User talk:Mav/archive 10

March 2003

Hello mav. Hope you still enjoy wiki. Juanan annouced that he is installing the new server + wiki3. Hope this message please you. Have fun. --Youssefsan

Cool. Hopefully they will start talking out moving back to es.wiki as soon as the non-profit is up. I admit that one of the reasons why I haven't contributed much to es.wiki lately is because I am unsure about how a future merge would happen and whether or not all the work I do on es.wiki will be lost when EL comes back. --mav 05:14 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

I have left you a message on my page. Things are not soo good :-( Youssefsan

Ah, the beautiful passive voice. "It was decided". I had no part in the decision, and disagree with it. --The Cunctator

But it still was decided - just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean the decision can be ignored. --mav

Just because I don't agree means that there wasn't a decision (on the part of Wikipedia). --The Cunctator

What? And who gave you veto power? Consensus does not require unanimity. --mav

Hello. I was just wondering about those French-language stubs you deleted earlier. Did you just not see my arrangement with Camembert on Votes for deletion, where I said I would translate them...? I know I went away, but I was going to come back to them... -- Oliver P. 04:37 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Hm. No - if you like I will restore them. --mav

They were not meant to be posted to this wiki at all; Athymik was running a test of his bot on test.wikipedia.org and something ran amok, with part of the run falling on the wrong host. --Brion 04:40 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, yes, I realised they shouldn't have appeared in the first place, but I thought since they had, they could be turned into something vaguely useful. I'm not really that bothered about them disappearing, but since I'd said I'd deal with them, I was just surprised to see them gone. It doesn't really matter, as if I'm in a translating mood I can always go and get something more substantial from the French-language Wikipedia or something... Or the Esperanto one... :) -- Oliver P. 04:49 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Well, knock yourself out. --Brion 04:57 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Mav, I did a tot of the votes on the question of which system of dates to use and the result came out overwhelmingly and decisively in favour of dd/mm/yy. Barring a last minute rush to the polls (you and tell I am involved in politics - I use the lingo!) the decision seems clear. The only remaining question is. when do we implement it? As we have just started a new month, it would make sense to do so a.s.a.p. so that it can be said 'as and from March 2003'. Any thoughts? JtdIrL 07:09 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

This is a major change and should be thought through a lot first. We are only now making redirects for the International style. The next phase would be moving the day articles then somebody is going to have to write a bot to change over all day links to the new style (just the links - otherwise the bot will cause trouble where there are numbers next to month names). This last part is very important to me - otherwise Wikipedia will be mostly in the American format for possibly years to come and will have a nasty looking mess of missmatched styles. IMO without the automatic conversion the status quo is best. --mav

Hi Mav,

I have a problem with the naming of some of my articles. In the "Wikipedia naming convention" I could not find the answer. My problem is: In South Tyrol, Italy, we have two official languages. German and Italian. So, every city, every place, every mountain has two names. Two official names. What should the title of the article then be? e.g.: Bolzano / Bozen (but I have seen, the / is a problem in titles). BTW, the problem of which one comes first, italian or german, I am already afraid of that discussion... Thanks for your help, Fantasy 21:34 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Answer on your talk page. --mav

First, thanks for the answer. But I have two more questions :

1) Where should a discussion like this be held? Wikipedia naming convention?

2) Only recently a University in Bozen was founded: http://www.unibz.it/ You can see there on the top for the language selection:

- Freie Universität Bozen

- Libera Universita di Bolzano

- Free University of Bozen - Bolzano

As you can see, the "english" name is "Bozen-Bolzano" Can I use that as a title, or is that not liked in Wikipedia? Thanks, Fantasy

Bozen - Bolzano looks perfectly acceptable to me. But this discussion should be moved to a place where more people interested in the outcome can see it. You can copy this thread to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions. --mav

Great, thanks. I did not put my question on that talk page, because I am still a little bit unsecure about what to ask where, and you are till now the only person I know in Wikipedia. But probably by contributing in more "public" talks I will get to know more people ;-) Thanks for your help, Fantasy

I'm glad I was able to help. :) --mav

Hey Mav: I see you have a photo on your page? How excatly do I download one of mine into mine?

Thanks and God bless you

Antonio Boy, Interrupted Martin

Just use the Special:Upload page and if you want to align the image use the text on Wikipedia:Boilerplates. --mav

Dear Mav: Thanks for answering my question so fast! I will try what you said, even if it takes me 20 times to get my photo right.

Thanks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio The Crazy One Martin

Mav, you still working with WikiProject:Tree of Life? Some thoughts on the talk there that I would like somebody's input on, before I create more potentially invalid tables. Thanks, Josh Grosse

Yep - I'll be right there. --mav

Thanks. Although, Im afraid it means I'm probably here too much! %] -&#35918&#30505

Just wanted to tell you, that I added the death to Current Events, b/c I notice Fred Rogers death was on February 2003. I thought I was editing March 2003. I hadn't realized I had been redirected. Why exactly does March 2003 have to redirect to Current Events? Is this done every month? Please respond on my talk page. MB 00:27 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Mav, please see Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards. I'll hold off changing more pages pending further discussion. -- RobLa 06:09 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Just wondering on your opion of an idea (not a big one) i had. This idea will be more important when/if a paper or cd/dvd wikipedia is made. What needs to be doen is that a British English Wikipedia, American English by taking the current English version and copying it on too different databases, some automation process to chaneg spelling. These will be locked for editing. But some times updated say every 20,000 articles. I think thsi is mroe important for wiktionary where you get different thinsg like this ike Portugese (Brazillian) etc. -fonzy (I dont know if what i sadi makes sence) :-s

I see very little benefit by forking the project because of spelling differences. However, in any print edition it would be a an easy task to compile a list of American and British spellings and then have a script search and replace all the yank speelings. --mav

O also on the Periodic Table, we have loads of tables except for a plain table. :-s font know if you think that is needed. -fonzy

