be much better served by explaining medical terms so that people who are otherwise reasonably intelligent but not doctors can understand the basics. That is done by having general intros to articles and then going into depth after that and really go into depth and get technical with daughter articles (see news style). We already have many hundreds of math articles that are really only understandable by people with advanced math knowledge. In time those articles will be reformatted into news style. I still see no reason for a separate project for a medical encyclopedia; articles can go into Wikipedia, definitions into Wiktionary and textbooks into Wikibooks. --mav

Humanity would definately be well-served by understandable Wikipedia articles on healthcare subjects. It would also be well served by a technical centralized Wiki that could be used for Healthcare professionals without having to sort through unrelated articles. Perhaps I've misunderstood the nature of Wikipedia sister projects, but I was under the impression that each serves a specialized purpose that doesn't graft well into the standard Wikipedia format/goal/structure. A Medical Wikipedia would fit that criteria exactly.

Also, is the Wikipedia software covered under the GNU Free Documentation License? Would it be possible/practical/legal/desirable to create another 'pedia with the same format, but a different focus, in case there isn't any support in the Wikipedia community for the idea? --Alex S 04:39, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If sorting is the problem, then that will be fixed as soon as we implement a category system. Then medical professionals would be able to only search articles tagged with [category:medicine] and would be able to have a recent changes that only showed articles tagged with category:medicine].

The other projects exist because of format and focus reasons; dictionary entries and books are not compatible with an encyclopedia project. Wikiquote was made largely on a whim and was not thought-out very well (and then there is our embarrassing Sept 11 wiki project which is far worse!). The result is a languishing project when we could have simply have made a naming convention for quote pages here in Wikipedia ([Qutotes of Fu Bar]). Adding such pages would have then been a WikiProject (probaly a successful one too).

Wikipedia is viewed by many thousands a people a day - each of those people are potential contributors and a subset of them will have medical knowlege. Please encourage the formation of a WikiProject within Wikipedia instead of forking Wikipedia's medical encyclopedia. And MediaWiki is under the GNU FDL, so you are free to start up any project you like with it. However I will fight against any effort to create an internal (to Wikimedia) fork of our medical encyclopedia (not to mention medical dictionary in Wiktionary and medical textbooks in Wikibooks). Together we will be stronger, but I nor anybody else in Wikimedia, can prevent you from creating a non-Wikimedia-related medical encyclopedia project. But if you want to use Wikimedia's servers and have the project be an official Wikimedia project, then you are going to have to convince us that this is a good idea. --mav

Sounds good. I'm curious as to what the timetable for the category scheme is looking like, because I'd like to help with categorizing history. --Alex S 02:18, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Mav, If you ever had trouble verifying any of those daily royal events, I'd be happy to look in the refs I have for them... or I can just butt in like now<G> -- Someone else 05:58, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Cool thanks! The trouble with a lot of pre-Internet facts is that they are mostly just contained in books. --mav

You know, I think in one generation, the fact that there was a time before the Internet will be a little-known fact, and in two generations, the question will be "What's a book? <G> -- Someone else 06:05, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wow mav - your page is 79kb! I just thought you should know the CH page has been listed on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. Angela 23:41, Nov 4, 2003 (UTC)

Are you campaigning for a specific outcome by contacting only proponents of retaining the page? Daniel Quinlan 07:15, Nov 5, 2003 (UTC)

01:36, Nov 3, 2003 User talk:Lir (Bush family conspiracy theory on VfD page) (top)
01:35, Nov 3, 2003 User talk:Jtdirl (Bush family conspiracy theory nominated for deletion)
01:32, Nov 3, 2003 Wikipedia:Votes for deletion (Keep Bush family conspiracy theory)

Those were the two people I knew contributed a lot to the article, so I informed them. Were you looking for a specific outcome by not informing them? Please. --mav

Regarding your question on my talk page, see the discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Years. Your comments are very welcome! olivier 14:14, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Dear mav, like they say, if you cant beat them, join them. Have a look in List of youngsters in history :) And please give suggestion to change this awful name. Cheers, Muriel

Yes, Im tired of taking the time to write new articles; only to have Wik follow me about making his petty little bickering changes and not even bothering to discuss or add anything to the article whatsoever. I don't want a an edit war everytime I come to the wiki, and I don't really think my grammar is so bad as to warrant this constant and misplaced attention. Lirath Q. Pynnor

That doesn't sound very nice. I'll check on this in a while. In the meantime enjoy your wiki holiday - come back in a few days after you feel better. That helps me anyway. :) --mav

Hi mav. Nope, sorry I don't think I'm the Brian you're thinking of. I just visited Lassen earlier this year and had some nice pictures that I thought I might add here. User:bmcdaniel

Ah, oh well. Welcome anyway. :) --mav

Shouldn't Alhambra, Ciudad Real have been listed on vfd foreign?. I'd been assuming I couldn't delete things like that but do you think it is ok? I'd appreciate your advice on it as I often come across similar pages. Thanks. Angela 10:43, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

I didn't know such a page existed. Why the hell is it necessary to divide up VfD like this? --mav

Partly because VfD used to be 90kb, which a lot of people had trouble editing. Partly because an article in a foreign language is dealt with very differently to pages listed on the normal VfD. The normal process is to contact the person listed as the ambassador for the Wikipedia in the language you think it is written in (using the Language recognition chart that Nikola Smolenski created for this purpose). They will then advise on whether it ought to be translated or deleted, and then translate it or find someone from their own Wikipedia to do so, and also move it to their own Wikipedia if they don't already have it. Having it on normal VfD would make it a lot harder to find amongst all the other articles, particularly for someone not familiar with the English Wikipedia. Having it listed on a fairly empty page helps with this. Also, the lag time is different as the ambassador might not reply within a week or the translation may take longer than this, so foreign articles are left on the VfD/foreign page for s long as is necessary rather than conforming to a specific timescale. Whether or not it's worth the effort to go through these procedures as opposed to deleting foreign articles on sight is of course debatable, but I think that it's nice the way it encourages inter-language coordination. However, I'm not suggesting anyone has to do this. Angela 14:36, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)

Mav, I’ve taken the liberty of improving the caption to the Minaret pic on Sierra Nevada. Also I’ve removed the 1200 pixel pic because it didn’t seem to have any point, the 750 pixel version is enough, I think. Obviously, if you have any objections, just revert me.
Adrian Pingstone 10:26, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No reason not to have it. I've taken the liberty of putting it back in. The point is to give the user a higher res version of the photo (more detail and larger field of view). --mav

Oppose western imperialism!!!

