User:Denni/User talk:Denni/2005 December Archive

Clayton High School

Your comments on the Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Clayton_High_School page present a well-reasoned and persuasive argument against the inherent notability of schools. I normally don't vote on school articles on AFD anymore because I won't vote unless I've read the article, and the quality of the typical school article on AFD is depressingly awful. Thanks for your efforts. Quale 08:26, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Schools

Just wanted to say that words cannot express the amazing thoughtfulness of your arguments in keeping the sanity in school-related AfDs :). Please don't burn out :\.

You were listed on the Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Canada page as living in or being associated with Alberta. As part of the Wikipedia:User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Alberta for instructions.--Rmky87 22:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!

A big thank you for your help and support, I look forward to meeting you in more productive contexts, Yours, Trollderella 23:55, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your support on my RfA!

Domestic Virtue

Hi I note that this article has been expanded somewhat and this does help, a little. However, the central issue remains, for me, the postmodern obsession of attempting to explain historical social concepts within a 21st century context - it cannot be done.

Although we have literature from the past to give us a reasonable idea of social conditions at that time, it is, in my view, a fruitless exercise to attempt to explain the 'whys' of those conditions based on such subjective sources.

Additionally, there is a whole raft of early-Victorian literature that stresses 'domestic virtue' as being something other than the explanation you have given (cf. Smiles's "Self Help"). As this article stands, I still consider it unencyclopaedic and, worse, it is veering towards the acquisition of a POV tag ;-) Eddie.willers 12:04, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Micronation poll

Hey, if you get a chance, could you look at This micronation-related poll and share your opinion. Thanks! Samboy 19:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Civility

Please be careful to be

- thank you so much for the prompt reply... I guess we shall continue the search :)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Template/Workshop

You, or any Wikipedia user, can contribute your suggestions and comments to the /Workshop page of any active arbitration case. Comments on evidence or proposals can help in understanding the import of evidence and in refining proposals. Proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies may be listed on /Proposed decision and form part of the final decision. Fred Bauder 18:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Anticyclonic tornado

Ref: Anti-twister --> Anticyclonic tornado article
I have edited the article to best reflect the current understanding of the anticyclonic tornado phenomenon, which isn't understood well, indeed, the exact process of tornadogenesis itself is not yet understood. Skyodyssey 09:19, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Vileness

