User talk:Mav/archive 11

April 2003[edit]

Dear Mav Im in deep trouble. As I was trying to add Fairuza Balk to the Biographical listing/B page, my computer froze and when I came back the list had no names there. Now, it says on the history page that I erased all the names which I didnt because God knows I wouldnt do such a thing to this great site! Mightily as I have tried to restore the names, for some reason my computer refuses to let me do so. It says the page was moved or something. Since I cant do it myself, I need help before I get blamed for something I didnt do!

Thank you and God bless you!!

Sincerely yours,

Antonio What the heck?? Martin

You didn't do anything wrong. You may have lost whatever edits you were making when your computer froze but the article is still there. All is well. :) --mav

Thanks man..youre a life saver.

God bless you

Antonio Thankful Martin

Mav, please look at Racial characteristics. I just did some basic NPOVing but I believe the article is beyond hope -- please look at the original version too. I think it is just someone's atempt to do an end-run around the race article. Slrubenstein

Hi Mav, you removed the following part from the Shock and awe article (March 29):

"However, this tactic [shock and awe] does not seem to have been successful in that war - the expectiation that most of Iraqi forces would capitulate after the shock and awe campaign were wrong."

I agree with the initial statement that SaA was a failure (in the above described sense), therefore I wonder why you removed this part? -- mkrohn 17:02 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)

Seeing how the war is not over it is too soon to make any conclusions on it. "Shock and awe" is not just a couple nights of bombing. And the leadership does seem to be in disarray. --mav

O.k. I am a bit confused: first you changed:

"the expectiation that most of Iraqi forces would capitulate after the shock and awe campaign appears to have been wrong." to "the expectiation that most of Iraqi forces would capitulate after the shock and awe campaign were wrong."

and a minute after that you deleted the complete sentence.

Before the war started government and parts of the US forces wanted to make us believe that this war is perhaps over in a few days. This obviously did not work out, at least not in the sense that huge parts of Iraq's army desert or give up. Many news papers report that the strategy did not work as expected ("War planners' theory of quick capitulation by Iraq hasn't panned out"), Peter Arnett mentioned that the strategy failed and even Harlan Ullman said: "It did not bring the great shock and awe that we had envisaged.". I therefore put the weak statement back.

If you agree I copy this discussion to the talk page tomorrow. Best regards. -- mkrohn 00:59 Apr 2, 2003 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with your new wording. --mav

I noticed that you edited the article on the history of Brazil. I added a lot of content on the years from 1889-1964. Perhaps you'd want to take a look at it. I also added a good deal to the article on the economy of Russia. I'm looking for editors for these two articles because the subjects don't seem to be that contentious on this site. It's harder to find editors for non-controversial subjects.

172

I was just updating a single fact gleemed from a day page. I don't expect to do much editting of those pages other than that. --mav

Do you'd know who'd be interested in editing articles pertaining to Brazil and Russia?

172

Not really - I don't know much about the history of Russia and even less about Brazil. Sorry. --mav

Hi Mav: If I understand what I see on the History page for the Goedel's incompleteness theorem, you originated that page, although I didn't see you include that among your list of contributions. I am thinking about making a change to what appears to be something that has been there since the beginning of that page, and if you are the originator, I would like to first ask your opinion about this. I find that the notation under the proof sketch to be a little awry. In particular, for example, the notation G(F) should be G(F(x)). I don't want to do into a lot of detail here if you are not the right person, so I would appreciate it if you would clarifiy that for me first. Best wishes, BuzzB Apr 1, 2003

Answer is on your talk page. --mav

Hey. I'm constantly confused by taxonomy. Anyway, I bring this up because I just added two new pics: amaryllis and wisteria. There seem to be a bewildering number of varieties of the plants. Koyaanis Qatsi

I'll take a look at that later tonight. --mav

Mav, about the lists connected to dates. When it comes to deaths, it might be worth making it clear for people who don't know, that a one-time office-holder when s/he dies is no longer in office by saying 'ex', 'former' or 'retired'. I notice 26 March mentioned the death of David Lloyd George, describing him as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. However he had not been prime minister for decades by the time of his death. Someone who doesn't might think he was prime minister when he died. I have changed it to 'ex' PM of the UK. Similiarly, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a retired not a sitting senator'; I added in that word. It is worth being absolutely clear to avoid any confusion. Otherwise the lists were superb. BTW, I only saw your message about the 1707 Act of Union tonight (a couple of messages were added in to my page at once, and never noticed yours. :-( I have made some changes. STÓD/ÉÍRE 22:00 Apr 2, 2003 (UTC)~

Actually Zoe is the one responsible for creating most of these - I just copy them onto year pages. --mav

Hi again, Mav. I've down a substantial rewrite of the Four Courts page about a historic building in Dublin. It has two photographs. The first is large but I think works and seems to open OK so I don't think there is a need to shrink it. (The nature of the photo I think needs to be largish). But the second photo definitely needs shrinking. Unfortunately while I can crop photos on this computer, reducing their size isn't possible. Because it shows architectual detail, cropping would be the wrong solution. But given your skill at these things, could you possibly shrink it for me? I have left in on the page for now, but it is simply too big in its current form to be left there in its current size (way too big). But it definitely is a picture worth having on the page. Thanks in anticipation. STÓD/ÉÍRE 00:00 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it in about 5 hours. I'm at work now and don't have access to the GIMP here. --mav

Actually JohnOwens has done it already so problem solved. Thanks anyway.

Hi, Mav. While we're both here, do you have any advice or instructions for me? --Uncle Ed 00:35 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

Be happy and have fun! :-) --mav

Hi, Mav. how r u doing? Just a small note. A sentence reads as follows on the Upload page, "Please note that as with Wikipedia pages, others may edit or delete your uploads if they think it serves the encyclopedia, and you may be blocked from uploading if you abuse the system." Shall serves be severs? User:kt2

No, "serves" is correct. However it is idiomatic English and should be replaced by something that is not so confusing to non-native speakers. The intended meaning is "others may edit or delete anything you upload in order to improve the encyclopedia" The whole upload message needs to be redone anyway (it is too long and too badly written to be useful - I'm surprised anybody reads it). --mav

Ok. BTW I preferred the current message that is pretty clear and in idiomatic English (or modified in that manner). Casualness within limits is one reason attracting me to wikipedia. :) User:kt2

I noticed a page in which Ed Poor was trying to recruit new sysops. Could I become one?