If we can list dates after the date link has dissappeared, why can we not list them before? Why should UTC be our set standard? This (to paraphrase a comment left by Brion VIBBER somewhere a couple months ago) is not set in stone, since it is not the same day everywhere. Let's show some thought for all those people in East Asia! --Jiang 02:29, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Like it or not but UTC is the hardware time for the Wikimedia server. All cached pages are based on UTC and therefore only UTC-based dates are displayed for anons - including dates obtained via [[{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}]]. --mav

The complaint seems to be about the listing of events, not the date link. --Brion 03:16, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Events should always be listed according to whatever date was in effect where the event happened. That is a no brainer. --mav

Hi mav, I've made a suggestion that "trolling" be added to the deletion policy as one of the criteria for speedy deletion as this doesn't seem to be covered at the moment, though I strongly feel it should be. You may want to comment at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy before the policy is actually changed. Angela 04:00, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I do merge info like that, but in that particular case, I didn't notice anything new about the contribution (the data is pretty easy to overlook). --Raul654 20:37, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"lead-ins" / context

Howdy ... why not have links / leading context headers? - reddi

Things like "Automobiles" is not context (just link to it in the text). Context is limited to ongoing events and developing stories (that is, the entry is directly part of another, larger story). --mav

General topic context headers have been used for in the past (not just limited to ongoing events and developing stories) ... [and it was a general concensus in the pump a bit ago IIRC.] reddi

Sorry I missed that. If I had seen it I would have corrected it. Current events is about events, not categories. Don't confuse context with categorization. --mav

"corrected it"? no need to corrected it. Current events is about events and categories those events go into. Categorization is important to context. reddi

Context is established by attaching the event to a larger on-going event. That is very different from categorization. Don't confuse the two - simply link category-type words in the text. That highlights them nicely. --mav

One way to establish context is by attaching the event to a larger on-going event. Anotherway is to cite the general category that the event fits in (say like natural disasters, for the recent wildfires).

When possible "in the text" could be used, but a "topic" lead in is sometimes perferable (unless you want, for example, to have "natural disasters of 2003" ... for every lil' event)

The 2 are not very confusing ....

Sincerely reddi

It is distracting and very non-standard so I will continue to fix it. One and only one standard for providing context (in your loose sense) should be used. As I said the point of the day, year and current events pages are to discuss events. Medicine is not an event; it is a category. Sorry, but you are not convincing me (in fact my position on this is even stronger than ever). --mav

Distracting? IYO, YMMV ... seems to me that it is easier to pick out the individual items (but that is IMO)

"very" non-standard? mabey IYO ...

"fix it"? doen't need fixed ... but if you want to spend time on it, that is up to you .... I'm not here to convince you (you'll probably edit it the way you want), just putting some things out ...

One? There can be multiple way to it ... and the different ways should be used (as long as the overall outcomes is the same). As I said the point of the day, year and current events pages are to discuss events.

So you'd rather have "Medicine in 2003" for a lead in than just "Medicine "? =-| seems simplier to just have the latter not the former ... (or use "natural disasers" in liue of "medicine", etc ...)

Would that be "acceptable" (in your schema)? ...

... the day, year and current events pages are to discuss events ... events of the categories, and, (i believe) as a way into other articles of wikipedia (which "context lead-ins" would do) ...

[snip opinion]

Sincerely, reddi

Being specific and bringing the reader the exact article is always best. North Korea nuclear weapons program is far more useful and informative than North Korea for an current events entry about nuclear weapons in North Korea. Well, I'm done with this argument. --mav

Yes ... for a larger ongoing event, the lead in "North Korea nuclear weapons program" is more useful and informative than "North Korea" (for an current events entry about nuclear weapons in North Korea) .... but a smaller item (that is not ongoing event; @least not too long, nor important (pending a view (some may think it's big)) about "wildfires" in california would be good to have a "natural disaster" lead in ...

Being specific and bringing the reader the an exact article is a good way, but it doesn't work for other situations ...

Argument? Just a discussion ... reddi

Could you have a peek at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, regards deletion of trolling? I'd be interested in your feelings on the subject. Martin 22:46, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Look on my talk page for not only why i've been moving the history of city articles (to meet the pattern that started when Los Angeles grew too fat), but also how I've also separated articles to alleviate sizes (e.g. World War II and Jesus Christ) WhisperToMe 07:16, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

And right now, i'm marking talk pages that a page is a "Daughter article" of another page. WhisperToMe 07:24, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to have the History articles moved back, but THIS time, with information stating that its a daughter article now.

Many of the city articles that since got back the entire history information are now exceeding 32 KB. WhisperToMe 07:28, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The 32K limit is not such a big deal now that we have TOCs and section editing. So that is no reason to hack articles to pieces and leave only stub sections (not even stubs since you have left only 'see also' links). See your talk page for more.--mav

Hi Mav, thanks for trying to babysit Khranus, but I'm afraid it's useless. He has been told over and over to stop this, and his recent edits to Robert Mugabe aren't the only ones that look very much like outright trollery. Furthermore, he is contributing bogus science into various articles and refuses to discuss that, only answers with references to higher dimensions and world conspiracies when asked to. He also has a habit of randomly insulting other users. Much as I hate it, I support a ban (see recent discussion on Wikipedia:Problem user and two recent posts to WikiEN-L). Would be great if you could offer your opinion on this (preferably on the list). Thanks, Kosebamse 07:53, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It is starting to look like you are right. I'll respond to your list post as soon as Khranus slips up again. --mav

Images Database

Hi Mav,

As you also have already some ideas on the image-database, can you le me know your opinion on the example I tried to set up at meta:WikiImages.org#Examples_(to_understand_the_proposal)?

Thanks for comments :-) Fantasy 13:50, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Do be sure and note the subject of a vote, before voting. Nobody is suggesting that Adolf Hitler be moved to "Adolph Hitler"; rather, the vote is over whether the alternate spelling will be mentioned within the article. I hope you rethink your vote. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Hmm, perhaps you could clarify your opinion on the issue - your current vote seems a little misleading, given that it's really a seperate issue. No need to muddy the waters any further, I think. Martin 23:33, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Martin 15:21, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yaaay. They liked my page. Thanks for letting me know, Mav. :-) FearÉIREANN 22:57, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Please participate in the new meta-article Naming conventions (Mormonism). Thanks. --B 05:48, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main

Hi Mav,

When I archived the long discussion on Talk:Main Page the other day, I copied the text you had written on logic behind on how things get listed under Anniversaries (ie, after the date rolls over) when I noticed it wasn't already there. It is a logical but not entirely intuitive system. Maybe you'd like to take a quick look to see if anything catches your eye.

At some point, I'd like to improve the help text on the context labels for entries on Current events; that is also a slightly tricky concept. There is something on that on this page, but probably should be moved somewhere else.

-- Viajero 08:49, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Hi mav, I reverted your change to Fyodor Dostoevsky as the page was protected when you made the change. I have put your text on the talk page so it can be added once the protection is removed. Angela 02:21, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I didn't even notice that the page was protected. It should have a header on the page. However my edit is not related to the edit war so I fail to see why it was reverted. --mav

Well there is the warning at the top when you edit it, but others have pointed out that this is not very noticable. You may want to see Wikipedia:Village_pump#Protected_Pages. The process seems to be that sysops can not edit a page protected in these conditions at all, even if it is unrelated to the edit war, but I'm not sure why that's the rule, and I don't think I agree with it. Angela 02:31, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Arnold_Schwarzenegger_inauguration-crowd.jpg

Nice picture, but it's so big. Maybe you could crop it and resize it? orthogonal 21:27, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I would if I could. But I'm in MS hell right now and am therefore GIMPless. --mav

Sutter's Fort

Hi Maveric, I noticed you changed my Sutter's Fort State Historic Park redirects. I was trying to make the links on the List of California state parks work, because I'm sure that more of those pages exist than it appears (the link doesn't work after your change). If I did something the wrong way, please let me know for future reference.

