User talk:Wik/Archive November 2003

General Government

On General Government: this article is a complete mess, and most of its content is duplicated (more grammatically) at History of Poland (1939-1945). I wanted to delete it but the Polish nationalists won't let me, so now they can take responsibility for it. Adam 07:08, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Richard Neustadt

I can't understand why you keep removing information from Richard Neustadt so it is now protected. Please discuss it on the talk page. You can not continue reverting pages and refusing to discuss your reasons or even giving an edit summary explaining what you are doing. Angela 04:53, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I only removed Lir's nonsensical wikification of words like died (and thereafter reverted to my version after he reverted; he should know better than to add information during an edit war; he will ultimately have to re-add this information on the basis of my version). Sorry if that is not obvious to you. I note that you're taking sides here, accusing me of reverting when I just made a normal edit and the first to revert was Lir. --Wik 05:05, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

You didn't just delink death; which is arguably quite valid (this is a wiki, wik...); you removed valid information, whole sentences describing aspects of the man's life, removed valid and notable dates; and, for some reason or other, decided that each president's full name should be written out. Lirath Q. Pynnor

I am not taking sides. If I were to do that, I would have taken yours as I don't think words such as 'died' need to be wikified. It doesn't matter who reverted first. There is no reason to continue it, particularly not without discussion. And your first edit to the page did remove information; the 1960 that the book was published. Angela 05:15, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

My fault. Apparently I edited his first version. But the wikification issue remains and this alone would probably have led to the same edit war. So if it doesn't matter who reverted first, and we both continued it, why did you blame me and did not send Lir the same message? --Wik 05:32, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I did not blame you. Obviously in an edit war, there must be two people at fault. Don't make assumptions about what I did or did not say to Lir. Wikipedia isn't the only place that messages may be conveyed. Angela

Wik seems to think that any change he/she makes to an article are to be cast in stone and unchanged. He reverted me without discussion several times in one article because he "assumed" that I had reveted him, when I hadn't, and yet refused to discuss it. He's very good at making reverts without discussion. RickK 05:11, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You did revert me, as the history clearly showed, even if you can't explain how that happened (probably the same way it happened to me here: you accidentally edited an old version). --Wik 05:32, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Yes the Wolno redirect was problematic. If you wish to raise such issues with me, I would be grateful if you did it on the correct policy talk page, or on my talk page, rather than just generally sniping at me on VfD. I have moved your off-topic comment to Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects and defended the deletion there. Angela 13:48, Nov 6, 2003 (UTC)

Please start using longer and more descriptive summaries in your edits. For example, on Second Industrial Revolution you could have said "remove ungrammatical commas" instead of "rv". Daniel Quinlan 01:46, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

Wik, I think it might be a good idea if you try to avoid articles written by Lir for a while. There's are plenty of other people who can check his work and 6,913,925 other articles that you could work on instead. Hopefully this might prevent every new page Lir writes needing to be protected. Do you think you could do that for a while please? Angela 09:17, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not the problem here. If other people correct his punctuation, Lir will react just the same. Take it up with him. I can edit anyone's articles, and will not make exceptions for those who take it personal when their errors are corrected. Lir will just have to be banned if those edit wars are to be prevented. --Wik 09:43, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

I didn't say you were the problem. I was just suggesting one possible to a problem. It takes two to edit war, so you can hardly call for Lir's banning without calling for your own. On another topic, what was this edit about? Just curious. Angela 12:47, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

It was clearly Lir who was in the wrong on Second Industrial Revolution, not me. So what do you propose? Just ignore his errors? If you are against a ban, then you can't complain about having to protect those pages. About this edit, it seems caius mysteriously put my signature on a comment he wrote, so I corrected it. --Wik 13:11, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Wik for fixing my redirect effort. I implicitly followed the redirect instruction on the edit page, but apparently not implicity enough. Grrr.Moriori 23:57, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I am in the process of reviewing (I would not characterize it as "investigating") 2002 Gujarat violence, the edit history of the article and its talk page, the various comments linked to this page, and the email traffic here, here, here, here, and here (and a few other threads) on the mailing list related to it. Even though the page is unprotected, I would ask all parties involved to hold off editing this article voluntarily until I can offer a few suggestions, which I will do within a few hours. Thanks for your forbearance, BCorr ¤ Брайен 23:49, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