172

No offense but I don't think you have met the "trusted" criteria just yet. You are also in way more than your fair share of edit wars. --mav

Hiya Mav, me oul' flower (Irish expression, that!) as a graphics wunderkid, maybe you could tell me - is GIMP Mac compatible? We Mac kids are used to using straight-forward. I have great fun designing pages on quark xpress, etc (jeez. I haven't done an advertorial for a whole 17 days. I'm kinda having withdrawal systems here!) I'm afraid all the GIMP info I could find on their download page left me knowing less when I left than when I went in there. And it seemed to be something akin to a jigsaw puzzle putting it all together if you downloaded all the bits. I like systems all in one chunk, not getting an assembly kit, let alone one written in techno-pap. Now I know what happened to the kids in my class who couldn't write english: they went off and wrote rock music columns and computer manuals!!! Slán go bhfoill. STÓD/ÉÍRE 00:42 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

Response is on your talk page. --mav

Thanks a lot, I'll take a look! -Poor Yorick

Many thanks. Mav. You help is appreciated. STÓD/ÉÍRE 20:28 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

Most of the content that I've contributed has gone unnoticed, such as the recent contributions to economy of Russia and history of Brazil. Ming Dynasty is not a very contentious article, though a substantial contribution. Only a few contentious points about a few controversial articles seem to attract attention toward me.

I really don't deserve this reputation of being biased.

I've chronicled some statements that I've found in support of the bulk of my contributions:

Hi, thanks for the onservations on the Irish Famine page. After a pretty pointless and abusive debate there, it is nice to receive intelligent, thought-provoking commentary from someone.

> I say this in all seriousness: 172 is forcing us to look at aspects > of totalitarian regimes that we might otherwise miss.

User 172 seems to have the ability to arouse great passion.

172 has a great deal of expertise in certain |fields. On the development of European colonialism, for example, I |think I'm safe in saying that I am not alone in having developed |considerable respect for his knowledge. (See Talk:New Imperialism for |evidence of my assertion here.) He writes in great detail, and on |dauntingly difficult subjects

they are set in concrete, they make an excellent foundation for |readable, fact-filled articles of real scholarship.

172 was, on the whole, co-operative with us, and the |article began to improve a great deal.

But he also makes a very useful contribution to Wikipedia, and is not impossible to work |with..

172 also now seems to be getting things under control on the IPF Irish Potato Famine page.

(wikify, remove redundancies...needs more simple editing! (but great article!))

[about the New Imperialism article, which I started and most of which is mine]

You are a competent historian, 172.

172 is doing good work.

(I didn't want to quote people on someone else's site, but I can verify these quotations. I've already proven that I'd make a good sysop.)

172

Nobody is questioning your expertise (at least I'm not). But you do tend to write pages and pages of text about all the positive things certain dictators have done and fail to mention the most obvious negative aspects of these people. This looks like whitewashing to many people and that is why you get into so many edit wars. You also seem to be completely oblivious to your own faults and biases. Besides, I'm not aware of you ever engaging in much weeding around here so I'm clueless as to why you would want to be an Admin. Others may question your motives with wanting the ability to delete pages and block users due to this. --mav

http://www.time.com/time/80days/index.html

Do you know what to do with Uwe Kils, an anonymous user's bio page? Is there a correct place for this page? -- Notheruser 22:54 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

Could it just be moved to User:Uwe Kils, even though the user doesn't exist? I'd think so, but not sure, and I don't want to jump right in and experiment with it. -- John Owens 23:01 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

It's fine to move the page. I just did. --mav

Thanks for the clarification. I thought user pages were for registered contributors only. --Notheruser

Hopefully this person will become one. --mav

Oops! Apparently he has registered: User:Kils. Sorry for the confusion. -- Notheruser

Can I finally dispel this reputation of whitewashing the records of dictators? When I do seem to only be adding "positive" aspects it's because the "negative" aspects are already chronicled. I've long argued that dictatorship is inextricably linked to conflict. The coercive component to a dictatorship keeps a lid on conflict. In democratic countries, in contrast, not only is there a much broader consensus behind existing political institutions, but there's also a strong consensus behind existing economic structures and the existing class and cultural divides. In that sense, I'd never fail to overlook the authoritarian nature of one of these regimes. I only don't add content pertaining to such matters when it's already there.

A good article is not only a list of pros and cons, but a source that should illumiate why particlar events happened, why history unfolds in the way that it does. I'd never engage in whitewashing because the "positive" and the "negative" aspects of regimes are usually intertwined.

172

I've already explained the huge and obvious holes you left in your large update to the Saddam Hussein article. I see no need to repeat those. --mav

Once again, those "holes" were already there before I had started. They were alluded to after my edits, so I thought that that would suffice for the time being. However, alhough I am not an admirer of Saddam Hussein, I object to an article wholly vilifying him. But If the set of facts were relevant, and covered in the same amount of detail as some of the other aspects of his rule, then I'd never object to any incontrovertible facts being chronicled in any article pertaining to any leader, whether I was sympathetic to his rule or not.

No political agenda, therefore, determined my edits to the Saddam Hussein article.

172

NPOV of omission is just as bad as a lie of omission. That is why so many different people take issue with some of your contributions. I'm simply telling you this and you continue to try to defend your actions. It doesn't really matter that you think your edits are perfectly fine - other people don't agree with this viewpoint and are not convinced by your explanations. Please just accept the fact that other people view some of your contributions with a critical eye and that you are not going to convince them away from this viewpoint until your substantial contributions begin to give a more complete picture of certain dictators. You simply add so much material to articles that some of them seem very one-sided after you are done and have to be neutralized by somebody else. --mav

Is Dietary Fiber Lir/Vera Cruz?