? Are you talking about the most recent updates to the standard table? If so, then yes, the other tables should also be updated - but I see no hurry for that. --mav

No i meant we have many special tables but no "plain" tables. - fonzy

Mav -- why, every time I think it's safe to come back, I decide that it's not worth it: Elliot's latest -- JHK

Elliot should not have done that - it is against policy. --mav

Thank you for the deletion log link. I am updating my query to Zoe but I am also concerned that I am going bonkers, as I can still see the pages and images. Um. Caching of some sort somewhere? Lag on deletions?? Give me a clue! Nevilley 07:53 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

It looks like Zoe deleted the image description page and not the image (there are two delete links on these blasted pages and you have to click both of them - which is really bad design). I'll see if I can delete the images and I'll also leave a note for Zoe telling her about the image page design flaw (that confused the hell out of me the first time too). --mav

OK the pictures have really gone, thanks. At the moment the pages are still there - that is, Image:Shanghai1.jpg, Image:Shanghai2.jpg, Image:Cabottwr.JPG - but this is hardly going to destroy the server as they must be 0.47 nanobytes each or something. Thanks for your help and for your other comments (now read and removed). Nevilley 08:18 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Aha! Oh no they aren't! - these pages don't really exist, do they? I just tried Image:dkfjhsfdlkjls.jpg and guess what it looks the same! Doh. Thanks, and sorry about the above paragraph which is fuelled by incomprehension. Nevilley 08:21 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

It's not your fault - the image pages just work very strangly. --mav

Could you explain how I am being insulting on

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Annoying_users

Susan Mason

And if in the future he continues to attack me, what am I supposed to do? Susan Mason

I told both of you to stop it. --mav

I doubt he will. Him, Zoe, Severtigo, and RK seem to have a cult of hate formed against me. Susan Mason

Try being less confrontational than them and see what happens. --mav

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:U.S._presidential_election%2C_2000

I believe just about the only way my confrontation level could drop any lower would be for me to stop stating my opinion and simply agree with whatever they tell me to think. Susan Mason

Also note

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Zoe&diff=0&oldid=736359

where they have found yet another name to call me and continue to disparage me, this despite the fact that others have agreed with me on my latest attempt to vandalize the site by suggesting a change via a talk page.

Susan Mason

Thanks for adding Ray Nitschke's birthday to the list of years. Nitschke was a super man. -- Ô¿Ô

All in a days work. Thanks for the 'thank you'. :) --mav

Hello Maveric. Thank you very much for your welcome message and also for the links to some useful pages for me. I will make sure to read through them so that my future contributions will be more consistent and in line with established Wiki styles and standards. Best Regards, --Keyvan.

Don't worry too much about following our conventions at this stage. Just have fun contributing. You'll get the hang of our conventions soon enough just by looking at other articles. :) --mav

Try being less confrontational than them and see what happens. --mav

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:U.S._presidential_election%2C_2000

I believe just about the only way my confrontation level could drop any lower would be for me to stop stating my opinion and simply agree with whatever they tell me to think. Susan Mason

Also note

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Zoe&diff=0&oldid=736359

where they have found yet another name to call me and continue to disparage me, this despite the fact that others have agreed with me on my latest attempt to vandalize the site by suggesting a change via a talk page.

And also:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles)

where Jtdirl essentially observes that everytime I express an opinon which is different than this, that I am then somehow "causing yet more trouble".

Susan Mason

Mav, Danny told me to ask you about ask you about the policies on copying something that doesn't have a copyright notice at the bottom but without permission from the webmaster. Please tell me about it. - LittleDan

Works are copyrighted automatically, even without a copyright notice. So you can not take something that does not have a notice. The only time you can take something is if it has a notice that it is licensed under a license compatible with the GNU FDL, or if it is specifically noted as being in the public domain. --snoyes 01:46 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Public domain status may also be determined on the basis of age; also, keep in mind the important concept of fair use. Of course, you can always restate the contents of a copyrighted text in your own words - copyright only applies to the exact words used, not the ideas conveyed. Mkweise 03:54 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

IANAL: It should be noted, however, that because of the GNU FDL license on our text we are very limited in the amount of text we can use under the "fair use" doctrine. Specifically we shouldn't use more than a few short passages; those passages must be in quotes, and should have some type of commentary or explanatory text. But even that is discouraged by old-timers (who prefer completely original text or text adapted text from a public domain resource).

We are much more lax, however, on the "fair use" of copyrighted images and media files so long as they are being used to help illustrate the articles and have an educational purpose (and there use is not excessive; a couple of 30 second music clips out of a 15 track album in an article on the album would be fair but the whole CD, or even a large part of it, would not). Another example; A photo showing an actresses face would be fine because it illustrates how the person looks, but a photo of her naked body goes beyond the purely educational purpose of uniquely identifying the actress. Of course use your best judgment and avoid using images or media files, even if technically under "fair use", if you get the feeling that the owner would likely challenge us on our "fair use" claim. --mav

"a photo of her naked body goes beyond the purely educational purpose" - let's hope that "DFP Jnr" doesn't read this. He may go berserk at this latest attack upon the foundations of freedom of speech ( well, those would at least approximate his words for it....) Arno 06:57 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Jesus Christ about his birth and death years. SCCarlson 05:18 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

quick note: see Talk:March 12. -- Tarquin 23:08 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Mav, you confident that your use of the Barry Sheene photo is "fair use"? --136.186.1.117 00:19 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

It is a correct depiction of him, no? It is being used to illustrate to the reader how he looks, yes? We are still a not-for-profit entity with an educational purpose, right? --mav

Unilateral action. Splendid. :) Didn't have the guts to do it myself... ;-) Martin

