User talk:Hesperian/Archive 30

Archives: … • 43 • 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • Last archived on 5 February 2017

RE: Frogs of NT

No problem! I was going to get around to do that one day like most other categories and articles but just don't seem to get around to it! Bidgee (talk) 16:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good stuff

Just poking in for an odd cat page tagging and noticed 'kimberly rock rat' - any idea why the odd spelling? I will probably read your answer in a net cafe somewhere in the never never (past the houtman thats for sure) - cheers - please answer here - Im trying to leave my talk page dead space probably till may the ways things is going - cheers - very impressed by your thorough thingy stuff with all the stuff - Satu Suro 14:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The specific epithet, that I was unable to recall, is truncata.

Thanks from "R Physicist"

Greetings Hesperian. I would first of all like to thank you for the several kind and supportive remarks you have made at the ANI.

Second, I would like to tell you that I have looked up your many contributions (mainly, the lists of mammals and amphibians of Australia) and find them truly remarkable. Looking at these contributions, it makes me think that maybe there is, after all, something worthwhile about Wikipedia, since nowhere, except perhaps in the most specialized text books, could such information be found.

I find it completely consistent that someone like you, who has a genuine passion for such work, and truly encyclopaedic knowledge to contribute, should also be the one to take the most principled stance regarding the issues on which I have been holding Wikipedia to account.

If there were any way to tip the balance towards people with your outlook and knowledge, I could be persuaded to reconsider my very negative judgment of the thing.

That said, I would like now to ask you for a small service as an "administrator", if possible. The whole debate has now been archived (by a non-admistrator user: Lawrence Cohen). I have no particular objection to archiving at this point, since it really was getting too long and off-target. But there are two things that trouble me about it being done this way; namely,

1. This seems to have been done unilaterally, and without consultation, but apparently cannot be reversed. I cannot comprehend such a process. Why can one (non-administrator) decide unilaterally to "archive", and thus prevent, ever onward, any other contributor from adding to, or even editing their own previous input?

In particular, I had decided to shorten and somewhat tone down my final "Conclusion" , in particular, by deleting the reference to the "Dark Ages", which doesn't seem a suitable metaphor. But by this unilateral decision to archive by one user, I seem henceforth prevented from ever doing so.

2. Some other user (I am unable to track the history to determine who it is) has collapsed the entire main body of the discussion to a "collapse box" - including my initial description of the situation, all the comments added by others, and my own reply and conclusion. Only the subsequent remarks have been left uncollapsed, in the sections that contain the increasingly off-target remarks. This seems to completely skew the emphasis and, in fact, remove the gist of the posting from anyone's attention. It very much seems to have been done with tendentious purposes.

Is there any way to undo this collapse box? And is there any way to make a last edit of my own concluding remarks? 24.202.238.172 (talk) 12:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC) (alias "R Physicist")[reply]

Thanks for your reply; I will try to do it as you suggested. I would like to say that the only things that make me want to somewhat tone down my rather categorically negative "Conclusions" are, 1) the perceptiveness and aptness of your comments in the AN/I discussion (as well as that of a couple of other contrubtors who took a similar view), 2) the trouble you (and they) took to set the most aggressive offenders straight and 3) the amazing collection of animals from Australia that you have taken the time and made the effort to post for viewing by all. Perhaps these are not yet complete, and or do not as yet consist of adequate articles in many of the individual cases listed, but where else could someone like me, with no expertise in biology or botany be able to learn of these wonderful things, without studying for years, or doing at least a large scale search in our libraries, without knowing quite where to start?