This user wrote a small anti-capitalist tirade on my user page. After I had written him a fairly lengthy critique of those statements, he revamped and paraphrased much of that content, converting it into roughly the same anti-capitalist tirade.

Aside from the perspective, the editing reminds me of Vera Cruz's edits to New Imperialism. I don't mind my facts being cited in a piece that doesn't share my perspective entirely , but I'm just wondering if Vera has made a comeback.

172

Could be - but I'm generally the last person to engage in "Adam/Lir/VC sightings" speculation. --mav

A number of people some days ago reached the same conclusion, looking at DF's articles and comparing them to past edits by VC. Initially DF seemed to be being constructive. Now they seem to be going out of their way to be destructive and provocative. On the list of people connected with WWII (I can't remember the name right now - well it has been 24 hours since my last wiki-fix!) they threw tantrums if titles were used, renamed the Duke of Windsor as [[Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor]], put in Elizabeth Bowes Lyon even though she was already in as Queen Elizabeth (Consort of George VI), her contemporary name in the war, and like Susan Mason is preoccupied with lists, complaining about how lists are listed on wiki; one gripe was 'how can I find Elizabeth Bowes Lyon alpabetically if she is in as Queen Elizabeth?'. After a series of dodgy edits (names wrong, screwing up titles which they obviously didn't understand (sounds familiar!) duplicating names etc) that were undone by various people, DF moved away. The whole approach they have shown sounds very suspiciously like that practiced by VC. In Irish folk mythology we have a story called the 'Children of Lir'. I think a similar phenomenon exists on wiki, though unfortunately it isn't mythological but all too real. And to think, DF started so well that even though people immediately suspected they were VC II (or should that be Lir IV? God, we'll have to develop a special naming convention for Adam's offspring!!!) everyone was happy that if they remained constructive we'd turn a blind eye to their past record. Oh well. STÓD/ÉÍRE 20:56 Apr 6, 2003 (UTC)

Hm. And DF seemed so nice at first. Oh well. --mav

Thanks for the taxoboxes. I used to be bold in updating but after more than a few mistakes with the taxoboxes, I decided not to spam the recent changes with my constant attempts to get things right. Koyaanis Qatsi

NP - With 10 edits a minute I don't think any one person can "spam" RC anymore without the help of a bot. :-) --mav

Hello mav. I'm new and i got two questions for you: what is wikifY? what is fyi? sorry for the trouble Muriel Gottrop

No trouble at all. :-) Answer on your talk page. --mav

Hi Mav, 2 points. (1) have you looked in on the Images of Rachel Corrie page debate? Danny, Zoe and I agree that the page of images is POV and unencyclopædic, in effect a shrine. Only a few of the pictures have newsworthiness; they are already on her main page. The rest consider of Rachel smiling in the US, Rachel pensive in the US, Rachel in front a a bulldozer, Rachel in front of a bulldozer some other time, Rachel in Gaza smiling. etc. As a page I think it is at best utterly pointless, at worst glorifying. Personally I would have a lot of sympathy with her cause, but two pages, one entirely of pictures seems OTT for someone who, with the greatest respect, is only going to be a minor footnote in history. Some have argued for re-directing, but I think that misses the point; it isn't the name that's the problem, it is the page's existence. We can always do re-directs for external links to the main Rachel page, which has the key photos anyway.

(2) I see a new user called George Washington appeared last night. I think it is Michael/Weezer. He redirected some of Weezer's stuff to the new page, which immediately looked suspicious. He also included some of the main George Washington stuff to the page, with the tell-tale additions about Washington's sex life that was Michael's preoccupation before; this time it isn't bits about blow jobs but a reference to Washington's penis turning green!!! So it looks like Michael is back and has the same carefree attitude to facts as before (before he even touched an article, at least as far as I noticed. I don't know if anything happened to Michael III last night, but if not it might be worth keeping a close eye on the new user. '"Slán STÓD/ÉÍRE 22:12 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you here and have stated so on the mailing list. The consensus on the list was to get rid of the page.
Yeah, I know. He'll probably think of another user name soon...--mav

I blocked the account of user:George Washington. --Uncle Ed 22:51 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

Go look at a little dispute on the Fidel Castro page. See the latest additions to the talk page.

172

The Iraqis are good people, love your enemy! Dietary Fiber

Hi, Mav
I noticed the "260" -> "266" days remaining change made on April 9 (mostly checking cause it was a small change made by an anonymous user), but when I did the math 266 seemed correct, not wrong. Maybe I'm just not understanding the math. If it's the 99th day, and there are 365 days in a year, then shouldn't it be 365-99=266 days remaining remaining? If so, it seems some of the other pages are off too... -- Someone else 05:23 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

Opps! I've been caught in my lazy fact checking - I based the revert on what the surrounding pages said. Yep the other pages need updating.... --mav

I'll do the one's I've caught, I think it may just be that day and the one before. Just needed confirmation on the math...not my specialty!<G> -- Someone else 05:28 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

You people believe Lir/Vera/Dietary Fiber/Susan/Adam?

All I did was clarify this sentence pointed out by Dachshund: "As mentioned, the Soviets bore the heaviest casualties of World War II. These war causalities can explain much of Russia's behavior after the war."

I added content. I did not delete content. Maybe some user prior to me deleted some content, but who knows. I wasn't following the rest of the article, just this sentence pointed out by Dachshund.

My parents were Holocaust survivors and my entire family apart from the two of them was eradicated. I demand an apology from all you users who believed that slander coming from that lunatic user who has been banned repeatedly.

172

Aw Mav, how can wikikind cope without you for ONE WHOLE WEEK??? Anyway, have a great break (if it is a break!), get a good tan (if you get a tan, or there is sun there!) and have a lovely wiki-free time. (And watch wikikind go to pieces without the all-powerful, all-knowing Mav to look down from on high, as he pulls together all these historic facts.