Sorry for being such a pain on the Japanese emperor naming issue. It is an issue I feel strongly about, but I've said my piece. But Taku is causing another big problem. He is setting up double, treble and quadruple redirects all over the place. I came across one emperor yesterday where not alone could you not tell who he was, you couldn't even get to his biographical page because you ended up stuck between redirects! And he refuses point blank to go back and fix links to pages he has set double, treble or quadruple redirects to. And he also has some in as 'x' Emperor, others at 'x' emperor, with the latter having more directs. Can you please have a word with him. It is a complete mess. PEACE, STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:26 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay - technical problems with my ISP. It looks like things are getting under control now, no? --mav

Who says you can't get anything done at work? I seem to do most of my contributing from the office. :) -- goatasaur 03:09 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)

LOL. I used-do way too much Wikipedia at work so I cut back big time. Pesky things like performance evaluations are something not to be taken lightly when the job market favors employers and so many people are unemployed. Life sucks - I wish I could do Wikipedia full time and get paid for it. --mav

Dear Mav: Hi! You needto keep an eye on Michael. Go to his talk page: You'll see he often erases any comments that are made to teach him how to write or improve his work (which means he doesnt listen), he has gotten into controversy about the facts stated on some of his articles, and he ABSOLUTELY does not want his articles edited, he says so himself.

I dont know if these are grounds to be sent into the doggie house (banned), but I think it's worth a look.

Thanks and God bless you!!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Everybody Have Fun Tonight!! Martin

Yes - we are aware of Michael and are in the process of dealing with him. He has one more week to change for the better or else we will send him into the canine hut as you suggest. --mav

Yr link bad. This not good. Make tiny edits. Come bck soon when link fix good. Then say more like usual thing. :) Good luck. Bye bye. Nvl

Thanks for the advice! Everything started working on its own - which was weird. --mav

No problem Mav. It was just my attempt to put that scene in its probable historical context. It might be what actually happened in the two's conversation. TürkSanatMüziği

It certainly looks like that was the type of thing they were talking about. :) --mav

You've got mail. Danny

>Just so you know, there is no need to have underscores in-between linked >words here. Solar system works just fine. The underscores are ugly too - esp. >for people, like me, who have their user settings set not to underline >links. --mav

Allright, will try to keep it in mind --Golthar

I saw your comment to The Epopt. Did you notice we are trying out your table for the dog breeds Wikiproject too? I've been fiddling with it in my sandbox but will transfer it to the right page soon. I guess we could use different colours there too, if we could find 11 that would work. -- sannse 08:27 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

That's great! Although that table was a team effort. Are there only 11 major dog breed branches? Even that number may be too much for what it is worth - but by all means go ahead and experiment. But if you choose to only have one color I would suggest pink -- just because that is the color that WikiProject Tree of Life uses for animals. --mav

The international dog breed association (the FIC) groups the breeds into 10, and we would need an 11th colour for breeds not recognised by the FIC. It seemed better to go for the FIC listing as a classification system because there are discrepancies between the UK, US, Australian etc. classifications. But it may be better to just get things going with one colour and worry about the frills later :) I'm not a fan of pink ("I'm just wearing black until they invent a darker colour") but it makes sense to tie it in with the Tree of Life stuff until we figure out another scheme. So pink it is! -- sannse 08:57 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

OIC - that makes sense and would probably be very useful. Pink isn't my favorite color either - but becuase it is already used for animals it would make for a nice default color for now and could later be the "non-categorized" color (You could also use light salmon as the color #ffc0c0 if you really don't like pink). Of course, it is your project and your decision. :) --mav

Mine and others :) there are three of us involved so far. Many thanks for the help and advice, I'm feeling all enthused again now.

BTW, I meant to say, thanks for the kind response to my sysop request on the mailing list. That really gave me a dose of the warm and fuzzys. -- sannse 09:23 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

I call 'em as I see 'em. You are a great addition to Wikipedia and there didn't seem to be any reason at all why you shouldn't be a sysop. --mav

Regarding the picture of the brachial plexus brachialplexus.gif, I did not make it myself. I copied it from http://depts.washington.edu/anesth/regional/brachialplexusanatomy.html. I checked everywhere I could find at this site for a copyright page or a contact page and found none. If you find otherwise, I can find other diagrams from government public source.

Answer on your talk page. --mav

Back with us? Hope your ISP is cooperating? -- Zoe

90% there. I'm still getting timeouts, but that may be slowness on Wikipedia's end. --mav

You've got IM.

Please delete the following firvolous entries from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iranians

Alie Daei; President Hashemi; President Khatami; Princess Leila of Iran.

I have given a brief explanation on the "discuss this page" of Princess Leila as to why such entries should not be included. If every nation wanted to include every president, princess, soccer player, pop singer and the like they ever had, Wikipedia would soon become a giant database of frivolous information. --Keyvan

?? Over than a need for a good copyedit, some NPOVing and more wikifying what exactly is wrong with the articles? They don't appear to be copyright violations or serious violations of our NPOV policy. As for the list; it is still short, when it gets longer you can be more selective (or even create sub-lists such as List of Iranians (sports figures)). But there is nothing stopping you from editing the page in order to improve it. BTW, Votes for deletion is where you list articles that you think should be deleted. However, in this case I really don't see what is wrong with the articles you listed. --mav

OK, thanks. Your sublist idea will work. I guess I can wait till the list gets longer and then create sublists and move entries around. Regards, --Keyvan.

mav, why did you re-direct Nexus to The Nexus? It seems like there can be other uses for that page as a disambiguation page. -- Zoe

Before the redirect it was just a "see also" to The Nexus. So given the choice between deletion and redirecting I chose redirection. Please make a proper disambiguation page as soon as another non-dictionary use of the word comes along. --mav

Mav, how do you resize a picture and add it to a table, like you did with Turtle dove? jimfbleak 07:00 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

BTW, for US ships I haven't been mentioning DANFS in a reference subheading because the relationship seems more appropriate for a colophon-type note, like the 1911EB notes at the end of so many articles. (I guess I should make it official by putting this comment on the wikiproject page instead of here. :-) ) Stan 18:06 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

What can I do to stem the flow of allegations, by User:RK, that I (a Jew) am somehow anti-Judaic? Susan Mason