Thanks, Aion 21:32, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

IIRC, you did a cut and paste move. I undid that and used the move this page feature. --mav

Hmm... I'll definitely use that in the future. But I still can't figure out why the List of California state parks link to Sutter's fort doesn't work anymore - any ideas? It actually brings up the edit window (as though it was a new page) but shows the current page content in the edit window. Does it work properly for you? - Aion 21:08, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

thanks for the heads up.

thanks for the heads up! I'll do it in the future. until later, Kingturtle 04:50, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

reply on my talk page

at User talk:Daniel Quinlan... Daniel Quinlan 05:00, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)

Inline external links -> wiki refs

Hi Mav -- I didn't realize that that was contrary to convention. Is there some better format to indicate what the external links are -- the [#] things isn't so great. For example, is there a related footnote standard? What I found at [[1]] calls them footnotes without reference to what to do with any format for the footnote itself. Thanks, BCorr ¤ Брайен 16:15, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[#] is fine. The only thing that should be changed is that they should be displayed as superscripts. But that is easy enough to change in the style sheet, me thinks. The Manual of Style section you cite mainly deals with external links that go in ==External links== sections. That is a bit different that citations. That should be noted in the MoS... This may sound shocking, but not all our conventions and norms are documented! :) --mav

Source texts

Uh, ps.wikipedia is the Pashto Wikipedia. We do not have a source wiki (although Wikibooks does use source texts I'm not sure they would welcome much of the source text deleted from Wikipedia). --Maveric149 09:44, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

But that's what ps. is being used for temporarily isn't it? That's where all the source texts are sent. I thought that was what was supposed to happen until WikiSource was set up. Angela 20:46, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Main Page

OK, this continuous deleting of every single thing I put on the Main Page has gotten personal. It seems like you're out to delete everything I ever put there. At least you could be polite and indicate why you feel what I put there is so totally inappropriate, or is it only that you dislike me so intensely as to revert your personal property? RickK 02:40, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Calm down. I simply replaced the sub-1KB not-very-important entry you put up with one that is far more complete and more important. Oh and anything listed on the Main Page has to be listed on the corresponding day page before it is put on the Main Page. Sorry, but that is three strikes against Areopagitica. --mav

Mav, i'm sure there's a slip of the pen in Sodium#Precautions: "cannot" for "must be". --Jerzy 17:25, 2003 Nov 25 (UTC)

Opps! You are right. Fixed. --mav

Many thanks for your comment on the Concorde image, I was delighted with the pic because it's the only flying pic of Concorde I've ever taken (and the last!).

At Easter BAe hope to open the aeroplane to the public so I look forward to then. I have flown on five test flights to a total of nineteen hours and worked on the aeroplane for 15 years at BAe on aerodynamics, the environment, and cabin noise problems so the "death" of such a lovely piece of machinery has been very sad for me.

I had wanted more of a side shot but I misjudged the distance (but it has made a more dramatic shot).

Thanks again, it's really good when someone notices my illustrating efforts.
Adrian Pingstone 08:56, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wow, that's cool. And - you are welcome. --mav

Mav, Through the year, as I have updated the category of Historic Anniversaries, I learned (often from you) to take great care in what events should be included. For the sake of Wikipedia itself, the date in question needs to be especially significant to the article. The Main Page is an avenue for users to explore wikipedia. We can't have readers wondering WHY something is listed as a Historic Anniversary. One can gauge the importance of a date by where it lies in the article. With that said...

In regards to The Band, November 24 doesn't appear until the 7th paragraph. One has to do an awful lot of reading to find out why a historic anniversary is upon us. The date in question is not especially significant to the article. Maybe an article should be written about the Thanksgiving Day concert.
In regards to Free French Forces, November 24 doesn't appear until the 6th paragraph, and the date might have more to do with Lend-Lease than Free French Forces. Again, the date is not especially important to the article. Or is it? If it is, maybe it should be mentioned in the first paragraph.
In regards to Boss Tweed, November 23 doesn't appear until the 7th paragraph (in fact, not until the last sentence); is his extradiction important enough to involve it in historic anniversaries? If so, then shouldn't it be mentioned long before the last sentence?
In regards to Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, November 23 isn't completely significant to her story. That date is more siginficant for her mother Emma. August 31 seems to me to be much more important for Wilhelmina. It is quite possible that I jumped the gun on this one.

So, that is a much more explicit explanation of what I tried to say within the confines of the comment field of Edit mode. I hope that explains it. And I am always happy to discuss such things with you. I learn a good deal from you. Sincerely, Kingturtle 09:07, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What? The Band had its last performance on the 24th! How is that not significant to the topic? It was also a while since a music-related article was listed so I listed that one. On the position of the date in the article is not a criteria for inclusion or exclusion. It is enough just to make sure that the article does have a linked date. If need be people can use [CTRL] [F] to find that current month. Or they have to read a bit to find the linked recent day page. Big deal - they might learn something! :) The Lend Lease bit is very important to Free France since that became a very large part of their support. The Wilhelmina entry was truly historic because the Netherlands had to amend their constitution to allow the first Queen of the Netherlands to become Queen. True her mother had the real power but that does not change the fact that Wilhelmina became the first Queen of the Netherlands on that day. Before that there was a crisis since her father had no male heir. And bringing one of the most notorious political machine bosses in history to justice is also very important. I thought you replaced the entries because they were a bit old. I was cool with that. But I'm not cool with the removal of good examples of history articles that follow all the guidelines. I spend a few hours just about every day updating the day pages so I think I deserve to select a few listings without them being de-listed for reasons not mentioned in the guidelines. --mav

Mav, to explain where I was coming from, the root of my actions is based in the writing of the articles in question. The articles themselves did not explicitly tell me the significance of the dates. The significance may have been implied, but that doesn't help a reader naive in the subject.

The Band article doesn't tell the reader that the 24th was the last performance. That is why the date seemed insignificant to me - I didn't already know it was their last performance, and the article didn't tell me. I realize only as I write this the significance of the title The Last Waltz. The article needs to be more explicit in this regard.

Similarly, in the Free French Forces article, it is stated that "On November 24 that year the United States granted Lend-Lease support to the Comité National Français." To the naive reader (me in this case), the article doesn't explain why this is historically significant. A sentence should follow that sentence and explain why this moment is so important. I agree that readers will learn something...as important points are made explicit.