Slan, agus go n-eiri an bothár leat (in english - good bye, and may the road go with you). Safe journey. STÓD/ÉÍRE 08:27 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

I have photos of samples of all the non-radioactive elements. I think it would be useful to put them up on the articles for the matching elements. I'd like to make sure that they fit well into the format of the articles. I can adjust the size, etc. if necessary. Here are two examples:

What do you think? -- RTC 06:56 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

I think it is wonderful that you have photos of all those elements - we can deal with formatting issues later. --mav

Great. It will probably be a couple days before I can finish clipping them out of my full sized (4 megapixel) photos, with Photoshop Elements... Guess I'll upload what I have already clipped now (the first three rows) and do more work tomorrow... -- RTC 07:11 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

Take a look at these two "experimental" subpages of elements with samples: User:RTC/Lithium and User:RTC/Phosphorus. Assuming I crop the JPEGs to just show the sample instead of the whole vial... what do you think? -- RTC 07:27 Apr 22, 2003 (UTC)

I never thought I'd say this, but I hope you had a good time in Death Valley. Tuf-Kat

I had a great time - best trip yet (even though we got rained on one day which is rare in DV). --mav

Welcome back. ... I told someone you'd come back with 2 articles and half a dozen photos. Am I a liar? ;-) Koyaanis Qatsi

Thanks - but it will be more than that as soon as I get my notes and 300 digital photos organized. --mav

Mav, I know you have contributed in the past to the Abortion page. COuld you please check it out. I have gotten into an edit war with JTDIRL and would appreciate your take on it. The war is primarily about style -- I have tried to make the article less wordy and better organized. But I think there is an underlying NPOV issue -- not concerning the matter of abortion (pro vs. con) but concerning the role of wikipedia (to educate people about ongoing public debates over certain issues, or to provide logical arguments meant to provoke people's thoughts). There is considerable discussion on the talk page, including some good comments by Danny (which I think are directed at JT's version, but also apply to parts of the aritcle, niether of us have changeds) Well, I hope you are having a good holiday, if you celebrate it. Slrubenstein

Done. --mav

Thanks -- very much appreciated Slrubenstein

Hey, mav, welcome back. -- Zoe

Thanks! I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things. --mav

Hey Mav, welcome back. Tannin (And already you are faced with archiving your talk page - that should get you back into the swing of things like nothing else.;)

Thanks for the welcome! Yeah, I'll have to do that later... --mav

Dear Mav; Hello my favorite wiki-consultant. Long time no come to ask you your opinion on something. I wanted to ask your opinion on making a list of racists. It just came to my mind, but because of the controversial nature of such a list, I think a consultation is due. I dont back away from controversy, as a matter of a fact thats my middle name, but wikipedia and it's sponsors do not need to be sued by anyone famous or not so famous, so.

Thanks for everything an God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio always a Menudo!! Martin

If I may butt in: that list is sure to be both inherently POV and hotly contested, aside from quite possibly encouraging various baseless (or solid) threats of lawsuits. Remember, there are people who would argue that Leni Riefenstahl is a Nazi, as well as others (including Riefenstahl) who would argue that that assertion is oversimplistic and litigable. Just my $.02 Koyaanis Qatsi

I agree with KQ. --mav

I agree, and thats why I asked. But I meant to say a list of people who have admitted to be racist or been involved in racist acts. I for example, think that everyone who is involved in the KKK has to be racist but if we were to do the list and include, say, a famous KKK leader who has not admitted to be racist or been convicted of a racist act, then the site could get sued. Lists like that, there's a fine line between listing people who have proved to be and becoming POV.

Antonio Madonna's Long Lost Brother Martin

Mav, could you -- or another sysop or member of the militia look at China and the talk page? I have been in an edit war with 172 over whether to describe China as a communist or socialist state (basically I say the latter, following the Chinese constitution and also the dominant trend among China scholars). We have gone back and forth on this all day and I am frustrated. JTDIRL is marginally involved, as is Roadrunner, and a few other people. There is an extensive debate on the talk page laying out the issues, which I believe involve both NPOV and accuracy. At some points JTDIRL and 172 have been abusive, although I admit that at this point I am sorely tempted to unleash some vindictive myself, and may not have been succeding at controlling myself. I don't see any possibility that either 172 or I will change our minds (Danny suggested a compromise that would involve adding more detail; I have no objections but Roadrunner raised some nuanced ones). I am not sure what to di and someone needs to step in -- either to broker a compromise, or tell one of us that we are wrong, or to freeze the page for a while. I am tempted to turn to Wesley as I deeply respect his grasp of issues in historiography, but he has never contributed to the page and I think you have. I don't like imposing on you. given that part of the issue is accuracy I wish there were other China scholars here to mediate (I am not, but neither are JTDIRL or 172, and I have consulted with a Chinese colleague who is a sociologist researching China, as well as a political scientist colleague). But given that I also see an NPOV issue I am sure you or some other old hands around here might see some way to resolve the issue... Thanks, Slrubenstein

Done. --mav

Thanks mav -- I appreciate it, although I am not sure what good it has done. I think I have reached my limit -- you can look at the most recent talk if you care, although I won't blame you if you don't, Slrubenstein

Why did you remove the recent death ? Did you hear she reborn after 3 days ? Ant

? Because there is a page for recent deaths called Recent deaths. Only events go on the Current events page. --mav

Ah ? Another question then ... If Saddam is proved dead, will he not appear on this page then, but only on the recent death page ?

Hm. Death of major world leader who has been the targeted focus of US military. Sounds like an event to me. We also list assassinations and murders too - but simply dying isn't an event. We are all born and all die - there is nothing special about that. There needs to be an event associated with that death to make it really newsworthy. --mav

[[User::Zoe|Zoe]] suggested I ask you for references to standards for biographical and titular information on Wikipedia. (I hope it's not, as she suggests, something that is kept secret amongst a mysterious clique of editors.) -- mib.