Just edit articles that he doesn't care about for a while. --mav

The timing on that, if nothing else, just about gave me a heart attack. *chuckle* Hephaestos

Opps! :) --mav

Mav? "Tarquin is making this stuff up" (my talk page). I'm confused .... the first section of Wikipedia:Disambiguation is actually my writing, copyediting what was there earlier. have I contradicted myself somewhere in what I've said to Black widow? -- Tarquin 10:09 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)~

And there is good reason why you are confused - I screwed-up. Sorry. :) --mav

ROTFL! -- tarq

Thanks for the kind welcome. With all the initial contributions made @ Wikipedia... one of the most invaluable would be your log in. May you be well and happy!
By the way, the 'WARNING: This page is 39 kilobytes long' frightened me! Has the heavy content ever caused a disaster? Usedbook 21:25 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Can you delete UserMod page, it was a mis-name. Thanks.Mac

mav, I've copy-edited the "slogan" aspect of gay pride into a "campaign". Is this better? Less insulting, anyway? --Uncle Ed 14:11 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

Mav, I've renamed the page. I checked through the web and all major websites capitalised Single Transferable Vote - eg, discussions of electoral systems of Malta, Ireland, etc. the BBC website, academic websites, etc. In fact wiki stood out like a sore thumb on the page of websites with mention of STV in the lower case. I hope my dogmatism hasn't gotten on your nerves. Maybe I take wiki too seriously; I want to see things 100% right all over the place. Apologies if I have been irritating you. Usually I agree with you 100% on things - you practice the standards on wiki that I wish everyone else would aim for. I probably have sounded rather bad-tempered lately but I guess I take this project very very seriously. (My BF thinks I am mad devoting so many hours to a project I don't get paid for like the days of work I put into Papal Tiara!) I'll let you get back to your work. Slán, STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:50 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

Everything is fine. :) It is perfectly healthy for people to disagree on things. Like I said this case was borderline for me but as a general rule our capitalization convention does far more good than bad. Of course, all rules have exceptions and people will disagree on which terms should be special cases. Yours in the wiki - mav ---mav 03:13 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

I think you may want to remove/rephrase "1882 - Polygamy is outlawed by the United States Congress." from March 22 . Check out Talk:Polygamy -- Someone else 07:29 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

Done. --mav

Mav - if Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pieces of music) isn't "official" yet, as you said in an edit summary to Wikipedia naming conventions, when exactly does it become "official"? --Camembert

A consensus needs to be formed on it in the mailing list. --mav

I wasn't aware of that. I'll send an email to the list so that everyone is aware the convention is up for discussion, but I think the actual discussion would be better taking place on the relevent talk page rather than the list. --Camembert

Mav - these birds are nice, but I´m not sure what the copyright notice allows and what it doesn´t. It says The project Botany online - The Internet Hypertextbook inclusive of all its parts is copyrighted. Each utilization exceeding the limits of the copyright is inhibited unless Botany online has agreed to it. This holds especially for duplications, translations and the feeding into and processing in data processing systems with the aim of commercial use. This copyright note has to be added to all non-commercial copies. Is that enough for Wikipedia use? Best regards, Kosebamse 10:28 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Ah crap. I was told that they were PD or essentially PD because they were scanned from an out of copyright book. Maybe the above is either not legal or only pertains to text? --mav

More about the copyright: Botany online is based on the textbook 'Botanik' by Peter von Sengbusch (Mc Graw Hill Book Company, 1989). The original text has been supplemented by hundreds of coloured illustrations and photos by animated molecular models, short animations of movements and flower diagrams(...) Couldn´t find anything particular about the pictures, though and don´t have e-mail access right now to ask the authors. Somebody else know more about this? Best regards, Kosebamse 10:45 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

I'll look into this later. Until then I'll direct the main uploader here. --mav

Main uploader here. I found this site through Cordyph, a German speaking contributor, who says they are free of copyright. The images are certainly old enough to be out of copyright, and I can't see that the fact that another publication is using them will change that. I can't speak German, so you might need to talk to him.

Also, I take the point made by you and Tarquin about names of images. I didn't realise there was no warning if an image file was given the same name.

Sorry about the unintentional sabotage of Prion and Merlin. I should have realised that I needed to move the links (perhaps I should have read the disambig page!)jimfbleak 12:00 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

The German text isn´t any more informative, but if Cordyph knows more about the pictures then it´s probably all fine. I was just worried because I couldn´t find any particulars on the source website and the copyright notice is rather vague. Sorry for the uproar. Best regards, Kosebamse 12:16 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Ah...shame on me. There is indeed information about the source, it´s from 1905. Again, sorry. Kosebamse 12:19 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

I've just found this thread. You should ask me, if you want to know more about why I started uploading the pictures and why I told Jimfbleak, that they are free of copyright. We had a short discussion on the mailing list about the source. Here is some more information about that: http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-March/009452.html. If you have further questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. - Cordyph 21:07 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

--- I appreciate the support on JC tlk page -- thanks (and have a good night)Slrubenstein

Mav,
You are wuved and respected by those who may not explicitly so say. Turn that wikifrown upside down and be happy! Pwease! ---- Someone else 07:49 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

LOL Thanks! I really needed that. :) --mav

Hey Mav how are you? We missed you at wikipedia while you left a few days ago. Just a quick question for you. Reading the pages about pornography made me think that men that check out women (something Im guilty of, LOL) are called Peeping Tom. What are women who check on men called?

Sincerely yours, Antonio Peeping Antonio Martin

Hm. I'm not sure. In my usage "Peeping Tom" is gender-neutral. I'm not aware of a term that means the same thing but is only for females. --mav

Dear Mav: I have an emergency. it seems someone vandalized my page abou Lil' Bow Wow.The vandalism was erased , but looking to find my version to restore it, it doesnt appear anywhee either. This is an emergency, this was a good article and I dont want to see it get erased. What do I do to find my old version?

