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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Angela (talk | contribs) at 22:10, 3 November 2003 (stop skiving!). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

My name is Martin, and I refactor my talk page

Hi, Martin!

Stuff written here could end up anywhere. In particular, my distaste for forest fires, sniping criticism, bad trolls, and spam applies doubly here. I summarise stuff. If my summaries are inaccurate, be bold: fix them! I refactor as I go. I remove personal attacks. If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here. See also: user talk:MyRedDice/refactoring

Unsigned stuff on this page is often, but not always, written by me.

Praise for...

Helping my inner glow (add directly here if you like - I do like a bit of positive feedback!)

Low points

oops

Best of old summaries

  • Welcome! --Camembert
  • Welcome! --Ed Poor
  • (etc - Wikipedia is quite welcoming... once it notices you)
  • "Equal opportunity roasting place" -ROFL 'Vert
    • I enjoy a well-executed troll, but would prefer to avoid seeing one executed
  • There is a certain level of micro-management beyond which things become unacceptable. Tannin
  • do you know a lot of vicars? Nevilley
    • Yes, but I know more tarts.
  • I forgot to update my age on my home page...
    • when you get older...you even forget how old you are, and need to count... anthere
      • When you get older still, you forget how to count...
        • The worms feed on you whatever your age. anthere
  • Let it wash around you like water around a rock -º¡º
    • One cannot learn about filth without touching the mire
  • Good evening Martin-e. --Anther
    • You mean "Lucinda"... or "Lucy" :)
  • Perhaps there are times of openness, such as when flowers want to get fertilized, and times of protection, nurturing the growing fruit ? (anthere)
  • You behaved admirably Oliver. If only every Wikipedian behaved as you do when in a bad mood, then this'd be a nicer place... :)
    • In that case, I'll resist the urge to complain about you not signing the message I'm currently replying to... ;) -- Oliver P. 11:47 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • "Unsigned stuff is probably written by me"
  • Otherwise, it is by me
    • Conversations between Martin and Anthere are my worst nightmare. ;) -- Oliver P. 14:15 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • I love the timeline on User talk:Zoe. It reads like a detective's report on some horrific airplane crash, or something. :-) Evercat 01:38 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • I am fighting against my "judéo chrétienne" education. Elk
    • My response to suffering is more Buddhist in style.
  • I look at my user page for replies to my messages. MB
    • If you look hard enough in the wrong place, you will see things that are not there.
  • What was the resolution to the AKFD nonsense? -戴&#30505sv 21:02, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)
    • We were resolved to be unresolved
  • Wiki-wolves devour all things, howling as they go.
  • If you see the Buddha on the wiki, revert him.

Summarised talk

  • I would appreciate links to the old discussion about the lag time on VfD.Cyan 00:58, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Much appreciated. -- Cyan 13:32, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)
  • Was there something I missed? DJ Clayworth 19:10, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Nothing except my lack of deletion.
  • I think things could end up very heated if people start doing things to other people's talk pages that the user in question objects to. Angela 14:46, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)
    • I am saddened by the idea that such pages are "owned" by the users, who have "rights" over their form. Such property is theft.

We need a three star system: ***' - major articles, very important, essential notions for any decent person to know, ** - significantly issues and topics, * - common topic or very focused topics (professional stuff for example), no star - unclassified, articles on unknown people, little covered topics.

I agree! Also: [[[[vitally important link]]]], [[[useful link]]], [[rarely used link]], with appropriate settings in preferences.

New talk

It is really interesting to dig in archives and talk pages. I read the weasel, verifiability and source citing pages today. Recently, I had a rather strong debate on the french wikipedia, on an article dealing with the very high temperatures of this summer, and their impacts in Europe. This article was rather nice, result from a collaboration between several newbies. But an amazing collection of fluttery assertions, free comments, dubious facts, aside with very solid and reliable stuff. I boldly pointed out at the worse points in the talk page, asking for sources. As a result, I was either answered that it was stupid from me to ask this since of course everyone knew it, and second that is was my business, so if I had problems with the article verifiability, it was my problem to correct it and check for sources and that I just had to watch tv as everyone. Mind you, there were some comments such as the US/Canada electricity break out was due to the wide use of air cooler, due to the high temperatures that swept throughtout the world that summer :-)))) or that since it was obvious that climate changes was occuring now, lobbyists were trying to hide their responsabilities. Hum...what is that supposed to mean, I still do not know. Anyway, I barely succeeded to convince the authors that it was not *my* responsability to correct all their laxist work. I looked for a couple of things though, hence removed some of the funniest parts.