On Goebbels the situation appears to be: The name on his birth certificate was Joseph Göbbels. Before 1933 he used the Joseph spelling, but since Josef is a much more common German form, it was widely used by other people. From 1933 the official spelling of his name was Josef, presumably because it was "more Germanic." That is why the streets were called Dr Josef Goebbels Strasse and not Joseph. In these circumstances it is impossible to say that either form is "correct." Both are correct, depending on the circumstances. You can't argue that the birth certicate form is binding, otherwise you would have to spell his surname Göbbels, which he never did. I would still argue that in an article on Hitler, Josef is "more correct," but I don't care sufficiently to have an argument about it. I apologise for calling you an idiot, although I feel I was justified in being angry that you falsified the German source that I cited. Adam 00:32, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I didn't falsify anything. I cited exactly the source from the URL given in my subsequent summary (and I suspect that your source is just a poor copy of mine, considering that it also misspelled Rheinland). Also my argument does not rest on the birth certificate, but on the preponderance of sources (including specifically German sources) which say Joseph. If he changed the spelling in 1933, I would still like to see what your evidence is for that. Google finds only three distinct references to "Josef Goebbels Strasse", which does not seem statistically relevant. Those figures are more significant:

"joseph goebbels" site:de - 5,280

"josef goebbels" site:de - 772

I don't think this can be explained with ignorance. --Wik 01:24, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest I don't care what you think. Adam

Fine, as long as you don't revert me. Because if you do, you will have to justify it. --Wik 05:48, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

Can you please read Talk:2002 Gujarat violence and wait until Brian is able to work on this rather than just reverting or it will need to be reprotected. Thanks. Angela 07:41, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I didn't start it. --Wik 07:44, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Wik -- LibertarianAnarchist apologized to me and said that the editing happened before seeing my note -- "I read your request only after I restored it a couple of times. My apologies." It's taking me longer to read through things than I thought it would, but I will be making some suggestions this morning on a way to proceed. Thanks in advance for being willing to work with me on this. -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 14:24, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As you know, I am currently trying to help resolve the conflicts around Silesia and Görlitz. Please note that I will remain strictly impartial as to content issues but will try to help in the discussion. Methinks it is time to return to debating facts on the talk pages of these two articles and it would be appropriate for you to take part.

As there have been numerous examples of less-than-cooperative behavior around German-Polish matters, I would urge you to remain factual and abstain from each and all personal attacks (which are not allowed on Wikipedia anyway). If this attempt to reach a compromise remains unsuccesful and/or reversion wars are restarted after the protections are lifted, I am rather sure that there will be calls to ban both of you. This is your chance to prove the pessimists wrong. The same message goes to Nico. Good luck. Kosebamse 13:38, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

from Bcorr

NOTE: See bottom of this page for mediation proposal

Dear Wik, i'm not going to play your games of reverting and etc, nor am i going to protect our friend Adolf. But I'm not mistaken, because Adolph is the German spelling. And i know it, because i'm german (among others) :) A honest advice: start making nice contributions and stop anoying ok? With wikilove, Muriel 21:49, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I am sorry, Muriel, but this is not correct. The German spelling includes an F as well (check it with a Google search). -- Baldhur 21:53, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yes it is... Adolf can be written with ph in Germany, like Stefan and Stephan and so one and so forth, i am positive, i've seen it and i'm not saying it again. If Wik doe not like it in the article, its OK, but its not "Lir's nonsense". If you like google, check the Google.de... Wikilove to you too, Muriel

Other Germans may well be named Adolph, but the spelling of each individual's name is fixed, and Hitler was Adolf, not Adolph. Goebbels, on the other hand, was Joseph, not Josef. It is definitely Lir's nonsense, but if you insist on it it's your nonsense too. --Wik 22:09, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

If you say so... Muriel

Where exactly do you think you get the right to take out the Phil Dick and Tim Leary parts of the Reptilian humanoid article? I gave references. Khranus

Where do you think you get the right to revert my spelling correction? I simply reverted. --Wik 05:40, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

I didn't revert your spelling correction. I restored the Phil Dick and Tim Leary information that was taken out. Khranus

Yes you did. --Wik 05:49, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

Lukla, Nepal

Why did redirect Lukla, Nepal to just Lukla? Why shouldn't it be the other way around? RedWolf 03:52, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

See Talk:Lukla, Nepal.

Hey, I don't want to take sides in your edit wars with Lir, but on the other hand, I think it'd be good to lay off of him a bit. In general, I recommend against reverting things with just 'rv' if there's any trouble. Better to look at what the other fellow is doing and try to work with him.

In the case of Impressionism, Lir was rewriting a paragraph and left out some information. You wanted to put it back. But you reverted his paragraph completely, which I think upset him. It might have been better for you to have (a) added the information back while respecting his other edits as much as possible and (b) to step away from the article for at least an hour or two, to see where he was headed with it.