If only there were evidence that, in the sciences, at least, the norm at WP consists of civilized standards of conduct, and due respect for expertise, I would indeed take a very different view. But certainly from this experience, the attitudes that I have witnessed and, more significantly, from looking carefully at the structures, conventions and rules that prevail, my confidence that a suitable standard of reliability, or even human decency can be maintained in this setting is very, very much shaken, if not obliterated. 24.202.238.172 (talk) 15:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC) (alias "R Physicist")[reply]

There are definitely some corners of the encyclopaedia where academic rigour and appropriate research is actually respected. Many of them are areas which both knowledge and motivation for non-technical people to edit would be lacking. A lot of the more technical chemistry articles for example are actually quite good, where the problems exist is in areas best described as 'fringe', or in other cases 'pop' chemistry. Some articles about genetic concepts I reviewed when I was teaching a high school class on the topic were also thorough and well-referenced. I've been trying for a while to get this sort of academic mindset into the Australian political articles, there's heaps of academic literature out there which we have largely neglected to use, preferring online media and newspapers. It's a job convincing others that we should go in that direction - a lot of political editors are there editing Wikipedia because their political inclinations led them there. The benefits, though, are worth it for those who persist - the credit given to the Banksia wikiproject (which Hesperian is part of) in a recent Danish study, and this writeup about a professor who set Wikipedia writing as a class assignment, demonstrates that we can move forward, it's not unachievable. Looking through the Requests for Arbitration archives is instructive - amazing how often political, religious, nationalist or fringe science topics pop up there. Orderinchaos 16:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kevin Hart

Thanks muchly for your prompt comment - it helps to have another opinion, and you've described clearly what appears to be going on. Will put it on my to do list. Cheers,Sterry2607 (talk) 01:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image sizes

There is no need to autosize images in the infoboxes en masse. Your edit summary does not mention image resize. I think that you are making some of the images too small. Featured articles like "Blackbird" have quite a large image in the infobox. WP:MOS - images where small details need to be seen can be larger. Snowman (talk) 13:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What there is really no need for, is for us to be over-ruling users' default thumb size preferences without any good reason (and a minor point of aesthetics is not a good reason). If you think that these thumbs are too small, then increase your own default thumb size in Special:Preferences, rather than mandating a large size even for people who set small default thumb sizes for reasons such as bandwidth issues.

Or revert me. Whatever.

I'm not putting it in the edit summary because they are not my purpose for visiting these articles "en masse"; I'm only removing them as a side issue, and I can't be bothered tailoring an edit summary every time I remove one. Hesperian 13:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Case in point: With this edit you over-ruled my default thumb size of 300px, mandating a much smaller image, with edit summary "(to see the image better. WP:MOS images can be larger so show small detail)". Hesperian 13:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Hesperian. The whole point of having a default image size in Special:Preferences is to allow me to set the image sizes, not someone else. This is a great feature which I suspect most people don't know about or use. —Moondyne click! 14:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, 99% readers do not set the parameters on their own computers, I believe. Wikipedia:Picture tutorial explains that is is perfectly reasonable to make an image larger than the standard default to see small details. It is perfectly reasonable to have the image in the infobox set slightly larger for animals and birds, when there is a good photograph showing small details. Actually, I have reduced the size of many images in the text of articles, but I do this selectively. I can understand making the infobox image smaller, if it was not a very good resolution image. It is usual for featured bird articles to have the infobox image set larger than the usual standard. You should always write a good edit summary, and there are no excuses for missing out changing the image size in the edit summary when doing this en masse. As you have set the image size on your own computer, you probably did not notice the odd effects produced (on most users computers) by changing the size of one image in the infobox when there were two images in the infobox. Snowman (talk) 18:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

99% readers do not set the parameters on their own computers. That is true. Logged-out users do not have access to Special:Preferences, so are locked into a 180px thumb default. Therefore your decision to increase the image size, sometimes, on a per-case basis, is sensible. If you've thought deeply about the implications of over-ruling the thumb default, and still think it should be done, occasionally, then I wouldn't dream of opposing you. However, there are some other 99%s relevant to this discussion: 99% of the time that a default thumb size is over-ruled, it is done in complete ignorance of the broader implications; and: 99% of images with a mandated thumb size would be better off without one. This is why I am removing image width parameters while I'm passing through these articles. Also, you're not putting in an image size every now and then. As far as I can tell, you're over-ruling the default thumb size, what, 99% of the time?