Hah! I spotted you slaking your vile lust for deletion! - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 02:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• And proud of it. Someone has to keep the riffraff from the door. More seriously, thank you for being a steadfast ally in the school deletion war. I appreciate your cogent comments and your ability to keep your cool in sometimes hostile circumstances. I've grudgingly accepted that we are going to have to keep some school articles, but I still refuse to accept that we can allow substubs to live. Do you think we can find a middle ground with the inclusionist faction? Denni☯ 03:24, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not really comfortable with broad labels like that, especially when I've felt out how some of the involved people feel about schools as an encyclopedic subject. If it were just inclusionists versus deletionists, it'd be easy to find a middle ground everyone could hate equally (the hallmark of a good compromise). Unfortunately, it's a lot more complicated than that, with people holding lots of different views on how schools should or shouldn't be handled.
    You refer to "inclusionists" as if they were a bloc, but people disagree about merging, about what information is encyclopedic and what isn't (is the current principle encyclopedic, even for clear-cut notable schools?). You're also going to see some disagreement between "inclusionists" over immediacy vs. eventualism. (Basically, whether a bad substub should be kept to be turned into a better article later.) Likewise with "deletionists"; I daresay I don't have a lot of common ground with
    WP:AGF, since I feel collegiality is a lot more important than deletion any number of substubs.
    That said, I vaguely recalled someone accusing you of having a "vile lust for deletion," which is a heck of a turn of phrase, even if it is totally insane. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops
    ) 03:47, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay, bad time for convenient labels. Probably because I see myself as a deletionist (though as per my userpage, a principled one), I tend to see inclusionists as a bloc. Yes, it's inaccurate - I note such users as Rob and Silensor, who have no difficulty with a delete vote in non-school circumstances. I agree that the middle ground must first start with
      WP:CIVIL, and I have been working hard the past while to be there (and since there's nothing I enjoy more than a good brawl, it's HARD). But the movement from there must be, for me, to a point where I can find common ground on what constitutes a keepable school article. Building an encyclopedia is a common goal for deletionists, eventualists, mergists, inclusionists, and all the other -ists we have here, and requires compromise. That is my chief concern. I see no willingness for compromise from such as Nicodemus and Hipocrite. As such, I find myself pushed into a corner where I also cannot compromise. What I would like is to find a group of individuals from both sides of the spectrum who are prepared to work as a group to negotiate a set of guidelines for school articles and at the same time shut out the hard-liners on both sides. Denni☯
      04:09, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Ah, you've stumbled on my evil plot to get everyone reasonable enough to contribute to a compromise to stop using divisive labels, so that those who do can be marginalized as extremists. ;D
        Jokes aside, yeah, part of not using labels like that is to get away from the gameplaying. You've got people voting "to keep the inclusionists honest" and people voting keep on even unverifiable cases in order to cite "X% of school articles on AFD are kept!" and it's just a mess. Hopefully some progress on
        WP:SCH can be made once some of the more shrill voices are either moderated or just ignored (the burden of the latter resting more on the people who agree with them than those who disagree). Think about things this way; if you're dissatisfied with the actions of those who describe themselves as "extreme inclusionists," set a good example by helping to moderate the extremism of people who descrive themselves as "extreme deletionists." Trying to moderate across the aisle is going to be tained with accusations of partisanship, no matter what. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops
        ) 04:34, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
        • At this point, I am seeing no moderation on the part of the "keep" voters. I cannot think of a single individual among those who consistently vote to keep who has ever voted to delete. At the same time, even such extreme "delete" voters as Gateman have voted to keep school articles where they have demonstrated some merit. How do you see us shifting the voting patterns of people such as Jacquie and Rob, who I percieve as "softer" targets than Kappa and Nicodemus? Denni☯ 04:47, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Er. I am drawing a distinction between editors who are involved in disruptive antics and articles who hold fairly extreme views. Extreme views held in good faith (as opposed to gamesmanship over winning this or that AFD, something both "sides" have been guilty of) should be accomodated (if not conceded to), but gamesmanship and disruptive nonsense isn't helping anyone. Focus first on moderating the disruption and gamesmanship among those who nominally agree with you, and you build enough credibility to at least be supported when attempting to moderate disruption on the part of self-described "inclusionist" editors. I hate to name names, but it's hard to be taken seriously admonishing Nicodemus75 for assuming bad faith on the part of everyone who disagrees with him if you're not also admonishing Gateman1997 for his
            WP:SCH compromises have failed). - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops
            ) 05:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

And now for something completely different. I visited your user page, and note with interest that (a) you are a burned-out hippie tree hugger and (2)a contributor to E2. I also have medals from both campaigns. My ID at E2 is (O)v(O), and I think I have some pretty hot stuff there. My favorite nodes are "The power of Gods (idea)" and "More Fun with Dick and Jane (person)". I have a number of articles/nodes that cross between E2 and WP (which led to some accusations of plagiarism on the part of a particular E2 user, fie on him). I haven't contributed as of late, partly because I don't see E2 as having any real future as a credible information source and would prefer to devote my time to WP. I appreciate E2, though, because I can contribute things, like "Gods", which would be shot down without hesitation here. Denni☯ 05:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

E2 is definitely a different sort of place, but I found myself drifting away from it as I got lazier, to be honest, as brilliant prose (or enough of a reasonable facsimile thereof to pass on E2 these days) takes work. I should spend a little more time noding, though; mediating on WP is enervating. (Then again, every time I turn around, I'm butting into another dispute on WP. I guess I'm just a sucker for punishment.)

As for the template, I like co-opting other people's insults and attacks. (Note the picture of Dick on my talk page.) Someone once accused me of being "full of hippy tree-hugging crap!" and the silly expression has stuck with me since, particularly because I am not and never have been much of a hippy. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 05:44, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Schools

Hi, would you please consider writing out a summary of your ideas at dealing with the schools issue. I'm hoping there could be renewed interest in doing things that can improve the overall situation. I think we often don't actually realize what the position of the other is, and I'll read whatever you write. --rob 11:15, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

No longer a chick magnet

Hi, just a randomly titled subsection to state that I do understand your frustration, but feel like some progress is being made. While there are indeed a few wild-eyes extremists around, if we can get even a few people from the "Keep, it's a school" bloc to participate, it will be a huge vistory for consensus. I'm afraid that any sort of mass merge will only widen the divide. If you need something to distract you for a little while, there's always