I really do appreciate the hard work you put into wikipedia, and into the calendar. And I apologize for de-listing those items. It was not done out of malice. Kingturtle 10:19, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The Band article states "they retired from touring with a massive Thanksgiving concert on November 24". How can that not be clear? But I'll try to be more clear in saying why something is important in the future. The however, article quality and completeness are very often the deciding factors in what I list since the major point of Selected Articles is to show off our best work. Some of the entries you replaced were not as complete as the ones I had listed. But as I said, my entries were a bit old anyway so no big deal. --mav

Thanks, Mav. It's great to be back, refreshed, invigorated, and after eight weeks of walking around with all that camera gear over my shoulder, yes, even fit! My word it gets hot in Northern Queensland at this time of year! All things considered, it was very hard work - and I loved every minute of it. :) Lots more pictures to come, but I'll need to write entries for quite a few of them first, so that will keep me busy for months. You know, I'm even looking forward to starting back at the office on Monday.

Cheers Tannin 09:22, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Looking forward to the office! You are a crazy man. :) --mav

> Why did you revert my edit? All I did was combine two sentence fragments and tidy the disambiguation block.

Sorry mav, things got a bit trampled as I was undoing yet more POV attacks on this article. I will go back and bring your changes into the current version. JDG 19:30, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Re the Philippoussis photo: yes that's where it came from. No I didn't "ask permission." Who would I ask? Some French tennis club? They'd think I was mad. They just lifted it from somewhere else no doubt. People here are far too paranoid about photo copyrights IMHO. Once a photo is on the Web everyone knows it's public property, unless it's clearly someone's personal work or from a site like a modelling agency where they make their income from selling photos. Photos from news and promotional sites are fair game. Adam 10:26, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

News agencies like the AP routinely sue and threaten to sue over the use of their photos. To even be "fair use" the original source must at least be mentioned. --mav

Mav, would you care to intervene in the dispute over Race? User:Peak has decided to go on a campaign to overhaul an article that, after much difficult collaboration, had finally reached a satisfying balance and a wealth of nicely written detail (I refer mostly to the work of others). Peak, as I think you will see by looking over his edits, is agenda driven. Slrubenstein (probably the leading contributor to the version of Race that was voted to Brilliant Prose) and I have tried reasoning with Peak on Talk:Race, but it's becoming very fatiguing. And earlier tonight Peak placed the "The neutrality of this article is disputed" code into Race. Odd, since my and Slrubenstein's reversions of Peak's rewrites were exactly to maintain NPOV... Anyway, perhaps if you dropped by and gave some advice it would help us get back to article writing instead of Talk page writing. Peak happens to be a good writer and if we can fix his broken sense of neutrality he'll be an asset to WP. Thx. JDG 06:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'll look into it. --mav

Thanks for Concorde support

Many thanks for your support on the Concorde undercarriage caption vote. Because I took the pic and wrote the initial caption, I felt particularly annoyed by the addition that PigsontheWing made. Lets hope this is the end! Thanks again from Adrian.
Adrian Pingstone 08:16, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No problem. I don't like nonsense and will continue to fight it. IMO we should just let the votes add up for now, however. In a few days we can revisit the issue and see where the votes point us. --mav

Mav, I'm trying to move things to the point where eg [[fr:blah]] will go to the French section of the current project and [[SomeProject:fr:blah]] will go to the French section of SomeProject -- without the person running the site that's doing the linking knowing or caring if SomeProject has a French section. Adding a billion jillion interwiki prefixes which everyone and their dog has to configure on their own server to get outgoing links working is so the opposite of useful. --Brion 00:15, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ah! Your idea is better. --mav

Mav, I screwed something up. I tried to move Charles Taylor to Charles Taylor (disambiguation) and Charles Ghankay Taylor back to Charles Taylor, but it won't let me, because I'm not a sysop. Can you do this? I'm trying to restore this back to Wikipedia standard usage (ex-President of Liberia being much much more common than the other Charles Taylors). Help! -- hike395 07:31, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've taken care of that. It's strange that the software didn't allow the page move to overwrite the redirect w/ no history... --Jiang|(Talk) 07:35, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Jiang. :) --mav

Thanks Jiang, also! Sorry to bother you, mav ... --- hike395

Hi mav, I found this at User talk:Mav which I've now redirected here. Hope you don't mind but I thought it would avoid people leaving questions there in future. Angela . 09:39, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. :) --mav

Hi mav,

Thanks for your note re. whichever bit of the beginnings of Multituberculata you were referring to. Jketola deserves the credit for starting the line-killing action. He was right. They were entirely pointless. I copied them in without noticing! 09:37, 8 Apr 2003 . . KTDykes

np - glad I was able to help. --mav

I have redirected [2] to m:outing, a page which does not yet exist. As you started this, you might want to comment there. It is also being discussed at VfD, VfU, [3] and [4]. Angela . 00:45, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In case you're interested, Oliver un-redirected it, m:outing is actually going to be at User:Louis Kyu Won Ryu/Outing instead, and the stuff I referred to my talk page has moved to here. Angela . 16:35, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for all the effort. :) My main concern was that by having that page in the article space it sent the message that Wikipedia was stating the information as fact and thought that it was worthy of being an article. I don't like the fact that it still exists but can live with it being in the user space. --mav

Hi mav :) RE Thulium and ==External links== - see Wikipedia:Manual of Style. It's better to have the plural form for two main reasons I see

it's much easier to add more (from one link to two one has to change the header as well)
since people don't change the header when they add external links, you get an inane ==External link== header with two or three links hanging off it.

There is no real grammatical problem since the header acts more as a marker for all external links. Thanks :) Dysprosia 07:56, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It is inane to say 'links' when there is only one. If and when somebody adds another external link then the header will be changed either by them or somebody else. Big deal. There is a grammatical problem with using plurals to describe a single item. And you should not be quoting the MoS to me - I helped write it. Nowhere in there does it say to use ==External links== even where there is only one. --mav

I'm sorry if I came across a bit snippy. I didn't mean to belittle you or anything in quoting the MoS. If you want to change it, change it, by all means.

It doesn't say in there to use ==External links== even where there is only one but it doesn't say use ==External link== when there is one. It just says to group external links under that header. Dysprosia 08:12, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Being snippy is my job. :) You were rather nice in fact. No need for a change since my next planned edit to that article will be another expansion and addition of more external links. --mav

I'll leave the plural form alone in future, I think :) Dysprosia 08:33, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Joe McCarthy

On 04 Dec 2003, you added "The Senate voted 65 to 22 ..... condemned McCarthy". The entry already had (and still has) - 6 paras later "...a Senate measure to censure him for being uncooperative passed by 67 votes to 22." Which is right - or is this another Watergate impeachment? unkamunka . 21:05 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

About 2wtccrash.JPG

"Did you either take this photo or did you get permission to use it without attribution? --mav 05:44, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)"

The photo came from the Chinese Wikipedia. It is displayed on the Chinese September 11 page. WhisperToMe 23:29, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

this does not justify we have permission to use it, or that it is gfdl. What does the chinese description page indicates on that topic ? PomPom 00:16, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wtc1 is the desc page of the picture on the Chinese Wikipedia. FormulaX posted the picture in the Chinese version. Since he has an English page, I'm going to ask him where he got the pic from. WhisperToMe 03:29, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Jiang said that the Chinese pic originated from this pic on the French wiki: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wtc1 WhisperToMe 04:37, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

And since Anthere said that the French pic was probably a copyvio, I decided to get the EN deleted. WhisperToMe 18:58, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What we, and any downstream users of that article could use, is a single frame from the video shot of the event. That would be fair use so long as we give proper credit. --mav

Automatic list creation

Hi, are there any plans to introduce tags that would automatically include an entry in a list? E.g. something like <list="list of project management topics">. Mkoval 23:31, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi mav, I replied by e-mail. Angela . 04:18, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Angela, Whom have you replied to? I haven't received any mail from you. Mkoval 13:29, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sorry Mkoval, my fault for not using a section header. I meant I had replied to mav, and not about automatic list creation. Apologies for the confusion :) Angela . 13:48, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

thanks & wow

Hi mav,

Thanks for replying to my question to Jimbo. I'm a bit curious as to why he has kept my questions to him up on his page for so long. Does he never go there? Does he like my questions? Is he laughing? Ignoring? Or just plain too busy to check that page and hasn't seen them yet?