You should always write a good edit summary, and there are no excuses for missing out… Yes, well, there are no excuses for removing a fact tag without mentioning it in the edit summary.[1] And there are no excuses for changing the image size without mentioning it in the edit summary.[2] And there are no excuses for characterising a grammatical change as a typo fix.[3] But hey, I have a good idea, instead of bugging each other about this stuff, let's both go bug someone who doesn't have a 100% edit summary usage.

You probably did not notice the odd effects produced. Presumably you're taking about a case where I removed an image_size parameter, but left an image2_size parameter. If so then that was an error on my part - I should have removed both.

Hesperian 00:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What "small details"? IMHO It made no difference when Hesperian removed the 240px, If you want to see the details most people click on the image since thumbnails are for a pre-view of the image and not a detail view. As whats been stated if you don't like the 180px default size, then change to the setting your want in your profile since everyone isn't going to agree with thumbnail sizes. Bidgee (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be reasonable to raise the issue with at the relevant WP:Projects before making mass changes to image sizes within infoboxes. The discussion will be more widely read on WP:Project talk pages, and I would be willing to continue the discussion on the WP:Bird talk page. Snowman (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I call your forum shop, and raise you one accusation of unnecessary wikidrama. Hesperian 00:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is a clever remark, but it is not a game. Snowman (talk) 10:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must confess I am finding it harder and harder to take this seriously. Perhaps it would be best if I withdrew from the discussion. Hesperian 11:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CfD nomination of Category:Mammals naturalised in Tasmania‎

Category:Mammals naturalised in Tasmania‎, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. – TexasAndroid (talk) 12:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Back in Aus

Missed the sunshine, too damn cold over there.... didn't take you long to notice I see. I intend to contribute again as my life settles into a routine again. Tis good to be back. Pete

good time to be back for sunshine :) Gnan garra 08:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lead images

Just so you know, WP:MOS#Images advises a large lead image (usually 250px), and no forced thumb size is not a rule that must be enforced 100% of the time, it's a guideline. There's a reason that almost all articles, including GAs and FAs, have larger lead images. VanTucky 03:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MOS#Images: "It is recommended that lead images not be smaller than 300px, as this will make the image smaller for users who have set 300px in their user preferences." Hesperian 03:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arum Lily

Feel like working up an article on a toxic weed and declared pest? Gnan garra 08:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably after Zantedeschia aethiopica. Arum Lily redirected to Araceae. I've now redirected it to Zantedeschia to match the Arum lily redirect --Melburnian (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

yep thats it and its in one those cats... Gnan garra 11:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those cats will soon be all gone. There is plenty to do around here without getting hung up on the stuff that doesn't have the full support of the community. So I'm going to get rid of them. Some time in the distant future someone else will create them, or, they won't. Either way I'm happy.

Since I started this categorisation rampage I seem to attract drama. I suspect, Gn, that you've wisely perceived that I'd be better off stepping back from it, and are trying to rescue me. No doubt you've heard the old adage you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. I'm going to follow this recategorisation through a bit more.

Hesperian 11:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Na I just saw the notice on your talk page and was curious when I first looked. Actually i agree with the cats after some consideration to available alternatives, if they are concerned about categories then they should look at the ones the articles are currently in. ie cat in cat and dog in dog these should be hidden also spoken articles could be hidden. Gnan garra 12:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great one to do - bloody everywhere down in Margaret River - ugh! Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should see them around Gosnells area especially where the Canning and Southern rivers join they are choking it, also when the foliage dries over the summer months it makes a wonderful fuel for the bugs. Its the mythical association with City of Gosnells that drew my attention. Gnan garra 12:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like we loose the cats and find a reason to keep in the process Jumping the garden fence is an interesting read. especially table 7 thru 16 Gnan garra 14:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

thank spam

Thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with 194 supporting, 9 opposing, and 4 neutral.

Your kindness and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I look forward to using the tools you have granted me to aid the project. I would like to give special thanks to Tim Vickers, Anthony and Acalamari for their nominations.