Thanks and God bless!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Desperate Martin

Your version is at Bow Wow - the vandal made Lil' Bow Wow and then that page was redirected to Bow Wow. Nothing has been lost. :) --mav

Hello mav I was just reminding you (just in case you'd forgotten) to add Beeching axe to the historical anniversaries section on the main page.G-Man 0:14 UTC 28/3/03

It's only been 14 minutes - it is on my ToDo list. --mav

Done. --mav

Thanks - G-Man

Saddams’s not my hero. But he sure looks like her hero. I mean, I’ve never held up a portrait of a US president (not even my favorite, FDR) with such fervent-looking devotion.

Regardless, I like your wording better. But I’ll still say that my intial wording wasn’t ridiculous.

172

Please don't use the guys first name instead of his last name (it is too personable and therefore amateurish - I wouldn't dream of using "Bill" in the Bill Clinton article when referring to him). It is not our job here to interpret and make judgments, only to report what the current prevailing views on subjects are. --mav

Arabs have a tendency to call their leaders by their first names. But I’ll change that. I’ll try to find some more neutral-sounding synomyms for words like “egalitarian” too.

172

Also noting who thinks so would be nice. Remember you cannot be the one expressing opinions in articles per our NPOV policy. But if there is a legit opinion that is widely-held then simply report on that; say "such and such group thinks this, but so and so thinks that". --mav

The article goes into detail about the oppressive nature of his regime. I believe that there’s even a paragraph on this topic.

The gasing of the Kurds is not mentioned (it wasn’t mentioned before my edits either) because the article doesn’t go into great depth on the Iran-Iraq War. I believe that there’s a separate article on that war and I’m sure that this incident is mentioned in that article. However, I will check to make sure.

All the information in the article is accurate, as it was before my edits. The article isn’t necessarily biased or non-NPOV; it’s just incomplete. More is needed on the current war. More is needed on the Iraq-Iran War. Once it is complete, all the notable autrocities will be mentioned.

172

Maybe it is just me but I would have mentioned the bad with the good if I were the one adding so much text. If I gave the impression that I thought the added text was a violation of NPOV then I apologize - the text itself isn't so necessarily POV but it is just that certain very important negative aspects of this man's life were left out (like his brutal rise to power, the fact that he was a hit man, had/has a reputation for not hesitating to kill somebody, and that his first day of rule he culled all his opponents by having somebody read-off names of the "disloyal" members of the Baath party). --mav

]--mav

I'll try to get to that. Right now the article just gives a broad overview of Saddam's impact on Iraqi society. It lacks, for now, details regarding his rise to power and the Iraq-Iran War autrocities. But the despotism of his regime is evident in the article although the chronicling is incomplete.

172

Why did you delete "Nagasaki Massacre"? If you think, "much more on the bombing already at Nagasaki", isn't redirect to Nagasaki far better than erasing it without leaving any trace? -- Nanshu 13:36 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

It was a badly-named orphan with two badly-written sentences. The first sentence mentioned the time, date and number of deaths of the bombing (which is exactly what is in Nagasaki already) and the second sentence was a highly POV statement condemning the US. --mav

So, was it neccessary to delete without leaving any trace? It looks abuse of privilege to me. -- Nanshu 02:23 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

There was no reason to have it - it was a poorly named and written newbie experiment that had zero information in it that wasn't already at Nagasaki. Dozens of pages like this are deleted daily. --mav

Why did you delete my work ? You think you want to protect a rule,you should carry out not erasing but rewriting.And you should know the fact before erasing. Cozy 13:49 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

The text was too badly POV and written to be salvagable and the titles were too wrong as well. --mav

I’m asking you to mitigate an NPOV dispute.

Danny has written a blatantly propagandistic introduction to the Robert Mugabe article. He says that he’s ‘calling a spade a spade.’ Frankly, this is an admission to violating NPOV guidelines.

Quoting only sources hostile to Mugabe’s land reforms is inappropriate in an introduction. Saying that he’s been rejected by the “international community” is also inappropriate. Since when did the Western ex-colonial powers account for the entirety of the international community?

You’re a fair arbitrator of many disputes, so I’m looking forward to your intervention.

172

OK, I'll look into it - but Danny is usually pretty good about being NPOV. --mav

Thanks Mav for putting Turkish Airlines at the main page's current events category. And to 172: Mav is not fair, he's the best!!

God bless you

Sincerely yours, Antonio Hurry, let's get Saddam!!! Martin

No problemo y gracias! --mav

Hi Mav. I see 172 has already been complaining about me. Let me just say that I wasted the entire morning on his removal of material and addition of plagiarized texts. So did some others. It wasn't a POV dispute, but rather a case of him/her trolling. Then again, I'll let you form your own opinion. Danny

Hey, mav. As one of the people who has expressed the most interest in Protista et al., I was wondering if you had any opinions on what we should be doing with it. Please see Talk:Protista. Thanks! --Josh

Hey, mav, not a problem, I can work on the day pages ahead of time. -- Zoe

Coolness! Thanks. :) --mav

Hi, mav! Are you up late, or up early? I'm trying to distinguish between the political phrase (or slogan) coalition of the willing and the actual countries which have indicated various degrees of support or opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (I think I'm being thwarted by someone who wants to (a) keep all this info in one article and (b) ridicule the White House use of the term coalition of the willing.)

I think the Wikipedia should remain neutral on such political questions such as:

Does a "coalition of the willing" actually exist, or is it a figment of George Bush's imagination?
What countries really support the US position on the war?
Is Bush full of shitake mushrooms, or what?

Rather, I would prefer we contribute articles which provide the background information that will enable readers to make up their own minds on these and other important questions. --Uncle Ed 11:47 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

If not "coalition of the willing", then what do you propose to call the group of nations that are providing support to the US-led war? This seems like a perfectly natural title to me. --mav

How about U.S.-led_coalition_against_Iraq? It's neutral and timeless. I'd like to have have another article called coalition of the willing or, better, slogan: coalition of the willing to discuss the term itself and its political use by the White House and criticiasm of the term by opponents.