I reviewed your user page and am very impressed with how much you have contributed to Wikipedia. It's a pleasure making your acqaintance.

Sterlingda 07:45, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Jimbo rarely visits his Wikipedia user page and lives mostly on the mailing list and behind the scenes making things happen. He is also very busy. Don't take it personally. Thanks for the nice words. :) --mav

Links in headers are neither non-standard nor ugly, and are used heavily in lists, which is exactly what the main page is, e.g. List_of_reference_tables dml 01:11, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The Main Page is not a list, heck, it isn't even an article. It is our front cover. But as a matter of style, links are to be avoided in headings. See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings). --mav

appreciation

As a newbie (or newWiki?) I am combusted beyond detection at the extent of your contribution to this project. I hope to wade in slowly - to avoid obsession burnout - but hope to align my own input within the gathering gaze of a group of gurus.

You certainly qualify.

Question:

Do you have current URL's from these Useful Resources found at your User_page?
- Web Reference Database for the Sciences
- Public Web Reference Databases in the Sciences

   (These are not working for me)

--azwaldo 17:08, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. :) Wikiholism is actually a useful obsession to have since the result of acting on your obsession is something wonderful. Here is the updated link to the first dead link - http://www.webref.org/. The other link is really dead. --mav

I'm curious as to why you reverted 142.177.19.200's changes to Shay locomotive and the other geared steam locomotive articles. The links added appeared relevant to me ... --Morven 07:04, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Because our number one troll edits in the 142.177 range and that IP edited several of this banned person's favorite articles. --mav

Ah. Well, troll or not, the edits to these pages were good, so I re-added them with some wording changes. --Morven 11:45, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's fine. :) --mav

From the troll: looking trhough the edits recorded for this IP, I'm the only person using it. So there's no point my working under a username, which I gave up doing because I got the same @hit then. You ought to spend time learning something instead of vandalising. Kwantus 22:23, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I thought you were banned as well? Yet another reason to revert 142.177 edits. --mav

Polychaete

Hi Mav. I think you did a great job of adding stuff back in, which is what I was going to do in the morning. You did a better job than I would anyway, so thanks. But I rewrote it because the original article was BAD. Every statement was made twice and it was very confusing. Furthermore, much of it was just cut and paste from another site, which it is my understanding is a very bad thing. I agree about the general notion of adding rather than replacing, but this really needed to be restarted. (BTW, What is the other instance?) Regards. WormRunner 09:52, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

OIC - you should have said that to begin with. :) I would check for the other instance but the damn wiki is too slow right now and I need to go to bed. Sorry for being curt. --mav

Orca capitalization controversy

Animal species names are common nouns, not proper nouns, and so grammatically shouldn't be capitalized (I'm of course not referring to the scientific name, of which the genus is capitalized, but the species designation still isn't). Considering your vastly greater experience on wikipedia, however, I'm figuring that you know something about this issue on wikipedia that I don't, so I would love to hear an explanation of why this grammatical rule isn't followed in this context. Thanks! Postdlf, 5:16 2 Jan 2004 (EST)

See your talk page. --mav

Mav

Many thanks for your comments on current events re autos. I admit to some possible error re syntax but must say that if the rapid demise of the US auto industry is not news than I don't know what it. To anyone who has been watching Toyota eg has gone from nowhere in the US market to having eg the Lexus brand that threatens to guide them to pre-eminence over the next years. I'm an INTJ too; loved 'Gifts Differing" by Myers-Briggs. King B.

NP. :) --mav

Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content

I changed the style of linking for all the non-GFDL-conforming sites to that used by the german equivalent because of the suggestion on that page that wikipedia linking to those sites will give them a higher gogle ranking - thereby exposing fewer visitors to wikipedia and unduely restricting those user's rights because they don't know (in most cases) that the articles are under the GFDL. This did not delete the urls, but merely made people copy-and-paste them to reach the sites. Permission to revert? --snoyes 04:37, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The boost in their Google rank is small compared with our need to make tracking down copyright infringers easier. Please leave the links. --mav

I'll just say that I disagree, but will leave it at that. --snoyes 04:46, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

STOP removing Medical Disclaimers!

In my opinion, you just completed a lengthy process of vandalizing Wikipedia by removing medical disclaimers.--Mr-Natural-Health 08:35, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)~

There is as disclaimer at the bottom of every page now. --mav

There is no explicit Medical Disclaimer at the bottom of each page medical related article. Nor, is the medical disclaimer ugly. It serves an important purpose.--Mr-Natural-Health 08:50, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

And the many hundreds of articles that don't have a disclaimer can be trusted then? Sorry but it is ugly and it is furthermore self-referential making it more difficult for downstream users to use our content. They should be able to have a copy of just our article database and not have any broken links. Stub, NPOV dispute, Accuracy dispute and other similar type of disclaimers are OK, however, since they are not permanent parts of the article. --mav

That is the job of you editors. Sorry, but they are not ugly. They are professional looking. That is why all disclaimers belong on the bottom of the page.

Can we make the print size of the disclaimer even smaller? That way the visually impaired and those who might actually benefit from reading the disclaimer will be sure not to see it.--Mr-Natural-Health 12:38, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

And in the meantime we give the impression that if there is no disclaimer then that article is OK. That defeats the whole purpose of the disclaimers in the first place!. There is already a disclaimer at the bottom of every page. --mav

Why should we need a disclaimer? People should know that the wikipedia is a wikipedia; not an official government statement. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Sadly, yes. Also most people don't even know what a wiki is, let alone that Wikipedia is one. Disclaimers are designed to protect us and the reader (but us mostly). The best way to do that is by having a blanket one on every page. --mav

My website uses both: a blanket one and an individal one on each page that requires it. Of course, my site also has email contact, full discloseure, a privacy policy, etc., etc., etc. Could be why my site is an accredited health web site? Wikipedia, is what my mother warned me about! -- Mr-Natural-Health 02:48, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The disclaimer issue has been discussed over many months in many places, really the best way to do it is to place it next to the copyright notice, this is what the GNU FDL requires to make the disclaimers valid. It is much better to have one disclaimer that is uniformly linked from every page (though it is still not on the edit screen page) than to have different disclaimers scattered around only some of the articles. The disclaimer link is pretty clear and now when you go to the general disclaimer you see the links to the medical, legal and risk disclaimers at the top of that page. I think this is an excellent solution (that I have played a part in, I must admit). Thanks for getting it done mav. — Alex756 17:46, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Alex! BTW, the general disclaimer you wrote is really clear and concise. :) --mav

Please protect Al Gore until the question where the controversial material should be placed is resolved.—Eloquence 22:13, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll add the details to GNU. The source for posting it under "anniversaries" is this: [5]. --snoyes 20:48, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Bird captialization

I wasn't aware I was being cocky, as you put it, and I certainly wouldn't deliberately provoke the leading advocate of lower case. I have left lower case where the use is clearly non-specialist, but I thought Mono Lake at least bordered on being a bird-related article. I changed the links to point to the most appropriate articles - only American Avocet occurs there, and I thought that clarifying which phalaropes was helpful, since Red Phalarope probably does not occur in huge numbers.