Ahh, I'm not logged in. But, I'm Jimbo. Jimbo Wales 20:18, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It's impossible to work with Lir, he's just a troll. I give my reason in the first edit summary, then "rv" is sufficient. It's Lir who continues to revert things even when everyone is telling him his version is wrong (just ask Daniel Quinlan about the comma war on Second Industrial Revolution). --Wik 22:06, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

I disagree that it's impossible to work with him, and I do not agree that 'rv' is sufficient. You aren't even trying, take for example Impressionism. He was making serious edits, and rather than try to accomodate his edits in the least, you just kept reverting. You wanted to add back some information that he was omitting, which is fine, but you were ALSO reverting the ENTIRETY of his changes, which is completely unfair. I think you can do better than that. Jimbo Wales 19:47, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well, we just have to disagree then. Why should I repeat the edit summary I gave before? Don't you think maybe he should have accommodated my edit instead of just reverting? I agree my actions on Impressionism could have been unfair if it had been any other user than Lir - but you have to see it in context, he was on a roll of making moronic edits just to seek conflict. For a clear proof of that: he was adding an irrelevant Dutch transliteration of the Russian name of Anton Chekhov and while that edit war was still going on, he did the same thing (adding random foreign transliterations) with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev, pointlessly escalating the conflict. He is just back to his old ways. Why did you unban him anyway? Can you please publish his statement that supposedly convinced you he has changed his ways? --Wik 11:39, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for moving my sandbox. Alexandros 00:36, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wik, I have said before that if you wish to raise questions regarding my decision to delete something or regarding my comments on items removed from VfD weeks ago, please address these questions to me directly rather than complaining on VfD. I do not intend to continue an off-topic conversation of the merits of EncycloZine in the middle of a discussion on fwointl. Angela

It wasn't a question, just an observation, and not entirely irrelevant to VfD, since people who read your comment may get the impression that there is a strict guideline to delete sites with a low Alexa ranking, which, apparently, there isn't. --Wik 20:38, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

Boyerism

Please see my objections to your repeated use of the inaccurate and vague use of the term "Boyerism," a term you falsely claim to have "coined," on VfD. --Daniel C. Boyer 18:28, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Long discussion with Kosebamse moved to User talk:Wik/Kosebamse discussion

How come you're changing Czechia to the Czech Republic everywhere? I don't see much reason to prefer the longer form in most places. --Shallot 19:59, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The term "Czechia" is not commonly used in English (Google: Czech Republic - 6,880,000; Czechia - 89,500). Virtually all instances of it on Wikipedia were the result of the crusade of one user (Qertis). --Wik 20:59, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

The more formal term has certainly taken roots, but the shorter form is both preferred by the Czechs and quite easily understandable to English speakers, so I don't see any reason to insist on the Republic everywhere. --Shallot 22:18, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Huge cut and paste from conflicts page moved to User talk:Wik/Conflicts

Typo Correction Day

thank you for your extremely helpful and active participation in Wikipedia:Typo Correction Day --Alexandros 16:16, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wik, I am puzzled by your behaviour in your constant reversions of Lir's edits. I have made it clear that I have enormous respect for your work and abilities. But in reading past reversions I have not seen anything in Lir's edits to justify wholescale reversions. I know you have a belief that Lir is still acting as a troll. I have been severely critical of Lir in the past. I have not seen any major evidence that he is acting that way again. Nor has Mav. Nor have a host of others. Nor has Jimbo. I have not seen a single person justify your reversions. Please Wik, stop acting like this. You are a talented, capable contributor. But you are alienating a lot of people who see constant reversions by you but simply cannot find any justification for it anywhere. There is a real danger that if this continues, you could end up being banned in the belief that you are refusing to work with people and are unfairly targeting one individual in a personalised way with no factual evidence to justify your behaviour. I don't want to see that happen. So as someone who has defended you and has the upmost respect for you, please take my advice and stop the edit wars with Lir before it is too late. The fact that no-one else agrees with your behaviour, and that everyone seems to agree that your reversions are unjustified, should tell you that just maybe on this you are wrong.

