User talk:Cecropia/Archive 2

April 2004

Pip

I've only made one edit to Pip, and that quite minor. Are you sure you clicked the right button? I've neither read the book nor seen the episode, so I can't comment, but good luck! Meelar 22:51, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re one day overdue: With this godawful Jor/Wik, Gdansk thing people are occupied. I wouldn't worry about it too much. GAH. Meelar 23:00, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Strawberry egg cream

Yum! -- Decumanus | Talk 16:05, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

North River

I was just noticing your additions to North River. I had always thought of the term as being in the sense of being up only to the "bend" as well. I had made the map sort of loosely as being alonside Manhattan, although I can't remember where I found that reference. Only later did I learn that Dutch basically called the entire river as the north river. I would like to change the map to actually only up to bend. Do you think it's worth keeping in the reference to it being as far as the Harlem River? -- Decumanus | Talk 07:38, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Lagenscheidt. Is that why the new Hagstrom maps suck? -- Decumanus | Talk 07:49, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Adminship stuff

Thanks for your nice comments about my adminship and especially for letting me know; no one else mentioned it and I might otherwise never have noticed because I hardly ever go to the admin nomination page. One thing I've been thinking about my own potential adminship is that I still don't have a good feel for a lot of the users who nominated and some of the issues that can come up and how they're handled, so I seldom feel that I know enough about individuals on the nominations page to say anything, even after looking through some of their contributions. Anyway--I've declined for now. BTW, no problem at all on your edits on the Animal Shelter page--that's what Wikipedia's about, innit? :-) You had some good points & I reworked the page a bit after that because it inspired me. As it should be. Have fun on your own adminship nomination. Elf | Talk 00:57, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Railroad and Railway

Mr. Cecropia,

Please come along to Wikiproject trains, but you're bit on railway and railroad, whilst welcome is out of place in the hierachy that I'm presently trying to sort out for Wikipedia!!! Both railroad and railway should redirect to rail transport. The discussion of this topic should be linked from railway terminology on the main rail transport page. That way, when the statements Santa Fe was a US railroad company and The Settle-Carlisle Railway was a British railway line both make sense. Just warning you and explaining what I'm doing. I suggest you appeal to User:Morven if you are unhappy with this. Cheers, Duncharris 17:29, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

usage of the terms railroad and railway is linked from the main rail transport page. Duncharris 17:47, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dogs

Your beasties sound nifty. Some of mine have been a handful. You're right, we love talking about our pooches, don't we! The advantage of wikipedia is that I can write about mixed-breed dogs and use photos of my own to illustrate the concepts.

;-)

.... Elf | Talk 19:05, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

personal curiosities for the future of Wikis

I find your questions/thoughts/POV's insightful. I think you hit on some of the basic questions here. I particularly like the idea of ratings for articles (and maybe editors?) but that brings up concerns found in some of your other questions, about rules/facts/truth vrs. persistant/group/majority POV. One thing I don't like about the democracy here on the wiki is that often the people who edit say... anarchism have a majority pro-anarchy POV, so when a vote comes up... you can guess where the majority is going to lie. It is questionable if the vote came to the whole of the wikipedia (or even the whole of the earth, for that matter) if the truth would win out in the poll, but it's fairly clear to me at least that out of a dozen or so people w enough vested interest to spend their time editing, discussing, and watching a given article, their is probably a solid majority POV. Looks to me like your going to make a fine admin, and I hope maybe you'll be involved in some policy proposals/votes as time goes by. Cheers, Sam Spade 19:53, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your quite right of course, and a NPOV, factually accurate article is likely to be far more persuasive than a biased, POV diatribe, assuming of course the reader is at least modestly competant ;) On the down side, I fear some among our editors find micheal moore (or sometimes Art Bell ;) to be NPOV, and find bias in neutrality. That can be hard to work around. Sam Spade 22:18, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Adminship

Cecropia, sorry to learn about the admin vote. I think you would have made a fine admin. It is too bad that persistant partisans (from wherever on the political spectrum) can undermine persons or articles that they target. Bkonrad | Talk

Looks like I may have given condolences too soon -- Looks like Ed Poor just promoted you after all. Congrats. Bkonrad | Talk 19:13, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I decided that 75% to 80% is enough votes for something Jimbo originally said should be "no big deal". Besides, Meelar asked me to. :-) --Uncle Ed 19:15, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re: thanks--no problem. Living in DC, I learned that persistence is the way to get stuff done. Yours, Meelar 23:10, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Also re:thanks.. No problem, I just call'em like I see them. I would've been rather unhappy if your nomination had failed. First, because I respect you and think you'll make a great admin. Second, and more importantly, it would've set a bad precendent for someone with so much support and (IMHO at least) obvious credentials to be turned down basically because some people disapprove of his politics and don't understand what NPOV means. Anyway, I wish you well and I'm sure you'll do fine. You may want to tread softly at first and only use admin powers in the most obvious cases. Happy editing, Isomorphic 01:53, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Admin Nomination

Hello, I would appreciate your help by earning your vote as an admin. I have been here about 5 months now and have been nominated. I have made many contributions and have improved on my editing and behavior. I take this seriously, that is why I have gotten into it with Anthony so much. You can look at my user page yourself and see my contribtions. I would appreciate a vote in the yes column if you agree. Again, thanks for your time and help. ChrisDJackson 02:34, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You're Welcome