The article as I found it this morning veered off into countries which (a) are not US allies in the war and (b) weren't even mentioned as "coalition" members.

I have no position on the war. I just want clarity in the articles. --Uncle Ed

"slogan:"? Since when did we get a namespace for slogans? Please use natural titles for things unless: 1) there is an ambiguity or 2) the term is unreasonably offensive. U.S.-led coalition against Iraq is as good as anything if you feel it is necessary to separate the slogan from its subject. Peace be with you - I need to get into bed before the sun rises. :) --mav

Yo. could you bring up on wikipedia-L the idea of re-establishing something like "article a day queue," but with an rss feed that allows syndication, sending the first paragraph of 1 - 5 articles a day? maybe setting up voting/submission system to work out which articles to send, and making it multilingual? just some ideas. thanks, Koyaanis Qatsi

Seconded, that's a great idea. --Brion

be much easier for wiktionaries word of teh dya too. -fonzy

We already have an article a day - A new day page is automatically displayed each day which in turn has many articles linked from it. I also add at least three new historical anniversaries onto the Main Page daily (and then there are the updates to the other parts of ==Selected Articles==). But the syndication idea would be most useful at promoting Wikipedia. Perhaps we could syndicate the whole ==Selected Articles== section? --mav

Hi Mav, I am not quite satisfied with the image of Robert Mugabe. The image quality of the original image (before downscaled) was already far from perfect, but now after downscaling his face is harldy recognizable.

Do you think there is an other solution for that? Yes, I know the policy about images. But in this case I would prefer to stay with at least 400 pixel width by removing parts from the left and right (this should be within the limit of the policy) and only slightly downscale. Other possibilities would be 1. removing Kofi Annan from the picture 2. access to the original picture as an additional link

What do you think? Thanks in advance for your input :-) -- mkrohn 19:10 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

Response in on your talk page. --mav

Mav, I'm puzzled by what you are doing to the Mugabe picture. Why do you keep removing the embedding? Without a cearly defined box in runs all over the place - when I looked at it a moment ago, its box was running into the browze commands. It looked even worse when I went in using Mozilla. Pictures are never entered that way in laid out documents for two reasons. 1. Not embedding it makes it dominate text, in effect editorialising it. So every publication always embeds a picture in text not separate from it, to illustrate not editorialise. In the form you put it in it is now dominating the page through running (very clumsily) over one entire column, even though its size does not justify it. Giving a picture whose size does not warrant it is a fundamental 'no no' in graphic layout, by appearing to give special weight to the image and what it contains, in this case yoy must look at this: Mugabe with K. Annan, 'he's an OK guy, or else the UN General Secretary wouldn't be meeting him'. 2. Unless you 'limit' a picture, it moves and throws text boxes out of shape. (I've just finished layout out an advertorial for an Irish politician. It involved nineteen pictures and every image, to avoid POVing a text, to create a reader-friendly standard recognisable layout and avoid images shifting on the computer page and screwing up text wraps, had to be embedded.)

In any case, this picture is clearly POV and takes the image completely out context, not mentioning that the UN General Secretary reluctantly agreed to be photographed with him, Chirac gave him the coldest of handshakes and the others there would not be photographed with him. All that is completely missing from an explanation of the image.

I am going to re-embed the image in the text as it would be in any professionally laid out document or any uncyclopædia but it should be removed completely. Pages on wiki that embed pictures look professional. Those that don't look weird and amateurish. Hope you understand where I am coming from. :) STÓD/ÉÍRE 19:40 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

What the heck are you talking about JT? All I did was reduce not ENGLARGE the size of the image and then killed the set width (which was at 450 px). Why is it important to set a width in the image's table the the special type of rendering here in Wikipedia? I tested the display of the image at lower resolutions and it was fine - I didn't see any text overlapping at all. Could you perhaps provide a screenshot and tell me which browser/platform/screen resolution you were using? I'm also not the one who uploaded the file - that was 172. So please don't imply that I was trying to use the image to advance some type of POV agenda (I in fact don't care much for Mugabe at all). The only reason I dowscaled the image to 300 px instead of the more friendly 250 px was becasue the size of their faces would have been too small to offer much by the way of identifying detail. BTW, it is very obvious to me the Annan is not at all happy about having his picture taken with Mugabe and the image, in fact, backfires as fare as Mugabe propaganda is concerned (a crop of just Mugabe's face from the large image still might be better). And please don't lecture me on graphic design - I do this stuff daily at work and have won several awards and promotions for my graphic design. So before you give somebody a lecture in the future could you please do your homework first? ;-) This isn't the type of thing I like to read right after getting-up. Thanks! --mav

In 172's defense by 172:

Mav:

A lot of contributors have accused me of loving my dictators. While I admit to being sympathetic to Mugabe’s land reforms, this reputation really stems from the fact that I’m a modern historian with expertise in single-party states, colonialism, and de-colonization who refuses to tolerate simplistic history that fails to understand events and historical actors in a social, political, and economic context.

We don’t need lists chronicling all the things that make Saddam Hussein, Stalin, and Mugabe evil men. Instead, we need articles that are both illuminating and informative that describe what kinds of agendas these men have had, what kinds of often-shifting support bases they’ve cultivated or represented, what kinds of ideological, material, institutional, or factional interests they’ve represented or appealed to, what kinds of conditions, geo-strategic or domestic, have laid the groundwork for their dictatorships, what kinds of adversities (foreign and domestic) did they face and how they responded to them, what kinds of foreign interests influenced their domestic policies as well as their diplomatic and military policies, and especially how they rose to power.

Understanding a dictator's society is also critical. There are stark contrasts in the societies that have fallen under dictatorships, from Nazi Germany to Idi Amin's Ugabda (a couple of the most repugnant). Historical conditions, social systems, development levels, cultural traditions and concepts of values greatly vary throughout the work. Understanding the unique realities of a particular society is critical. What's often unacceptable and even unimaginable in the United States is commonplace and even essential in other societies.