Answer on your talk page. It is no secrete BTW. --mav

We are not arguing that China is a "communist" (lower-case "c") society in the Marxist sense, that is a state where the means of production are under common ownership. Whether or not China is a "socialist" society in Marxian terms, defined by state ownership of the means of production, is further irrelevant to this debate. In this context, the term "Communist state" (upper-case "C") strictly refers to the type of government in the same sense that "constitutional monarchy" describes the governments of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, that "federal republic" describes the government-types of the United States and Brazil, that "Islamic republic" describes the government-type of Iran, that "military government" describes the government of Myanmar, and finally that "absolute monarchy" would describe the government of Oman. The government is Communist, ruled by a Marxist-Leninist party.

Divergences between the development levels, levels of state ownership, and economic structures between the five Communist states of China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and North Korea or whether or not China is "capitalist" and has betrayed its Marxist-Leninist philosphy thus don't matter to this discussion. The ruling Communist parties of these countries share roughly the same structure and share similarly intertwined state and party institutions and share roughly the same constitutional forms. They represent a common government-type based on the Leninist state and are bound by having to adapt to similar circumstances, that is (with the exception of Castro's Cuba which wasn't at first definitively Communist) supplanting or revamping existing state institutions to fit the mold of an underground revolutionary political party.

172

And how do you disambiguate communist from Communist when it starts a sentence? That is a very poor way to disambiguate a word that has three different defintions. But all three definitions are still part of the same continum of communistic. --mav

Hah! *big roar of laughter* You are only just back and you are at 33K again. As they say, an archive a day keeps cut-ofsf at bay!!! Hope the digital camera works out. I am about to get one too, as soon as a large pay cheque for briefing a politician comes in. Anyway *sigh* you'll love this, Mav-man. Adam/Bridget/Lir/Vera Cruz/Susan Mason/Dietary Fiber is BACK. (Were you around when Susan inadvertently admitted to being DF and was banned? (How many times is that that Adam has been banned?) Anyway, Adam's new identity is Shino Baku. I'd been suspicious all night but couldn't put my finger on what. Then Shino left a message on 172's page. He and I saw it simultaneously and each went to each other's page simultaneously to say that it sounded a hell of a lot like something one of the Adam family would say. The edit pattern since Sino came on is the same. The debate style on all pages is the same. The tendency to make evert increasingly ludicrous and provocative statements that was Susan's trademark. The tendency to wait until a row had died down and some controversial opinion accepted or rejected, then to jump in at the last minute and start it up again by saying I (always first personal singular) think 'x', 'x' being the opposite of the almost agreed 'peace deal'. And the moment we mentioned our suspicions everyone immediately said 'that explain's it.' There was something familiar about this new user. But the scary thing was the line on 172's page was word for word what Susan regularly said, what DF said, what all of the Children of Lir said. Always in the same format. Always in first person. The only change was the topic. How many times does a user have to get banned before they can be banned permanently? ÉÍREman 07:03 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

You know me - I'm a pushover. Personally I don't like these Lir sighting games and think that they are harmful to the project when they are so obvious. It just gives me the major creeps for reasons I can't exactly put my finger on. IMO if you have serious suspicions that user X is Lir incarnate then quitely document your evidence on user talk pages and present it to Jimbo (the only authority in this matter) via the mailing list. If Adam keeps it up Jimbo has already said that he will seek legal action. --mav

The use of the "v-word" here is, IMO, not appropriate. But we all should be careful about our karma or else we might be reincarnated as smelly trolls. --mav

Or even worse, the latest member of the Adam or DW familys. ;) -- John Owens

I would rather be reborn as a cockroach. :) --mav

Heh heh. Thanks for the laugh, Mav. Hope the pixs came out OK from your new digital camera. My five thousand euro cheque came through today so tomorrow I'm a buying a digital camera too. Then I can go around Dublin and take photos by the hundred for any wiki pages remotely mentioning Dublin! OK. I admit it. I'm a wikiholic. And just in case there was any doubt, my phone bill arrived and looking at the amount of time I spent wiki-ising . . . AAAAAAGH. wikilove and digi-cameras! ÉÍREman 23:23 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

They came out great! But it will be some time before I can integrate them into the 'pedia. I also carry the darn thing around with me all the time now - the other day I shot a few pics of the California Capitol because the lighting and wind conditions were favorable. --mav

Have you studied the contributions of Shino Baku and his/her comments on the talk pages? I really doubt this; otherwise you'd have no doubt that this Shino user is the latest user name of Lir/Vera. 172

Alas last week I was on holiday in Death Valley and up to now have had very little time to engage in witch hunting activity. But I'm keeping my eyes open. --mav

Thanks, mav. I'm just a little p*ssed off tonight. -- Zoe

We all have that right once in a while. For me it is oftentimes therapeutic. :) --mav

sorry mav, nothing has arrived. Slán ÉÍREman 20:45 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

Go ahead, mav, I wasn't looking forward to doing all that reverting, anyway. :) -- Zoe

OK --mav

Mav, I don't think I could leave. Let's face it, that would involve some serious difficulties, such as trying to remember what it is like to have a ... er ... (damn it, the term is on the tip of my tongue) ... ah yes ... to have a "normal life". But my former enthusiasm for doing fauna entries has evaporated. After doing a bit of this and a bit of that, I was really enjoying working in a field which is, if not controversy-free, at least one where the controversies are very civilised.

Consider the horrible mess that is bird taxonomy, with the English, the Americans, the Australians, the Dutch, the South Africans all having different and incompatible classifications. And yet, here on the 'pedia, we have two Englishmen, an American, and an Australian - all happily cooperating to build a body of work that is as up-to-date and scientifically correct as we can make it. It has a long, long way to go, and there are several thorny issues to resolve, but bit by bit we are getting there.

Or consider the woeful state of the mammal entries. (I'm thinking of the Australian ones in particular here.) I've spent days and days working on these, checking all my facts with appropriate sources as I go along, and they have started to take some form and accuracy on.

All the while I've been swallowing, largely without complaint, the constant and tedious fiddling from people who, however well-meaning, are being very unhelpful. Yesterday I reached a "last straw" state of mind and I've spat the dummy out.