Thank you again, VanTucky

Hart

Thanks again for your promptitude! (Is that a word?) CheersSterry2607 (talk) 06:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you replied! Ta for your support and encouragement.Sterry2607 (talk) 06:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, bodgy bidgee's big problem

I'm sure you are a jolly sound fellow, and are fully in accordance with the wikilaws. Sadly/luckily, the internet is not wiki, and google does allow those of us who exist outside of the wikiverse to find things out (obvious google search removed from here). Whilst revealing the forename of a pseudonomous contributor on wiki may be a wikithoughtcrime, it might be, in the real world, regarded as a noncrime. In fact since said user actively pointed to a website that included his username and real name, I'd go so far as to say that I committed nobloodycrimeatall whatsoever. However, that is not the point. By blanking recent history you are covering up his history of extremely poor edits. Greg Locock (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't mean if you find it (the comment that was removed) online doesn't mean you can broadcast it on wiki! Also accusing someone(s) of socks or are family isn't the best thing to do[4]. I do not know Matilda (Infact I don't know her name) outside of Wikipedia. I only know her from here as an Admin and editor and to say that we do is wrong! Bidgee (talk) 14:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I were you, Bidgee, I wouldn't even bother reading crap like that, let along feeling I had to defend myself against it. Everyone can see it is just worthless trolling; and you don't seriously think your arguments and denials are going to make him suddenly decide to leave you alone, do you? If it really bothers you, you have my permission to delete it from my talk page, and anything else he posts; it's not like I'm going to read it anyway. Unfortunately I can't give you permission to delete stuff from Hollow's talk. But my advice is, just ignore it. Any response, even deleting it, only enables the troll by letting him know he's succeeding in getting under your skin. So treat it like it isn't there, and go about building the encyclopaedia. Hesperian 14:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent advice. Assuming that we agree that adding content is more useful than deleting it. Which is roughly where the whole thing started. Greg Locock (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Main thing I'm worried about is the same thing thats happened in the past few days on my talk page starting again today/tomorrow. Bidgee (talk) 14:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Poking my head through the window and looking at the events from outside I say that if it starts again tomorrow, just request help at WP:AN/I there has been sufficient warnings to the editor that it would not be inappropriate for block to occur. Gnan garra 14:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

K hart

Congratulations. You've at last succeeded in covering up the truth about Kevin Hart. Have you ever seen Micheal Moore's film "Roger and Me"? It must feel so good to you to abuse your power in order to subvert the process of truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.14.119 (talk) 14:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well said! For a time I thought I was the only one trying to get the truth out there about Kevin Hart. In reviewing the history of this page, it looks like there are three or four, and perhaps more, who've tried to tell the truth, only to be silenced by Hesperian's thought-police. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.62.170.157 (talk) 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

moved from the top of the user page, note both IP appear to be loacted at [the same place]. Gnan garra 16:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.62.170.157 (talk) 18:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong-o, Gnangarra. Is it not enough that you people squelch free speech, but now you have to resort to harassment as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.14.119 (talk) 20:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He's not harassing you; he's suggesting to me that you're probably sockpuppets; i.e. one person posting through multiple IPs to give the impression of being multiple people. The location of your IP is public information, easily accessed from ARIN, but since it bothers you to have it posted here, I have removed it.