And yes, BTW, we all have been wrong, sometimes spectacularly wrong, on occasion, and that includes Mav, 172, Eloquence and even Jimbo. The key to correcting it is sometimes just walk away and don't edit some pages for a while. Then go back to them after two weeks or a month with fresh eyes. The usual response we have all found is, on looking at the past edit wars, a feeling of "oh shit. I really went too far there." There is no problem is making a mistake. The problem is in continuing to make it over and over again when just about everyone, even those with no time for Lir, end up concluding that you are the one behaving wrongly. The sheer number of people telling you to stop should be offering enough warning signs for you to realise that maybe, just maybe, in your emotional attitude towards Lir, you are losing all sense of proportion. What I don't want to see is wikipedia losing you and that is a real danger if you continue acting like this. Best wishes, FearÉIREANN 23:13, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I am puzzled that you are puzzled by it. My reversions have nothing to do with Lir's previous behaviour, or any "emotional attitude". Lir is making errors here and now and I correct them, like I would correct anyone else's errors. The difference is that he never accepts that and starts reverting. What am I to do? If you look at the substance of the disputes, tell me where I'm wrong. Are you disputing that the proper, most precise term for Treblinka etc. is extermination camp, whereas death camp is a wider term that can be used for all kinds of non-Nazi camps too? --Wik 23:34, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)

If you see this message soon enough, can you hop in the IRC chat and discuss an issue Lir has with you. It seems a trivial thing about an article naming convention. Dori 18:55, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not interested in talking to the troll. --Wik 21:03, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)

I just thought the situation might be diffused. He seemed to think that you were following him around and reverting most edits he made. oh well, as you wish...by the way, thank you for the nomination a while back. regards Dori 06:51, Nov 27, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the spelling of coloration. My spelling isn't normally bad, but I seem to have developed a blind spot for that word. My dictionary does give colouration as a less common alternative, but I won't even pretend that is why I wrote it as I did. jimfbleak

Wik! There are over 500 links, that point to Prussia, but consider only Prussian state. Either fix them all, or redirect Prussia to Prussian (state) and try to fix only those who point to Province of Prussia or Prussia (Baltic). The latter are absolute minority. WolfgangPeters

Then it would be better to have the article about the state at Prussia to avoid the redirects, and have the disambiguation at Prussia (disambiguation). But it seems User:145.253.32.3 is changing all the links from Prussia to Prussia (state), so I was going along with that. --Wik 16:46, Nov 27, 2003 (UTC)

Do whatever what makes sense.

WolfgangPeters

Please discuss at the relevant page why it should be 2003 U.S.-Canada blackout instead of 2003 U.S.-Canada Blackout. --Jiang

I think seeing your name all over my watchlist to correct the spelling of descendents will teach me the correct spelling. Hooray for Typo Correction Day! Tuf-Kat 07:32, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, the same thing as Tuf-kat. I've been improving my atrocious spelling thanks to you, Wik! Keep on the good work. Is it too much to ask for you to write at lest typo in the summary? All the best, Muriel Victoria 08:39, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well, it would take longer, and I already mark those edits as minor. --Wik 12:11, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Wik, I was just looking through the Murray Rothbard changelog, and was curious about why you reverted this edit? -- pde 08:45, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If you check my previous edit, you'll see that I had just expanded his middle name, and then the other person reverted me, apparently by ignoring an edit conflict, and changed "Newton" to "N." again. --Wik 12:11, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)

Can you please leave Richard Neustadt alone? It had been protected for two weeks and then three minutes after I unprotect it you revert it despite the agreement on the talk page that Stan's version was preferred. This sort of behaviour just makes it look like you are purposefully trying to restart an edit war. It is not acceptable. Angela 15:49, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What agreement? I don't agree, and I demonstrated how my version is in line with the usual practice. --Wik 15:53, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)

The agreement between Lir, Stan, and myself, Wik. :) Martin 16:56, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Which is more than outweighed by the established practice of Wikipedia that I demonstrated (effectively a 78% vote for my version). --Wik 17:04, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry. When you asked Angela "What agreement?", I thought you might be asking what agreement she was referring to. Perhaps next time, if you already know the answer to a question, you could refrain from asking it? Just a thought. Martin 17:17, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yup, Wik will work hard to make sure he gets his way. I wonder how much trouble per-user page protection would be to implement. Stan 16:47, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Nauru Bwiema

The non-English translations of Nauru Bwiema are quite significant because of the Christian missionary presence on Nauru in the early 1900s, during the colonial era. Father Aloys Kayser, a German, is one of the most prominent figures in Nauruan history, and he is the compiler of the only comprehensive grammar of the Nauruan language. I am not sure of the significance of the Spanish version, though. --TwinsFan48

But the anthem was adopted in 1968. I don't see what it has to do with the missionaries of the early 1900s or with Kayser's grammar. --Wik 17:05, Nov 30, 2003 (UTC)

The point is that German influence was heavy, with German missionaries, German architecture and even a period of German colonial domination. I just want the translation to stay for these reasons. --TwinsFan48

If you move something from WP:RfD to VfD, please ensure you do not delete my comments while doing that. Angela 21:44, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)