If you look at my recent articles on some of the New World warblers, you will see that I have used gray instead of grey, and so on, at least when I've remembered, so I try to compromise.

I'm sorry you've taken offence at my changes, please revert if you haven't already done so. I don't want to get into an edit war over a place I've never been to, and probably never will. jimfbleak

Sorry for the cocky comment - I once again let momentary anger get the better of me. :) Mono Lake is a wonderful place, BTW. It is most famous for its volcanic history and the fact that it is a very salty lake. --mav

Ilya

Mav, thank you for your comment on Main Page/iTemp - you were the first who ever tried to edit it, thus noting that its HTML was terrible. Fixed. See also Talk:Main Page#Depressed. Let's work together on new category scheme! ilya 02:20, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

K - probably this weekend. --mav

Donation recordkeeping

The burden is on the donor to ask for a contemporarous acknowledgment when the individaul donation is made if it is in excess of $250; aggregation of donations is not necessary, so if someone gives three $100 donations a year they do not need an acknowledgements. If the donation is made by PayPal the email that is sent via PayPal should be sufficient as the IRS specifically allows for electronic notices, ideally a link in the reply would point to a standard letter explaining that all donations may not be tax deductible (remember that Wikimedia has yet to receive a determination letter from the IRS, this has not happened yet and we have definitely exceeded the $5,000 automatic donation (as far as I know the application has not been sent out, if you can get Jimbo to email me about this, I've already offered to help get it done). Regarding the donation acknowledgment the only thing that may be prudent is to send another email to every donor including a statement that no one received any benefit from their donation (the benefit of contributing to Wikipedia is intangible as it is totally open, membership is not required to participate in Wikipedia) and the PayPal receipt is their specific donation acknowledgment. Obviously if someone sent a contribution without an email address any acknowledgement for a an individual donation in excess of $250 should be provided by January 31 as you suggested. You can check this IRS publication, if you have any questions just ask. The above is not necessary for donations outside the US, Mexico, Canada and Israel, the only countries that allow for some donations made in the US to be taken off national taxes. On an unrelated note — there was some talk about using the term "Terms of Use" on MediaWiki talk:risk; I am still interested in getting the Submission Standards link added to the edit page — you comments on my talk page would be appreciated, if there is some way we could make it happen that would be great; I've brought it up on the discussion lists several times and there has not been much discussion about it either way. — Alex756 03:42, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. I'm a bit busy right now but will look at the pages you suggest. --mav

I've put a page on meta [6] with some IRS publications, you might want to take a look at some of these brochures if you have any questions about recordkeeping. Also, have you considered running for one of the two board positions? You would make an excellent director to represent the members. — Alex756 13:15, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wikimedia PayPal donations for 2003

Just in case it was unintended, I noticed that on [7] a donor is named. --snoyes 02:44, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I emailed him and he stated that he did want his user name restored in his comments. --mav

Meta name change

Name change done. -- Tim Starling 09:42, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Tim! --mav

Biology taxonomies

Howdy, New Wikipedian here. Seems that the listing of Superfamilies at Hymenoptera, until further development with at least group descriptions, should simply be included in the taxonomy table. Given your familiarity with the biology articles, would this be the appropriate style? I'll change it over, if so.azwaldoazwaldo

Answer on your talk page. --mav

Thank you for the feedback. I've formatted the taxobox for the symphyta article - it looks heavy with only 14 families - but the insects may be an unusual case as far as taxonomies go. I hesitated to make the families WikiLinks, but figured I might work on several myself. Check out the Apocrita taxonomy: two groups totalling 76 families. Will let that page simmer for now...azwaldo

Query

Mav, I just pulled a paragraph you posted off Wikipedia:Protected page -- you listed Al Gore as protected there on Jan. 3rd. It's since been unprotected (actually, and then re-protected, and then unprotected again). Two parts to my question: one, did you unprotect it (I assume not), and two, how can I find out who did? Is there a log? I'm just curious...I don't particularly like chastising people (and certainly I'm not often in a position to do so), but I got very confused by Protected page because of it, and I figure it never hurts to drop a friendly reminder to an admin who forgot. I wish I caught it closer to the date of its unprotection, but ah well. If there is no way of determining who unprotected it, really it's pretty minor. I just noticed and thought that if I had unprotected a page and forgotten to de-list it, I'd appreciate a reminder. Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 01:01, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I was not the person who unprotected it. The person who did the unprotection should have made a note to that effect and why they did so at Wikipedia:Protected page. There is a Wikipedia:Protection log. I'll investigate and remind the Admin who unprotected the page that they did wrong. --mav

Hi Mav, can you look at the page history and talk page for Race? Anonymous user 195 keeps making substantive POV changes that various other contributors have to keep reverting. Peak has already put in a request for page protection. I happen to agree with Peak, but since I have been actively contributing it's not my place to protect it. Slrubenstein

Page protected. --mav

Submission Standards

Mav, I've moved the Wikipedia:Submission Standards (proposal) to Wikipedia:Submission Standards and removed the draft notice on the top of the page and suggested on the associated talk page a text to add to the Copyrightwarning text, but I am not quite sure how to link this page to the warning page. That seems the only thing left to do. — Alex756 17:56, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Answer on that talk page. --mav

I heard there were grumblings on the IRC channel regarding the Submission Standards, Is this going to become another abandoned project as it was the last time I tried to get it going? Maybe the community like the idea that they have the right to sue Wikipedia anywhere in the world, maybe someone will do it soon. ;) — Alex756 02:57, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi mav, now I've left Wikisource I think it's important to get some more people made sysops. I've nominated you along with some other people I think would be good in this role. See adminship at Wikisource. Please reply there to say if you accept or not, and I'd appreciate your comments on the other nominations if you know anything about these people. Thanks for all your work over there. :) Angela . 02:34, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)

Done. :) --mav

Mav, Tannin has just set up a vote for the Sep 11 attacks page about whther the word "terrorist" should be included or not. Arno 09:44, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