We have no guidelines anywhere about how to deal with verification. I think I have a couple of update to do, and then, an example to make :-))). That would perhaps trigger some interesting discussions about verifiability sources :-)

It must be really fascinating, seeing at first hand the differences between the various language projects. It's likewise fascinating reading old archives of discussions on en.wiki - back in the days of Larry Sanger and the Cunctator, when the place was almost without form. Strange how much Wikipedia has changed over time, despite the conservatism that it displays on its face.
yup. I got around feb 2002, when Larry lost the job. On the french slightly later. When I got on the french, we had about 200-300 pages perhaps, user and meta included. Not to say that these were much. Perhaps 20 user pages ? Perhaps 20 meta pages, the basic guidelines, how to edit, why contribute. Just translation of english pages made by the starters. Nothing else. And most contributors not having anything to do with en, or just interested in making pages. No more.
I often wonder what would have happen without me :-) Not to say it would not have been good at all :-) It is just that...I think I wrote more than 50% of the meta pages. Perhaps more. Basically, the ones I did not write are those about naming conventions and such, which are more the realm of Aoineko or Looxix. But most of what I write was with the english model, removing what seemed bad, adding what seemed good. Now, there are a couple of people interested in this too, but usually, most contributors don't care much. They ask for the rules, much more than they tend to make them or participate making them. And complain if the rules do not exist, or if they do exist without having been written. So, I wonder how it would have evolved if I had not make noise on meta, noise on ML and made so many meta pages at all. Would someone else have emerged to do them ? Did I somehow prevent that ? Which would have been the rules then ? Would it have been very much different from what they are now ? I created very little myself, but what would have happened if I had not done anything ? Most of what I "creatively" did was to try to balance things. What would have happened if not ? It is probably harder to say on en, but on the french, we still are not numerous, so just one person can make a huge difference. And we are all precious. Especially the trolls :-) Thank God, the Cunctator was there in front of Larry !!!
shorten in three of your words : it is fascinating. :-))))
  • Please keep your unsolicited advice to yourself. RickK 01:19, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • You didn't ask for my opinion, but I gave it anyway, because I'm so fantastically generous :) Martin 02:22, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Robert Taylor Stuff

Sounds like a nasty interaction of edit conflicts, redirects and moved articles. I guess I should try to reproduce it on test.wikipedia and submit something to bug reports - or at least edit the help pages appropriately. Ho hum. Martin 15:23, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't think it is a bug. From what I can tell, Robert thought it was the software playing up (but it was actually RickK trying to edit the page) and RickK thought it was a vandal (it was actually a newbie who didn't understand and didn't read the warnings on his talk page). I have explained this to him in an e-mail. Angela 18:36, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)
Well, you certainly can get into really weird situations when page moves overlap in time with edits, and the symptoms sounded familiar. But thanks for info. Martin 22:29, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

What is interesting with protection war is that is invisible. A perfect example of the total irreality of consensus on wikipedia. Kat was right to leave. Indeed loosing hir time.

list of hets

Indeed, I was thinking of how to satisfy Jtdirls claim that an "archive" was somehow needed...it did not occur to me to note that a link to a page history was sufficient. LirQ

Hi Martin, I reverted your revert at Wikipedia:Redirect. It seems all such pages are now moving to Meta. Having the text here as well will mean the two don't match, so there should be only one version. I think the link is there to avoid the problems that some people have with inter-wiki redirects. See mav's message at Wikipedia talk:Redirect#Plan to move most of this page to meta soon. Angela 15:55, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. I thought it was meant to be impossible for inlined images to appear anywhere. Angela 21:05, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

So did I. I've raised a bug report.
Keep it under your hat... :) Martin 21:27, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

RE: What do other wikipedians think of me

Boy with blanks? Isn't that for folks who are impotent?

^_^ Has any one ever told you how much we appreciate your sense of humor? If it wasn't for handful of great people like you here, I think I would have probably give up on this whole place as a colossal waste of time. So...thank you for that. (I think you probably don't hear that enough around here, which is a shame.) </sappy-touchy-feely-ness> Paige 00:46, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC) (When you summarize this, please just tell everyone that I told you "That's a very silly hat you have on.") &#167:o)

Aww, sweetness!
Love yous, hun, keep up the good work. :)

I moved this off talk:Main Page, because I'm not sure it was relevant there, but I didn't want to just delete it. k? Not a problem, I just didn't know where else to put it. RickK 06:26, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Martin, I feel that user pages should be protected because it is the one place in wikipedia where one's one expression can be presented in its most pure form. Also, it is to thwart vandals. Is there anything in particular you think needs changing? Kingturtle 17:46, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

by all mean Martin, if a vote is going on somewhere, that could result in only sysops having the right to edit user page, do remember to tell me. I would certainly disagree that you cannot edit my user page any more. Ant

PLease archive your talk page. It would not be appropriate to refer to Thatcher/Reagan's actions as "strong" neo-liberalism. LirQ

Ill do it gradually over time, my policy with anything (such as making lists or redirecting pages) is to do only a few every now and again, that way it doesnt give me a headache. Regardless, for technical reasons u should archive your page -- some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb LirQ

Sometimes Hanlon's razor cuts me. Thanks for the instructions. -- Cyan 19:50, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Would you mind changing your vote regarding integration (non-mathematical) -- i created it, I only linked one thing to it, as far as I know, nothing links there now. LirQ

Hi. Could you explain to me why if I put two images in div in a page, these two do not necessary stick to the area I want them to ? Ad what does margin:0 0 1em 1em mean ? Anthère

Wikipedia:Deletion buffer, User:Stevertigo/DLO. (Grunt. Snort)-戴&#30505sv 21:32, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

One must ask why you promote policies and put notices up for policies you claim not to agree with. By all means revert this, you will anyway, and it requires no response. But consider what is the point of an "encyclopedia" that contains User:RK's rants about Mel Gibson, say, and which has no article on bushmeat, and deletes it, simply because "the wrong person" touched it.