As for the Hart article, it is pretty clear that your purpose was to run him down, rather than to write an excellent (which implies neutral) article about him. You want to pick on him, go write a blog or something. We're not a forum of you to "get the truth out there" about Hart or anyone else. Hesperian 08:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You stubbed this article after someone posted Hart's own published comments on a fellow Australian poet. I cannot fathom how you are being neutral. Now we are left with bits of praise, with no real sense of who Hart is. That's what is missing now. Who Hart really is, and how the academic community perceives him, is the basis for an excellent article. Was the piece excellent before you stubbed it? No, but we were all working on getting it there, and at least it was informative (until you stubbed it), and anyone who felt the piece lacked balance was free to add strong and positive reviews of Hart's work. Let's face it: you've deleted well-researched, accurately documented, informative material about Hart, material that was not available anywhere else on the web. Instead of deleting this legitimate material if you didn't like the point of view, why didn't you balance it? We all have agendas, let's admit it; neutrality is an illusion, and everything has a point-of-view, no matter what the WP principles say otherwise. (Ironically, that tenet is one of the building-blocks of Hart's scholarship in deconstructive philosophy.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.14.119 (talk) 12:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We both know you're not here to write a neutral article; you're here to bag him out. I am usually loathe to cut out referenced information, but you don't get a free ride to run someone down just because you've learned the fine art of tracking down negative reviews and/or quoting the most negative sentence from a review and/or quoting out of context. One can clearly see an evolution in your edits from outright attack[5] to subtler attack[6] to far subtler injection of negative bias,[7][8][9] so I'm glad you're not bothering to deny you have an agenda.

As for my agenda, I must say that I really don't give a fuck about Hart. I'd never heard of him before I was asked to stick my nose into this. I've never read one of his poems, and I couldn't care less about his deconstructive philosophy. That's right, I'm a complete philistine. My agenda is to improve Wikipedia articles, and removing a blatant hatchet job is one way of doing that.

Having removed such a large quantity of referenced material, I immediately submitted my edit for review at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. You feel free to move this discussion there, and continue it in my absence. As far as I'm concerned the matter is closed.

Hesperian 13:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of Hollowpoint Marketing

Hollowpoint Marketing is a Trademark. It is highly acceptable to have a page on wikipedia that identifies a trademark. If Telstra has a page, and Ebay has a page, then who decides how important that company is? You? I'd appreciate it if you DO NOT delete the page, but instead ask for references, input, etc as to the page's validity. Hollowpoint Marketing is as valid as Telstra. You are just judging on the basis of size. I think it's time that wikipedia started controlling how much other users can edit. --Hollowpointr (talk) 20:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would ask formally that you undo the deletion, and allow me some time to edit the article in order to SHOW the relevance of the material, instead of just deleting things BEFORE asking me why this article is important. Should the page not be re-instated, I will have to submit a written complaint about your actions and recommend you be removed as an Admin. I'd like to see you remove all pages that relate to a company/band/group/trademark and see just how that sits with wiki users and wikipedia themselves. --Hollowpointr (talk) 21:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you are going to exclude companies, then here are a stack of them that you might want to delete before asking the author:

There are literally thousands of pages relating to companies. You have chosen to delete mine. Please undelete or a complaint will be issued. --Hollowpointr (talk) 21:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For your information, Hollowpoint Marketing, which is trademarked to Hollowpoint Pty Ltd, is a marketing method for online advertising, as would have been made apparent HAD I been able to continue with my article. Your speedy deletion is not the first time you have made a revert/deletion in error (you did it with my Telstra edit), so I would have to include that as part of my case for having an Admin removed (ongoing personal attack). --Hollowpointr (talk) 21:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

discusison has moved onto [[Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Hollowpoint_Marketing please post further comments there Gnan garra 02:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vogons

I really dont know how au fait you might be with the late douglas adamses rather dated many part farce sometimes called the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy but the vogon captain said that ford prefect and arthur dent's response to his crappy poetry was that death was too good or easy for them before ejecting thm from his spacecraft - maybe i am being too kind to put creatures that are extinct into the biota category? your advice can be received with ease as i have returned from the wanderings. Satu Suro 13:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back mate. Yeah, put it in; it's all biota. I'll work up an extinct category structure over the next week or so. We've already got some categories for Aus mammals (Category:Extinct mammals of Australia) and SA mammals (Category:Extinct mammals of South Australia) but not for most other taxa nor other states. If you stick Tasmanian tiger into Category:Fauna of Western Australia, you'll probably get reverted by someone possessing the profound advantage of a simple mind. Once I've created Category:Extinct fauna of Western Australia you should have no such problem. Hesperian 13:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]