With regards to basicclassics.com, I saw on Wikipedia talk:Sites that use Wikipedia for content that you can't do anything because none of your copyrights were violated. I wrote part of the Robert Baden-Powell article [8] and virtually every word of Tracy Chapman [9], Willie Nelson [10], James Taylor [11], Hank Williams [12] and Aretha Franklin [13]. (It looks the only bit of Franklin's article I didn't write, you did) These were all original works by me that I have released under GNU FDL. You (or any other Wikipedian) have my permission to act on my behalf to ensure that the license I released my work under is applied to basicclassics.com (or, for future reference, any other site infringing on any of my copyrights). Tuf-Kat 04:52, Jan 18, 2004 (UTC) (P.S. You need a new talk archive)

Thank you! --mav

WordIQ

Hi mav. I was just looking at the articles for which I am the primary or sole author on webIQ, and have noticed that they have now added both a GFDL note and a link back to the specific wikipedia page. See eg. [14], [15]. It seems like the numerous emails have paid off. --snoyes 05:42, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

That just happends a matter of minutes before you checked and was in response to my "FINAL NOTICE" letter. --mav

Well, http://www.wordiq.com/cgi-bin/knowledge/lookup.cgi?title=User:RickK says "It uses material from the Wikipedia article "User:RickK"." Is "uses material" appropriate? Also, http://www.wordiq.com/terms.html says "COPYRIGHT. All content within this Site, including, but not limited to text, software, graphics, logos, icons and images are the property of WORDIQ. Except as provided herein, no portion of the materials on these pages may be reprinted or republished in any form without the express written permission of the firm. Permission is granted to print copies of informational articles for your own use and review, provided that source attributions and copyright notices are maintained." RickK 05:55, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed and brought that to their attention. --mav

They've changed it, but are tyring to weasel out of my complaints by trying to appear as if it's always said that. I thanked them for having finally reached compliance. The paragraph now reads:

"6. COPYRIGHT. All content within this Site, including, but not limited to text, software, graphics, logos, icons and images are the property of WORDIQ unless otherwise noted on each page. In the case WORDIQ uses content from another source, that source will be listed on each page with a URL linking back to the source. Except as provided herein, no portion of the materials on these pages may be reprinted or republished in any form without the express written permission of the firm. Permission is granted to print copies of informational articles for your own use and review, provided that source attributions and copyright notices are maintained."

RickK 22:50, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well, all's well that ends well I guess. --mav

Ah, but see the comments I just left at Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content#wordIQ - section 5 of their terms is still objectionable, and they're still stealing WP bandwidth for images. Tualha 02:23, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Disclaimers

Hi, Mav. When I came back from a break 2-month from Wikipedia, I saw that on every page, there are two links to the General Disclaimers page, which seems to say to the layperson that Wikipedia is inaccurate. Although I understand the legal reasons for such a disclaimer, putting two links on every page instead of one link at Wikipedia:Copyrights as Alex originally proposed makes Wikipedia look bad. Now I can't use it for school projects. Now I can't use Wikipedia in school projects even if I can verify the integrity of the authors because of my school's brutal regime of checking every website I cite as a source. When I asked Alex about this, he said that you changed the page template and did it without a vote. LDan 18:43, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A disclaimer notice is needed next to the copyright notice to have any effect under the GNU FDL. Disclaimers exist to protect the project and its honest editors from getting sued by people who wrongfully depend on Wikipedia for something important and who then get burned. The idea to also have a disclaimer notice at the top of each page was not mine - but I went along with it because it stopped people who wanted to place disclaimers in the wiki text area at the top of articles from whining. All large websites and references that have any sort of market share have disclaimers (these are usually under "Terms of use" links; see http://corporate.britannica.com/termsofuse.html and http://bartleby.com/sv/terms.html for just two examples). The fact that we are a wiki makes this even more important for the reasons on the disclaimer page. The notion that you cannot now use Wikipedia as a school reference is very bizarre. Your school should know that Wikipedia is a wiki and what that means. --mav

Mav, I, as you, think the disclaimers are important, but when I started working on this issue in September I did originally suggest that they be put together into the copyright notice, see: Wikipedia:Copyrights and Warranty Disclaimers (proposal). I don't think that there is anything wrong with it now from a legal point of view, but I do think that maybe, as L'Dan suggests it might be overbearing to see it on the top and bottom of every page but put it only at the bottom on both the edit page and the regular web page. I don't know if they need a vote, but do you think that there is a way to get the disclaimer across without it appearing on every page? Putting it into the name and then linking to it from the copyrights page would not have it directly linkable on every page, after all most "terms of use" links are only found on home pages, not necessarily on every page (though some sites do link to such terms on every page). It just has to be something that could be found, not a sign that you are staring at all the time. I, like you, would at least prefer just to have it at the bottom of the page. — Alex756 03:49, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The one on top may be a bit much, but I think that since we are a wiki that that fact makes it more imperative for us to have an easy to find and clearly marked disclaimer link. Hiding that behind a "Terms of Use" link in a section half way down the page, just won't do for a wiki, IMO. --mav

Compliance opt out

I am not sure about the compliance opt out thing on the draft Submission Standards. JamesDay keeps suggesting that you cannot do a DMCA notice unless you are the original author of a text, I don't know if that is true. I know that Fred Bauder has brought this up and has stated that Wikipedia does have a limited exclusive copyright under the GFDL; I agree with him. Those with a copyright license can enforce that license as they have an "exclusive right" to use the content or have it relicensed under the terms upon which they release it. I do not think that one can opt out of Wikipedia being allowed the right to enforce the license that it has, if that were true then record companies, publishers and movie companies would not be able to enforce their copyright licenses. A copyright license is a grant of copyright, albeit limited. I put it in the text to restate the obvious, not to give people a choice they don't really have. I think the thing about not being able to enforce copyright left licenses without a total grant (such as GNU does under the GPL) has become an urban myth. — Alex756 03:49, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

As I stated on the talk page I was just trying to compromise and that I don't think the opt-out is needed other than to alleviate fears from people like JamesDay who think that their IP should be used in a freer (as in beer) way than the GFDL allows. Please make whatever changes you think are best. --mav

Solar symbol

Just to say thank you SO MUCH for fixing my stupid mistake on Solar symbol(s). SpellBott 13:07, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well as mistakes go, that one was really minor. :) --mav

Solar symbol

Just to say thank you SO MUCH for fixing my stupid mistake on Solar symbol(s). SpellBott 13:07, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well as mistakes go, that one was really minor. :) --mav

Main page (rv Iran hostage crisis)

Mav: I was the one who listed the Iran hostage crisis end (not the other one you revered). When I posted it, the end of the crisis (Jan 20, 1981) was featured prominently in first paragraph of the article - I checked just to make sure before posting. Subsequent editing by Tempshill (as a result of my posting to the main page) removed that little piece of info. I have now reinsterted it. And I still think the article deserves to be featured on the main page. →Raul654 19:50, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't notice that. If the date is now in there, then please put the article back. --mav

Elements

okay, no problem

But are you going in order? For example, Berkelium (no. 97) doesn't have a template yet. --Jia ng 07:18, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm working my way down. --mav

Quintessential Biology Article

Hey hey. Have reread the Style Manual and after juggling references, see alsos, related topics, and external links in the insect articles I have contributed, I am wondering: What would you say is a Quintessential Wikipedia Biology Article?--azwaldo

There is no such thing as perfect and to gauge 'approaching perfect' would require me to revisit a great many biology articles (which given how slow Wikipedia is right now would be a pain). But I'm sure some are already listed at Wikipedia:Featured articles. --mav

MGM

Nice screenshot! (regarding Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). good work. Optim 14:08, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm playing with a new toy. I can watch TV and take screenshots for Wikipedia! I already write Wikipedia articles on my PDA while on the bus every day, so I guess Wikipedia is taking over my life. ;) --mav

What's ur pda? Optim 14:43, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A Palm Tungsten T3. Got it for Christmass and I love it! My old Palm was a IIIxe with 8MB of RAM and a monochrome screen. Never again! :) --mav

Looks nice! I have a palmIIIc with 8MB and colour screen. May you enjoy your new palm! Optim 15:59, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Sesame Street Craze?