An encyclopedia will explain why these figures are noteworthy; thus, primary attention must be paid to how their regimes responded to problems in their societies, or if they exasperated them, or if they reconciled them. If you studied the great dictatorships of the twentieth century, you’d see that they’re often riding the waves of great, often revolutionary social transformations or attempting to keep the lid on conflict in order to prevent such a social revolution. Often, when a new group seizes power they resort to autocratic forms of rule to prevent the old regime from making a comeback or to prevent rival interests from seizing power. Dictatorships, in short, are the products of conflict. And conflict tends to be heightened during early stages of modernization and industrialization, explaining why they’re very much a twentieth century phenomenon. I have yet to discover a modern dictatorship that hasn’t been.

Conflict (often conceptualized by radical ideologies) and authoritarianism (often rationalized by a radical ideology) are inextricably linked. If I’m pointing that out, I’m not defending a dictator; I’m just explaining his role. In short, I’m going to resist values-laden chronicling that would evaluate a figure like Robert Mugabe as if he were an American statesman.

And regarding the Mugabe article, I defend my edits and persistence.

Here’s that introduction to the Mugabe article that I was trying to remove:

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (born February 21, 1924) has been the head of government in Zimbabwe since 1980. Zimbabwe's hero of the country's war of independence is widely viewed internationally as an authoritarian ruler bent on maintaining his grip on power. He is sharply condemneed by Amnesty International for his human rights abuses against both minority Ndebele people, the opposition MDC (movement for Democratic Change), white residents, and homosexuals. According to South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, he is a "caricature of an African dictator." Because of his controversial policies, Zimbabwe has been refused participation in the Commonwealth.”

Is that NPOV? If that’s not propaganda, I don’t know what is. It sounds like an essay by a 6th grader explaining why he thinks Mugabe is a bad guy. Though it hurt my reputation among lay readers of history who think that I love totalitarianism, eventually I forced other contributors to tone the bias of that introduction down.

As for the Saddam article, those charges of me being a dictator-loving ideologue are even more ridiculous. Information on the autrocities brought up by one reader during the Iraq-Iran War wasn’t in the article before my contributions. Why should I be faulted for its original lack of content?

Regardless, there are links in that article that chronicle his atrocities.

In short, I don’t deserve my infamous reputation as an uncooperative apologist for dictators.

172

I think you are confusing "neutral in tone" with NPOV. It is true that your text is by and large "neutral in tone" but given the large amount of text you add to articles "neutral in tone" text that only has information in it that is favorable to the subject is a POV of omission. It is still a violation of NPOV if you know what the other side thinks about a particular policy and then don't report on that at the same time as you are going into great detail on why the subject (or like-minded people) thinks it was a good policy. That is only half the story. Normally "neutral in tone" text is perfectly fine for contributors to input into articles becasue usually it is at most a paragraph. But when you input pages of text then there is an added onus on you to make sure you are presenting the subject in a balanced, as in NPOV, mannor. It is also not at all called for to copy large chucks of national history into an article on a dictator. But it is appropriate to comment on aspects of that history that the dictator directly influenced (this also should be made obvious to the reader). --mav

172, althought I agree you do not deserve some of the hostility shown to you. I also do not feel you deserve your belief that you are so much more knowledgeable than others. You are not the only historian.... Furthermore, your work can not possibly be POV because it comes from YOU and will always be your POV until somebody else comes and adds their input. Dietary Fiber

Mav, thanks for your message. Regarding "useless headings", I added them because the principles of information mapping say that each chunk of information should be clearly labeled as to both its content and function. This aids comprehension, use and recall. If you have the time, look at that concept and tell me what you think of it. User:Mkoval

I'm sorry - I was being cranky. But we do tend to keep things simple around here and have a certain style (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style). One big part of the that is to always have a definition in the first paragraphs, so it is redundant to specify a ==Definition== heading. It is also bad heading nesting to specify a H1 heading (=) in the article following the title (which in the great majority of cases will be the only H1 heading). --mav

Let me respond again.

I usually get a l lot of negative reaction when I introduce something with which lay readers are not familiar.

I don’t have a pro-dictator bias. It just seems like that because I’m correcting articles that were already one-sided. History's not a pros and cons analysis anyway. Historians want to know why and how.

Also, I don’t use one explanatory model (like Marxism, World Systems Theory, Dependency Theory, Modernization Theory, etc.) solely. I don’t keep my mind closed to one interpretation.

If an article chronicles any facts, I leave them if they’re accurate. But they must be explained in a context. Statements like ‘he’s an authoritarian dictator bent on staying in power at all cost rejected by the international community’ will go in favor of statements like ‘because of his controversial policies he’s been ejected from the Commonwealth at Britain’s behest'.

If an article mentions that Mugabe has been seizing white-owned farms it must also mention that 4,500 white farmers own 70% in the land in a country of 13 million. The article must also explain why land reform is a touted goal in the Third World. To many, that unacceptable because that's pro-Mugabe POVing. But quoting anti-Mugabe insults by as many famous people as possible is possible because it's a fact that they said those things.

Some can’t tolerate that. To them, Mugabe persecutes homosexuals; he’s a racist; he subverts democracy; he cracks down against NGOs; he rigs elections; he’s unmitigated evil; and he does that because he’s evil.

There are not that many social historians who would accept such simplistic, sweeping conclusions based on superficialities.

172

But my point is that, after going into great detail about how oppressive the Whites were and that Mugabe was just trying to reverse this, you failed to mention the negative aspects of those particular policies - which in fact is the most notable aspect of them. This is a POV of omission. --mav

I don't want to make the Mugabe article into a pros and cons list. But if you insist, the "cons" would be the productivity issues, rule of law issues, and the investment climate issues. We'll let the readers make up their minds regarding the "morality". And I agree that these issues have to be mentioned. After all, Look at Zimbabwe's terrible economic contraction last year.