I don't want to do fauna stuff here anymore.

I take your point about using common names instead of specialist names, and agree with it. However, we need to think this through. Consider the three basic situations:

(i) Highly specialised and very formal publications that generally avoid common names entirely. In these, if it appears at all, a common name is more a textual decoration than an indication of a particular precise species. Writers only use the commom name to do things like avoid too much repetition in a sentence, and never use it to stand alone as an identification of a species. The common name is, in effect, used as a sort of psudo-pronoun. For example (just a made-up sentence to illustrate):

A. australis is endemic to New Zealand, where it is classified as vulnerable, but on neighboring islands the brown kiwi remains common.

Not a very good illustration, but the point is that the common name serves no special purpose of identification (in these publications, binomial names rule supreme) and does not need to be set off in any way from the rest of the text. Hence, it can be left uncapitalised without loss of meaning or clarity. (By the way, at least so far as birds go, this style is very rare indeed.)

(ii) Scientifically correct publications more broadly. These can be aimed at the general reader or the professional working in the field, but usually fall somewhere between those extremes. Here, correct capitalisation is a vital part of the use of common names. In at least some fields (birds is certainly one), the common name is an exact equivalent to the binomial name. There is only one Black-shouldered Kite in the entire world. You can write "Elanis axillaris" or "Black-shouldered Kite" and no-one has the slightest doubt which creature you mean. However, a "black-shouldered kite" could equally well be E. scriptus or any of several birds from the northern hemisphere. Unless we include the binomial name each and every time we want to indicate E. axillaris or E. scriptus (as the highly formal and rather unreadable type of strictly-scientific publication listed at (i) above does), we have no other choice but to use capitalisation.

(iii) General works which don't aim to be scientifically correct. Here, there is no particular attempt to be accurate or precise, or (usually) to identify any particular species. Often, neither the author not the reader even knows what the species is, let alone cares. For example, if I were writing a novel, it would be silly to write:

Gloria shuddered at the thought of her pet harming the beautiful Scarlet Robin she had admired from the window earlier that morning.

You might as well go the whole hog and write:

Gloria shuddered at the thought of her pet harming the beautiful Scarlet Robin (Petroica multicolor) she had admired from the window earlier that morning.

In a novel or in a work of general non-fiction, it is perfectly acceptible (and indeed correct) to not capitalise, as the intention of the work is to highlight some thing other than the creature in question. In the passage above, for example, we are not interested in the robin, nor even in what Gloria's cat has done to it, we are interested in Gloria's emotional reactions.

In summary, there are three possibilities:

(a) That we always use binomial names if in the slightest doubt about the identity of a species. This would be, strictly speaking, correct, but unreadable for the vast majority.
(b) That we abandon the attempt to create a scientifically correct body of work, and become a light-weight, non-auhoritive place that is little more than a glorified chat room. (Not that there is anything wrong with chat rooms, it's just not what I think Wikipedia ought to be. Nor you.)
(c) That we adopt the same solution as is used by the vast majority of works that aim to be factual, comprehensive, scientific, and accessible to the general reader too - i.e., we use the correct capitalisation for species names.

I would be delighted to return to crafting factual, readable, accurate entries about fauna of all kinds. I have greatly enjoyed doing that over the last few months. But, fair dinkum, I have had a gutfull of constant hit and run edits that do nothing but spoil the result of all the effort I put in. I don't want to be unreasonable or petulant, but let's face it, we all only work on articles because we enjoy doing it and find it rewarding. I am no longer enjoying it, and it's no longer rewarding. As I have documented elsewhere, everyone who is doing bird entries on any significant scale has similar problems. It's not just me. I just happen to be the one who has reached the end of his tether first.

Best wishes, Tannin 03:57 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC)

A long response is on the mailing list. I think it is time to compromise. --mav

It's really odd how the changing of just a couple of letters from upper to lower case "spoil the result of all the effort". -- Zoe

See the above, Zoe. It makes a correct and precise entry into vage and incorrect rambling. Not to mention the edit conflicts and general aggrivation. Tannin

Thank you for telling me, Mav. You are a gentleman and even if we disagree I always respect you. What I wrote on the mail was based on a number of emails I received from a number of quite experienced people on wiki, a number of whom are leaving over the capitalisation issue. I know I have been annoyed on occasion when I have gone to the trouble of double, treble and quadruple-checking capitalisation rules on something and then been overruled on wiki, where it has been insisted that it breaks naming conventions on capitalisation. On occasion I have checked with experts on the issue, and they would turn around and say wiki is 100% wrong. But still an edit war would erupt. A classic example was with Proportional Representation using the Single Transferable Vote which should be treated as a proper noun because it is the specific name of a specific voting system, but which ended up being renamed Single transferable vote before after a war finally put in as a partly correct Single Transferable Vote. The term can be used generically to refer to a proportional system using a single transferable vote, but when referring to a specific electoral system is, as a proper noun, capitalised (and written also as PR.STV, never ever pr.stv. (Google searches in this like so many other areas (the 'Charles Windsor' nonsense, for example) is simply wrong, and based on a mistake being copied and copied and copied by lots of people). I have changed plenty of capitals to small letters in articles where they should not be capitalised, but there are a scary number of areas where capitalisation should be automatic but has been removed. Anyway that is the issue. But it is driving some serious academic people away because they feel that academic standards are not being followed.

BTW, re China, I know I probably appeared Bolshie there (little communist-ish joke there :) ) but the point is that there is a strict number of definitions used to categorising states and Communist state is one. It does not define how communist a state is or pass judgments; it simply uses one of a list of I think 10 categories that are universally applied in all sourcebooks and textbooks to define which type of governmental system each state has. 172 and I repeated ad nausaum that the category only referred to the governmental system, not the political system, and went to the trouble to put a link defining what the term means, as I have with others on the list, Constitutional Monarchy, Popular Monarchy, Federal, Unitary state, Republic etc. But others on the page still misrepresented what we were talking about and got into discussions on the political system (a fundamentally different thing) or threw up 'alternatives' that do not exist. (A Nation means something completely different that is unrelated to system of government, socialist isn't on the list because it has at least nine meanings worldwide, so different wiki readers would interpret it differently depending on which political culture they were from - hence its non-use in sourcebooks as a definition - etc.) In the first minute of the first lecture to first year third level students on Chinese governments, they are told China is a Communist state. It is elementary an political science definition, taught from Washington, to Cape Town, Geneva to Dublin to Dubai. But not acceptable on the China talk page on wiki!