Since visiting your page, I can't help but notice comments about me. While I'm solidly for school articles, please keep in mind, I have recently, and will continue to, vote for deletion when policy and prudence requires me do so. For instance, lack of verifiability, has caused me to vote for delete (or tag as speedy). I'm also quite open minded. In fact, on the last day wikipedia every deleted a real fully verifiable active school, I voted to delete one that day, and abstain in the other. I haven't repeated that mistake though, but it shows I've changed my mind (just not in your direction). Also, I have voted to delete when people try to create articles outside established precident (e.g. minor school sport teams). Anyway, as said above, your views, even if opposed to me, are welcome. Lastly, the best tip I could ever give those wishing to delete a school article, is stick to one or two good reasons like verifiability, and not throw in others that are widely opposed. People often think listing all their reasons is the best approach. In fact, it means people who object to most of the reasons will oppose you, because they mask the good reason. Also, consider that cementing current defacto precident in codified criteria prevents much more drastic expansion (you may oppose) without consensus in the future. Also, despite your apparent beleif, all school supporters ignore the rules, I have a very clear record of voting based on policy and guidelines. And it's entirely false, for anybody to think I just vote keep for anything with "School" in the name. --rob 12:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Canadian Cancer Society promotional issue

I placed a "POV" tag on this article. I think you had the best of intentions in writing an article on behalf of this group, and assuring that they have "...a strict review process..." (stated as fact, not just opinion). But, policy requires we be NPOV and verify anything we say. What you put in the article, may be entirely true, but it should be verified by

Just to be clear, I'm *certain* nobody is "scammin" anybody. I trust the orgnization. It's really just a principal issue, of verifiability. Realistically, with articles, people make new articles, based on what they see in existing ones. And they figure "if that's ok there, it's ok here" kind of thing. Also, non-Canadians editors probably know nothing about the organization, but need to be able to verify it. For instance, I would be instantly suspicious of a similiar article from Nigerian Cancer Society, and I would be hestitant to assume its correct because the creator from Nigeria said it was legit. And I wouldn't want them to argue Nigeria isn't being treated as good as Canada. Anyway, there's so many ample sources of data on the topic, I'm sure improvements shouldn't be hard. --rob 03:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, notice I didn't nominate the article for deletion (obviously). I have de-POV'd school articles, like

Ocean View Elementary School (Norfolk, Virginia)

has proper sources. I didn't just trust the school's version of history, but verified some stuff with the local library's web site.

Critical questions were left out of the Cancer article, such as what percentage of funds actually goes to research: 10%, 50% 90%. That's hugely signficant. Somebody could read the article, and get a false idea of what the organization actually does. Personally, while I think the organizaiton is very good, I'm not sure where they spend most of there money, and I didn't learn that from the article.

As for the neutrality tag, I won't object to you removing it. There was a basis for it, as the article fails to mention any criticism of the organization (which do exist) and only presents a friendly POV.

Also, just to be clear, I'm not complaining you created the stub. I'm happy you created it. There's nothing wrong, at all with creating a stub, and I don't expect you to spend hours of research before creating an article. The idea of wikipedia, is articles can be made in small components, starting as stubs, and grow into something great. --rob 04:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

School side-track

Since our comments about Canadian Cancer Society, veered into schools, I think this brings up a point we agree on, just a little. Most school articles, aren't made with good enough quality in their initial draft. I've recently been making efforts to stop somebody's attempt to make a mass of school stubs, in my Alberta (I'm hoping I succeeded).

As I suggested in Wikipedia talk:Schools, school inclusionists often vote keep, not because they love the article per se, but beleive the school deserves an article. They want the article to be good quality. So, if they're options are "keep a micro-stub-article" or "delete and never have an article on the school" they pick keep. But, they might be willing to say "Delete the first draft of this, but hopefully somebody writes another draft".

I would appreciate it, if you would consider writing out your own guideliness for what you could live with in article. I'm getting the impression from comments, you've grown resigned to accepting articles on certain topics you don't think are fully worthy, but are insistent the the quality of those articles, at least, be held up. So, perhaps if you wrote out what you thought is the minimum criteria for a worhty article, that would help.