But I myself didn't mention these issues because the destabilizing effects of the reforms because they were already detailed in the article. It's not that I myself didn't expound on the "negative aspects" because they were already there, not because I'm advancing an agenda.

Almost all the time, the “negative aspects” are already detailed in articles pertaining to dictators. The problem is that the history is not.

Hope this puts an end to the pandemonium.

172

Mav, I see that you added "The first women arrived in the camp on March 26, 1942" to Auschwitz. I find this is rather late. Are you sure that they talk about Auschwitz I, and not about Auschwitz II (Birkenau) here? AxelBoldt 01:25 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

It may very well be Auschwitz II. This was a correction to a day page entry that said the first person arrived in the camp. After checking via Google I saw a whole bunch of references to the first women arriving to Auschwitz on the 26th. Please correct as needed. --mav

It was definitely not Auschwitz I, which was in operation in 1940. Like I told Axel, I have the authoritative History of Auschwitz at work. I will check the date there tomorrow. Danny

Mav!!!! I downloaded netscape 7.0.2. and compared pages with images on under both it and explorer. And guess what? The image commands are incompatible. If you leave out the width command on explorer, two things happen: the image goes dead centre of the page with a lot of ugly white space around it, and the next paragraph overruns by what appears to be the length of four letters. But if you put in the width command to keep the image to a set location on a page in explorer (and but the line width at .1px to make the box line disappears, it appears in netscape with a clumsy bloody line and a box that may be far too big or far too small for the image. So whichever you use will produce major alignment problems for the other browser. (Pardon me for a moment if I use a common Irish swear - ironically, given the 'row' we had over him - Jesus Hooring Christ!!! Fuck fuck fuck. ) There, got it out of my system. And using table rather than <div><div> doesn't seem the to help. I used it for images on a page on the Blessed Virgin Mary and that also is fine on explorer, messed up on netscape. And Mozilla seems to be a cross between the two. So it seems that whichever version you use on one (width or no width) screws up the other. (That's why I was complaining about the Robert Mugabe page. On explorer, his picture appears like this:

opening paragraph

image dead centre with white space all around

second paragraph

Whereas on netscape it is embedded as a right-align in the text. So apologies for appearing so grumpy over images lately. Our computers seem to have been to have been showing us two different layouts. And when I changed something to make it 'work' on explorer, it promptly screwed it up on netscape. And when someone fixed it for netscape, it screwed it up on explorer, leading me to 'fix' it (muttered 'what the fuck???'), screwing it up again on netscape. It was like a very perverted game of vandalistic table tennis! I don't know if you have access to explorer but if you do, look at Papal Tiara. I removed the width commands in two pictures, Pope Paul VI wearing his tiara and the Vatican Flag and both are now centre page with the next paragraphs screwed up! But on netscape with the width commands they looked ridiculous. So what do we do about images??? Put notes on each page saying 'This page should only be viewed on explorer/netscape'. 'if this page looks screwed up, blame your browser'??? I'm just mega pissed off having spent so much time working on some pages with images, now to discover that depending on what browser a person is using, they will either look superb or crap. (And I was paying by the minute to do this!!! Should it send my massive phone bill to explorer, saying 'you pay, you sons of bitches'!!! Anyway, sorry for the grief I was giving you. Blame it on the technology! STÓD/ÉÍRE 03:52 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC) PS: On netscape (which I on right now) when I type this in it comes out in courier font. I HATE COURIER FONT!!! Though it did solve one mystery for me. On the papal tiara page, you reduced the size of the picture of Pope Paul being crowned. It located the new image dead centre and in that location it looked swell. I found myself 'how did he do that?' and for all my first class honours PhD I couldn't work it out. Now I know. When you took out the width, explorer displayed it that way. Whereas with you it was right-aligned with a text-wrap. *sigh* I'm at a loss at what to do. (except maybe sleep!)

Other than the fact that the images are interferring with each other at higher resolutions that page looks fine (all the images that have align tags are aligned as expected). I've tested Konqueror 3.0.3, Mozilla 1.1 (both on Linux Mandrake 9.0) and Internet Explorer 6 on WinXP. --mav

Maybe it is related to a mac? (My version of explorer is 5.2.2. for a Mac) I was thinking, if absence of width causes problems with explorer on a mac, does that mean that maybe we should use the width command, with trial and error on browsers to make sure the box and the picture and properly aligned? STÓD/ÉÍRE 04:16 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

Most contributors don't even know what a pixel is, let alone know how to find out how many pixels wide any particular image is. So we can't mandate that people always specify the image's width. Brion already mentioned a possible way to do this with the software and have it not be noticable to the user or require user input. --mav

I'm having the same problem with IE on Microsoft Me. -- Zoe

Brion's solution works out fine. He has also adapted it so it doesn't show the box around a picture, which makes the whole image now looks fine and dandy. (Did I just write 'fine and dandy'? Aaagh!) I have been changing images I installed to use Brion's version to make the images cleaner. STÓD/ÉÍRE 22:56 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC) PS: you are at 31k again. (hee hee hee!) Maybe you should do an archive every day. An archive a day keeps browser problems away!:-) Though I am now using netscape so the issue doesn't arise. But I still; hate typing in courier!!!

Hey, Mav...

Thanks for putting the Onyumishi Kanjuro Shibata XX page in the standard bio format. Sorry I didn't do that myself (typical newb ;) -- Jordan Langelier

NP - but we don't expect perfection from newbies. You'll get the hang of it! --mav

Hi Mav, ... Chesapeake Bay retriever - what is the logic regarding the "R" being cap or l/c please? I don't get it and can't (yet) find a ref to a format. Thanks, Nevilley 07:17 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC).

"Chesapeake Bay retriever" is a common, not proper, noun. Therefore it is lowercased. Find out for yourself; enter Chesapeake Bay Retriever at http://dict.org --mav