Finally (Ok you'll have to archive again!!!) could you please take a look at the Communist state page. The page is constructed purely as a definition on what the term means, ie the unique relationship between state and party that does not exist in any other system, hence the use of the term rather than any other. A number of people contributed to the page. One user still thinks the page is about communism, and keeps adding in heavily POV additions (on concentration camps, peasantry, etc) which (a) are a matter of controversy; (b) even if accurate belong on a page on communism or Chinese and USSR history, not on Communist state and so are utterly irrelevant, as is obvious from the two topics I mentiond. (Its like putting a mention of George W. Bush's linguistic prowess on a page on Federal Republic!) Every effort to remove this irrelevant material is reverted by its author, Fred Bauder. (Tannin's view on Fred's additions is on my talk page. It might be worth glancing at.) Maybe you could have a word with Fred. It is tedious for people who did a lot of good and interesting work on the page to keep having to revert it to remove irrelevant material. It can and perhaps should be debated elsewhere. But not on a page that it is purely on a 'system of government', not the history behind the party that runs that system of government. OK. I'll finish now. Sorry for taking up so much space and thank you for your notice. I appreciate your candour and good grace, even when I can be rather tactless and . . . em . . . bolshie sometimes. (Not in my politics, mind!) ÉÍREman 04:37 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC)

Sometimes my impolite side sneaks through when I'm tired. Since I'm an INTJ these considerations are not automaticly adhered to or even considered - but I've learned through trial and error (much of which has been on Wikipedia) that considering the emotional impact of what I write is as important as the substantive content. Alas, I've spent literally the whole day on this capitalization issue so I'm meta'd out. I need to work on some real articles for a few hours in oder to restore my sanity. I'll take a look at the Communist state page early Monday your time. --mav

I've added in a reply on the wiki-list to your piece. It is, I think, slightly humourous in tone so it might cheer you up a bit!!! Anyway, having failed 7 days in a row to get to bed before dawn I'd better go now. PS - re the contributor's name below. Oh No. First when I saw Tuf-kat's nickname, the damned music of Top Cat kept going around . . . and around . . . and around . . . and around in my head. Now, re the name below, I'm going to bed with the image of Madonna writhing and singing 'Like a Virgin . . . OW . . . touched . . . " (The Ow in a Michael Jackson voice!!!) Not a nice image for a gay man as he heads to bed alone!!! Oiche Mhaith (ie goodnight) ÉÍREman 06:19 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC) (Of course this does not mean I will actually go to bed. I may spot something and go 'hey, I gotta look at that' as you Americans might say!!!)

LOL - thanks, now that song is going to haunt me too. :) --mav

Thank you for your greeting. Although the issue seems resolved, a user was deleting a paragrph of text I wrote in double jeopardy apparently because they wanted it to note that this was a US Constitutional right and they didn't like the fact that I said double jeopardy was related to Collateral Estoppel. After I noted that US constitutional right and changed it to read that double jeopardy was only similar to collateral estoppel they seem to have stopped removing my text, but it makes me rather unsure of myself. How should I proceed in such situations? Why did this user not want to discuss the text? What can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future? Like a Virgin

That type of give and take is common around here. You seem to have handled it well but if you get into an edit war in the future then you might want to indicate so on Wikipedia:Edit wars in progress. --mav

Hi. Can you please help in some way. Once again, I am blocked. I tried to make an edit and I received the message "Goodbye Michael". This is getting ridiculous already. I have told Zoe this, and she responded that the ban will be lifted in a day. That is unacceptable to me. I understand that everyone is on a witchhunt because of a few rowdy users, but that is no reason to block me as collateral damage. Danny

What IP address range are you using? There does not appear to be any blocked IPs with the comment "Goodbye Michael" for their summary. Also, why the heck are you not a sysop? --mav

Yes. WHY THE HECK AREN'T YOU A SYSOP? Your workload and quality of it suggests you'd be an ideal one, Danny. (See Mav, I'm not gone to bed yet. Afraid of images of writhing Madonnas! BTW, I took a look at Double jeopardy. If it is a formal legal title, shouldn't it be treated as a proper noun? Hah. The Capitalisation Debate Rolls On. . . . hee . . . hee . . . hee . . . ÉÍREman 06:37 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC)

I actually copyedit or make minor amendments to many articles, including such oddities as throat-singing. What I don't do is to change, for example, US spelling or usage to British English (or vice versa), because this would be rightly considered unacceptable.

To me, replacing my correct capitals with lower case is the same sort of unneccesary irritating behaviour.

On the broader issue of redirects, in the bird articles you will always have lots of these anyway, because of varying English names, and sometimes scientific names, eg US Parasitic Jaeger= UK Arctic skua, which should of course be [[Arctic Skua]] jimfbleak

Redirects need to become less ugly - then everybody will be much happier. Sorry in advance for my mean response to your mean email to the mailing list. --mav

Thanks for the greetings. If you see any newbie mistakes, don't hesitate to let me know! Sam.