The encyclopedia is being sacrificed to the so-called "Community". --142.177.79.186

Putting up notices promotes openness, honesty, and transparency. It ensures that those who object to a policy or a decision have an opportunity to challenge it. This is important.


RK -> User talk:RK

Your User page

...is quite spartan!

Do you like my hat?
{Image:Martin}

Now would be a great opportunity for you to try out another picture, perhaps with an even better hat! Maybe something in a nice teardrop fedora or a porkpie, now that you've conquered the bowler/derby family? (If not, under the GFDL, I suppose I could always put a picture of this hat on my page couldn't I? Hmmmm...) ^-^ -- Paige 22:36, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC) (P.S. Why do you think it is that the British are so much more daring with hats than we Americans?)

Well, it was nice and relaxing for a while, which I needed
Maybe I'll get some horns or something for halloween :)

Thanks for taking up the slack with respect to Croat and Bosnian neologisms and User:Mir Harven. Cheers, Cyan 18:48, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That's fine. I wasn't clear in what I originally said and you can't be expected to know what I was thinking, especially when I purposefully didn't write what I was thinking! It's a dangerous job this refactoring, but thank you for doing it- not just on problem users, but all the other pages you do too. :) --Angela

Thanks for the chuckle at Wikipedia:Wikimoney. Need all the chuckles we can get round here at the moment :) --Camembert

re: User:Jimbo Wales

But it's a section in that article. It's just that you can't redirect to subsections yet. I think Dictator#Benevolent Dictator is more relevant than the meatball article, which doesn't actually make a lot of sense. Angela

The wikipedia article is talking about Fidel Castro and dictators of countries, whereas the meatball article is talking about Linus Torvalds an dictators of projects: I think Jimbo is closer to one than the other...
Anywhich, I linked to both. Martin 12:00, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"GFDL but only within the Wikipedia project and for the purpose of that project"

[IANAL] either. You could have a license saying that "nobody may use this for any purpose except for using it in other talk/list posts and making it part of a GFDL article in the Wikipedia encyclopedia". The key distinction is between the GFDL document, and the others, which aren't part of the Wipkipedia encyclopedia. Since they aren't part of the encyclopedia, they don't need to be GFDL. Sites hosting open source projects, like [sourceforge.net] use this approach, providing GFDL content without being under the GFDL themselves.

Hi, Martin.

I think you'll agree that the recent edit war at Mother_Teresa is an interesting case study in article disputes. I tried to help out but was largely ignored. I'm interested in your thoughts on the matter, and particularly on any turning points that might have been missed.

Louis Kyu Won Ryu 20:21, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm reducing my time on wikipedia a little, so I've steered pretty clear of that one, and it looks like it's largely settled down now. Hope you learnt something! :) Martin 19:17, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I suppose the main thing that I learned was that, on the whole, Wikipedians are genuinely excited about being able to show that they are clever and "right." They do not, however, give a tinker's damn about building community. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 19:16, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Now that Alex, Jim and others have made it all clearer on fair use (hard to prosecute or claim "damage")--can we change the butt-ugly picture of Rachel Corrie to the one from Burning man? God bless. In having reviewed my talk logs (nostalgia) I noticed that I forgot to respond to you visavis the photo permssion. The answer is no --that I used it under fair use, but neglected to mention so. XieXieNi -戴&#30505sv 02:40, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'd prefer not. :( I'll try to elaborate why on the image description page. Martin 19:17, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You Wrote:

This duplicates wikipedia:list to some extent - could they be merged? Martin 22:34, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes they could be. In fact there are three articles on more or less the same topic. For now I'll just cross link them. Eventually they should be combined but that is about #50 on my list of Wiki-things-to-do. Mydogategodshat

Gah, three of them! It gets worse.... :( Martin 18:19, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)


dunno really if you were talking to me, or responding to Angel. Or I could just imagine you wish sweet dreams to any one going to sleep :-)

That will be a longer night today. We are switching to winter hours. Yesterday, it snowed for most of the day.\


Auschwitz

Hey, you just reverted effect of long discussion and again moved Auschwitz to Auschwitz concentration camp. Auschwitz is very old city, once very known for many other things than concentration camp. [[user::szopen]]

I noticed that you commented on some controversial computing issues. There's now a new Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing and Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/Controversial articles to help form consensus on computing topics. Please consider watching the talk pages there and using them to let others know of issues you believe merit peer review. JamesDay 15:40, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Martin, you have to stop skiving from Wikipedia. :) The Village Pump is 88 kilobytes today and no-one clears it out but you. Help! Please come back! Angela

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