You a sesame street fan? lol. (sorry, noticed all the new pictures...just had to post) Ilyanep 17:12, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Channel surfing - honest! :) --mav

New York photo

I have an idea for a comprimise for the lead New York, New York photo - a Statue of Liberty pic should be taken with the skyline in the background. WhisperToMe 23:27, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yes - I like that photo (except for the smog!). --mav

abuse of powers

You're probably right, but I think whether I abused my powers is debatable. I consider Lir a kind of vandal, and my understanding is admins can do as they will with vandals. I consider him a vandal because he can't be reasoned with. I haven't posted to DNA Talk (or hence been "edit warring") for ages as others have gone on discussing matters with Lir. From the outside looking in, I don't think he discusses reasonably with them either. Perhaps I'm deluded, but I consider my behavior with regard to Lir and that article as transparent, beyond reproach, and in the best interests of Wikipedia. 168... 18:08, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Merging

Dear Mav: Hey, whats up my man? Long time no talk. I have to ask you: I need the exact link to pages that need to be linked. The best example is that today, I put Kayseri on the search page to find the Kayseri Province that I wrote last night, but I only found another one named Kayseri, plain and simple. And thats not the only example, Ive found a few others that need merge but I dont know where to post a request. Thank God nobody decided to make a =page on Tony Hawk under the heading Hawk! LOL, cause then Id have to be looking for that page to merge them.

Anyways, thanks and God bless you!

Sinceremy yours, Antonio Bitech Martin

List it on Wikipedia:Cleanup. --mav

Thanks for the link to "type: INTJ." etc. Interesting. -戴&#30505sv

Dear Mav: Hi! I am here bugging you again. I need to be de-blocked again. Why me? Why am I on AOL or some type of program that seems to have many vandals? LOL Ok anyways, you always help me, which is good. I only hope you could help me dealing with my siblings who laugh at wikipedia during Applebees dinners and nights out on the town being bad. Ive even told them that like 700 websites copy us and still, theyre like oh yeah..LOL anyways, I have many articles in mind as always, so I wanted to know if you could help me get de-blocked.

Thanks, and God bless, and thanks for the wikipedia cleanup link.

Sincerely yours, Antonio Mav's fan Martin

I need more info. What IP/ address was blocked? --mav

Your insinuation that I am a "known troublemaker" is false and unjustified. Please attempt to address your grievances and grudges in a more appropriate manner. For example, you could explicitly refer to what exactly you feel I have done in a "troublesome" fashion. I do hope that you don't feel I am "making trouble" by denouncing sysops who ban and protect in violation of the rules. Lirath Q. Pynnor

You constantly are a participant in edit wars. That makes you a troublemaker. --mav

How do you know that there isn't a group who enjoy reverting my edits (regardless of content), because they believe they can get away with it so long as people like you continue to act as if I have done something wrong. If I went around reverting your edits, and were you to revert my reverts, would that make you the troublemaker? Lirath Q. Pynnor

If you were the only one, then that would get you banned. But the fact that a large and diverse group of people revert you often, strongly indicates that it is you that are the problem. I won't even consider your 'conspiracy theory, because it is laughable. --mav

Would you mind explaining what is wrong with my paragraph at New Imperialism, is it historically inaccurate? What explanation can you offer, besides the fact that Wik simply doesn't want me to edit here? Lirath Q. Pynnor

Request to have the page protected and follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:Conflict resolution. --mav

Which is what I've done. However, unless I revert Wik's revert -- nobody will protect the page. Its hard enough to get it protected with an edit war (it isn't protected). Several times people have refused to protect a page, because there wasn't an edit war. I am requesting protection, and you are calling me a troublemaker? Why don't you stop making personal attacks, and start mediating instead? At the very least, you could protect the page. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Attitude like that does not merit a response or for me to do anything for you. I am not a mediator either. --mav

You need to stop making personal attacks, personal attacks are not acceptable. Lirath Q. Pynnor

You need to stop lying. I did not make any personal attack. I merely made an observation. I will ignore you now. --mav

You said that I was a troublemaker, that was a personal attack. I am not a troublemaker, I am not making trouble.

The different responses you gave to the proposals to de-admin Hepheastos and de-admin me make me think you have something special against me. I saw you gave some particulars in reference to my case, which I suppose you see as making what I did worse, qualitatively, than what Heph did. But I think that if you were to take the trouble of listing the relevant particulars for Heph's case, you would see the cases are the same...or if anything that Heph's looks worse. According to you, I protected in order to get my way with an article. It seems to me that there's just as much evidence to argue Heph banned Lir in order to get his way with an article, specifically the Rec for Adminship page and delisting Snoyes. We both knew from past experience that Lir was sure to come back and revert the page in way that we wouldn't like. But Heph banned rather than protecting, and it was in regard to an administrative/policy article rather than in regard to an ordinary one. Still, you call on me to defend my actions and not Heph. I don't really mind defending my actions, but I don't like to sense that the deck is stacked against me for reasons that aren't expressed and which therefore I don't know how to address. 168... 01:49, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Banning a user only prevents a single person from editing. Protecting an article prevents everybody from editing the protected article. When page protection is done to enforce the adim's favored version of an article, then that is a very serious abuse of sysop user rights. I was not aware that this was not the first time Heph blocked Lir. My statement did imply that if a pattern existed then I might reconsider. Since there does seem to be a pattern, I am reconsidering. However, Heph's actions seem to have been based on the prevention of trolling on the de-admin section. But my support for your de-adminship will automatically go away if you admit you were wrong and promise not to do it again. --mav

It sounds like you would settle for an admission that I should have banned Lir instead of protecting the page against him. I guess I would be willing to admit that.168... 03:29, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It seems like a war outhere. To be fair, Ill say that Mav is a very fair editor and he knows who should be banned and who shouldn't. My experience with Mav has brought out only positives.

That said, Im directing myself to Mav now: dont worry about my blocking problem, I was able to (for the first time) figure out how to do it. My IP. ended in .195 I cant exactly remember the number, Mav. Its been a bad day for me, my mom had a bacteria discovered and I cant even remember what I wanted to write about. Please pray for her. Im not handling it very well either.

As always, thanks, and God bless you!

Antonio Human Being Martin

Thanks for the note, and I will. All the best to you and your mom. --mav

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