No problemo and I'm sure you will do fine. --mav

Thanks, but you have a long ways to go if you plan to add over 100 element table pics! --PY

Yeah - it'll take a while. --mav

This summer I am sure I can retake these, and I should have closeup lenses by then, so I can do much better. How much better resolution would you like? These were clipped from 4 megapixel photos taken in pairs (left side of table and right side of table) and are near real size (but clearly at the resolution limits of the full photo). -- RTC 06:16 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)

That would be great! Simply having the closeup lense with a 5MP camera should do the trick. --mav

When I took these, I wasted most of the camera's resolution getting the complete box (about 20 in. square) containing the samples (the vials are only just over 1 in. tall). I did one row at a time and took a pair of pictures (covering an area of about 28 by 20 in. with alot of overlap), planning to create a set of "panoramic" photos showing each row of the table. It was later that I got the idea of clipping out individual photos. Even without closeup lenses, a 4MP photo of only 3 to 5 vials on a white background would likely give the clippings adaquate resolution for use here. With closeup lenses I can probably do 2 or 3 vials in one photo and get way more resolution than you should need (4MP JPEGs from this camera average about 1 megabyte!). I would never take a separate 4MP photo for each vial, just too much work! -- RTC 00:11 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

Will you be my friend? Like a Virgin

In time perhaps - I first need to get to know you. --mav

Mav, PLEASE intervene in [Communist state]]. At this stage, Tannin, 172 and I have had to do nearly 20 reversions. No-one (except Shino Baku!) agrees with what Fred Bauder is doing. He himself admits his additions are "unbalanced". But even if they were NPOV, everyone is agreed he is putting them into the WRONG ARTICLE. But he will listen to absolutely no-one. Instead he does not nothing but keeps reverting, reverting, reverting to put his irrelevant right wing rant into the text. Someone needs to protect the page because Tannin, 172, myself and others (who have admitted themselves disgusted that no-one has intervened to stop this blatent vandalism that has been going no now for days and are offering to help reverting) cannot and will not spend all our time guarding one page from what at this stage is outright vandalism. If it doesn't stop, I'll have to ask Jimbo to have a word with the user if not ban him entirely. I only came on here this morning for one minute to check one thing. Already I have had to do two revertions, as did Tannin. This has to be stopped. ÉÍREman 10:19 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)

Just tell the lads there's work to be done. The curtain rod in the Black and Decker, its end fresh bevelled, its line trued up by hammering on the coal bunker... One can always wonder. Curiously, I know a Fred Stauder. PML.

Thanks PML. I just find it bizarre that when so many people (bar Lir of course, so no change there) tell Fred he is wrong, he just goes right ahead and reverts to his version every time. Not a single person (left wing, right wing, mor) finds his version NPOV and even if it all, everyone is in agreement it is the wrong page to put it at. And yet he still won't get the message!!! ÉÍREman 10:45 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)

Opps! Sorry, I got distracted with making nav table images for the element articles. Be right there. --mav

Thank you for the welcome message, and the help links. Susanth 23:11 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)

Me too. Thanks! Uyanga

Not a problem. :) --mav

Hi Mav. Please take a look at the Johnny Rebel discussion. Danny

Done. It is on my watchlist. If needed I'll protect the page. --mav

Hi Mav, sorry I may have received your email but technical problems are causing havoc here. At various times tonight on wiki, my keyboard has gone wonky, typing y for z, z for y, refusing to type ~, etc. This only ever happens when I am on wiki. I can use this browser for days elsewhere and no problems occur, but spend a few hours on wiki and it starts and I have a frustrating, infuriating time. When I started archiving communist state, I ended up cutting and pasting [ and ], colons, ~s, ( and ). It drove me bloody well mad. It has occured using both safari and I Explorer 5.2 for the Mac but only ever with wiki. In the end I just left the computer and began playing with my new digital computer (Its official. I am now someone with a photograph on wikipedia. It is great fun going for a five minute walk down the road here at 8.30pm to take a particular image I wanted for wiki, then coming back and putting it onto a wiki page, and hey presto it is now available to millions, with no copyright issues whatsoever!!! I have now transferred over onto the new camera an old picture I took of Mary Robinson's resignation as president of Ireland - I was invited to attend it as Mary's guest so now I can put an image of it on wiki too when I get the chance, an 'exclusive' shot of a resignation in the President's residence, copyright-free!) I have mentioned this browser trouble on the village pump page. Maybe someone will know what is going off. Is it a Mac thing? The fact that it always occurs on wiki suggests it must be linked to wiki and its relationship with Mac browsers.

BTW, I know I was argumentative on the communist state page, but there is very good reason. On China, people didn't want to use the definition there because they didn't understand it, then the same people who said they didn't understand it came to the definition page and tried to plant much the same stuff there as they had tried and failed to plant everywhere else (not that it was blocked in other places because it was irrelevant, just that it was blatently POV in those version to the point of absurdity.) And yes, Communist state is a basic definition used worldwide. It is not about communism. It is not about a state. It is as the name suggests Communist+state. And colleagues of mine in departments of History, Politics, China Studies, lecturers in politics who lecture on Russia (and previously the USSR), China and other states internationally described as Communist States are at a loss, as I am, as to what the problem is and find people's inability to understand that the type of communism or status of communism in these states is of no consequence whatsoever to the definition, baffling. And so do other academic friends of mine totally outside the area, and a journalist who covered both China and the USSR for Irish newspapers. It is a clear, precise, narrow definition of a clear, precise narrow issue. Why people want to go all over the place and introduce stuff that is completely irrelevant on that page I cannot for the life of me understand. From people continuously misunderstanding the definition, to introducing all sort of bizarre alternatives ('nation', a totally different thing that has nothing to do with governmental systems, to 'socialist state', a non-existent definition for obvious reasons (socialist is not linked to a system of government means something different in almost every political culture on the planet) ) At least Fred has stopped his reversions, which in the end must have numbered fifteen to twenty, because that is how many reversions, Tannin, 172 and myself and I think one or two orginal contributors to the page had to do.

Sometimes Mav, even you can be argumentative. :-) Anyway, with this camera, the historian in me may end up taking second place to the photographer! Wikilove. ÉÍREman 03:56 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC) PS: have I pushed you yet over the 32K with my longwindedness, or will I have to come back and add some more? (ONLY JOKING!)

Hi Mav, I'm going to sleep. Can you please freeze the Johnny Rebel page. I would do it myself but I am involved in the war. Also, my general policy is not to engage racists in dialogue because it grants them legitimacy. Danny

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