--rob 05:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I read what you said at Wikipedia talk:Schools on "Basic Principals", and there'll be no throwing of things. Perhaps one approach, if/when you have time (it sounds like you put a lot of time already on looking through examples), would be to not only write out specific proposed guidlines, but make a list of several examples (linked to a specific version of a school article, in case somebody cleans it up after). Maybe list them in order from "Over my dead body am I allowing this" at the top of the list, down to "Wow, I wish I wrote this" at the bottom of the list. Then, mark the point where you consider the dividing line is, and we can debate about where the dividng line should be. This would give a clearer indication of what's wanted, in concrete terms. Often, I find, in these debates, two people will say the same things, but mean different things, and examples would make clearer what's meant. Somebody will tell me they want to get rid of articles "devoid of content", then they'll target an article with three notable alumni (each with articles), so I never know what "devoid" means. Anyways, whatever you write on this, I'll read. --rob 06:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The mergist view

I saw your post at

Both individually and collectively, school articles are some of the crappiest articles on the Wikipedia. If you compare them to most of the fancruft on the Wikipedia, for example, while I personally have doubts about the encyclopedic value of much of the fancruft, at least most of the articles are very well written. Many of the school articles, on the other hand, if they aren't some minimalist substub, are filled with mangled spelling and grammar, as well as trivia, gossip and rumor. Someone could probably get away with merging a large number of the school articles into larger articles on school districts and cities without any problems, but if the School Inclusionists ever found out about the effor, they would still raise a firestorm even if no information was being deleted. BlankVerse 09:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: Your copying this message to Wikipedia talk:Schools#Forward from my mailbox [2]: If I had wanted to get involved in the black hole that is Wikipedia talk:Schools, I would have posted the message there myself. I do not appeciate you copying my comments without asking me! BlankVerse 11:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you for the birthday greeting. It's been a happy one.--

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Birthday greetings

Thank you very much! --Merovingian (t) (c) (e) 03:11, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Explanitory Poltical Theory

Could you add link to the Googles you found and add something to the article, to help it pass a dic def level before the end of AFD? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Lesson plan

Hi. I think I may have confused lesson plan with the syllabus (but I think the terms are sometimes used interchangeably). However, I'm fairly sure that the (in Florida, at least) the state requires primary education providers to teach certain specific things at specific times, and following a specific format. Cheers! BD2412 T 00:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Your concerns about unmaintained articles at WP:SCH

Denni, I suggest, your understandable concerns about school articles being left unattended/unmaintained, should really be addressed, in a separate proposal (in parellel or subseequent), which focuses on imposing rules on editors who make masses of stubs. Many editors, each creating a manageable number of school articles (even 4 sentence stubs), isn't the main problem. It's when a few people, create huge vast numbers of nearly identical stubs, that's a problem.

I don't want to let somebody "game the system" by having them make 12 "forced" or "padded" sentences instead of 3 in each. I say if somebody makes masses of nearly identical stubs in a short time, that's a problem that should be addressed with the specific editor, as a matter of policy (I tried this approach unofficial in one case, acting out of policy, to discourage mass-stub creation). There's no magical number of maintable school articles (or articles in general). The key is managed growth. In the time it took me to make 10 Alberta school articles, I could easily have made 100 12-line padded articles. Of course, such a mass-creation would never be maintainable. So, I just don't see any gains of going from 3 to 12 sentences.

Also, a good example of a sub-12 article is

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commons:Image:Edmonton tornado.jpg

Where did you get this image from? (Image:Refineryrow.jpg) --Saperaud 22:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm difficult, it's impossible to purchase intellectual property rights in many other countries and in this case it's not clear if this was the intention of the photographer. Anyhow this shouldn't be a problem, but in most cases images like these without information of sources are PD-USGov (here -NOAA) and that would be a rather huge problem. Please give information on your sources as good as you can to avoid trouble. --Saperaud 02:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

No prob, in this case "as good as you can" means "it's mine, purchased in 1990s". That's the small difference between "could be copyvio" (your name was lost through moving to commons) and "looks ok". PS: you don't have to answer me at my own page (anyhow the subject should be cleared now). --Saperaud 02:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Your broken sig

Just in case you haven't seen it, the VP (technical) section has a large thread on the broken sig problem. Also, theres a page

Propaganda

Dear Denny, the romanian nationalist and communist propaganda machine used to change the names of important transylvanian figures. The case of

I´ve ment the variant "Inochentie" (slavic resonance) for "Inocentiu" (latin resonance). --Mihai Andrei 20:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

left-handed pipe wrench

You got me. Thanks for doing something strange (but harmless). Wikipedia needs more people who do strange (but harmless) things. --RoySmith 23:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

do I know you?

Hi. You wrote in my page a spiel about deletionism. I don't believe we've ever met. Please could you let me know what context you are speaking so I can know how to respond. i.e. did you randomly find my page, get directed there from somewhere, etc. Ta. Zordrac 07:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)