And I welcome you to the ranks of the adminned -- yes, you now have the privilege of being accused of collusion and involvement in a cabal, the honor of cleaning up messes other people make (and being yelled at for doing so), and perhaps, if fortunate, the joy of being outed as an atheist/Nazi/Communist/Jew/relativist/Christian/cyborg/whatever-the-troll-decides-is-most-detrimental-in-his/her-eyes. :-) I encourage you to tread very lightly, as Isomorphic rightly notes, so that there isn't a firestorm over your promotion. And if you see an instance where an admin ought to act, but you worry your involvement will be too controversial, please remember to ask one of us to help. We work best as admins when we work in concert, not to "gang up" on others, as we are often accused of doing, but because a second mind and perspective helps to moderate our own private biases and troubles. I am sure you know all this, but I think sometimes we fall down on promoting admins (we just say "go nuts" and then are surprised when they hit bumps). If I can be of any help to you at all, please do let me know -- I have fortunately avoided all disputes on political articles (save Fascism), which it appears is your battlefield, and so can act more neutrally there if this is needed. Best wishes and congratulations again for a well-deserved promotion. Jwrosenzweig 17:08, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations on your adminship. I'm glad Ed was braver than I was in making the decision. Good luck with it. :) You might find the administrators' reading list useful if you haven't already seen it. Angela . 21:27, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations. I knew somehow it would work out in the end for you. -- Decumanus | Talk 21:58, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

thanks

Cecropia,

Thanks for your vote in re my admin nomination. I meant what I said in being surprised that so many people seem to have read, or at least been aware of a rather obscure corner of WP.

I note that you're a writer, but not on such techie things as crypto. As such, may I invite you to lend a hand? I will of course return the favor as directed. I find that I'm unable (from being to close to the articles, of course) to see places of obscurity to the average reader. A problem you have surely encountered yourself. Could I entice you into reading over some of the general overview articles in the crypto corner and commenting about stuff that is missing, too obscure for a general reader to follow and such? The innards of algorithms articles are easier to do, less of interest to the average reader anyway, and you should skip them, assuming you're willing to lend a non-specialist eye.

I'm hoping in particular for narrative arc (or lack thereof), complete lossage of understanding, terminal obscurity, ... comments. Typos would always be nice, but those are not so intractable a problem.

Point me at some articles of similar interest at your end and I'll try to return the favor.

Thanks again.

ww 17:41, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Cecropia,

Thanks for being willing to help with crypto cruft. I understand exactly (I think) what you mean by saying you learn just as much as you need. I don't have in mind you actually having to learn anything about crypto, but to lend an eye to the writing and its intelligibility. Though, you might learn something...

The cryptography article is under considerable excavation at present. If you take a look at the Talk page you'll see that there were major changes in early March. The then existing article had been more or less stable for a while (in WP time anyway). But that's not quite what I had in mind; getting that article back to something stable and acceptable to all is more than a volunteer eye could reasonably be asked to look into.

Consider, if you would, secure channel, or key, or cypher (however you want to spell it), or padding, or even diplomatic bag. Enigma (less the intricate bits) or Purple code or Ultra or Magic or the intro bit of Books on Crypto are also possibilities. As are Digital Rights Management and PGP and... Well you get the idea. There's a Topics in Crypto page which provides a sort of annotated entry into most of the articles, which might be of help.

The thing I hoped for would be sort of like this (invented, of course): "Looked at diplomatic bag and couldn't see how it has anything to do with codes and stuff. Wouldn't a coded or encyphered message be sent by radio or cable or the Internet or something?" This would indicate that some clarity needs to be added, and probably some additional material. We would have thus collectively goofed here in crypto world in making sense to the rest of you!

Really a writing sort of thing more than anything technical.

Thanks for even being willing to think about it.

ww 19:57, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re cocaine

"Alleged" is fine with me; many people on the list are hard to verify anyway. - Hephaestos|§ 07:58, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for supporting my nomination as an admin...

...I appreciate it. Dpbsmith 10:19, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

vfd

I hate it. I don't know how to use it. I wish it would just go away. --Uncle Ed 20:26, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Don't take this as authoritative in any way, but I have often seen the vote and discussion from vfd moved to the articles talk page when there was no consensus to delete. Bkonrad | Talk 20:35, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Articles should not be deleted, but fixed. Unless there's obviously no hope of them ever becoming articles, in which case any admin can delete it. I defy anyone to point out as many as FIVE articles listed on vfd which really needed to be there!!! --Uncle Ed 14:08, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

1) Iraq after Saddam Hussein (deleted because covered in US-led occupation of Iraq and History of Iraq, 2) Oil for Food Allegations (POV by title, redirected to Oil for food, 3) Eclipse FAQ for IntelliJ users, 4) The power of many cars, 5) Tavi, 6) Liidii, 7)Downrange, 8)FAR 103, 9) Autonomy Party, 10)Atre, 11)Reverse piracy, 12)2004 Ambition Googlebomb, 13)Mansoor durrani, 14)Mang, 15)Andrea_Hiesberger, 16)Greg Allen, 17)Joe_haywood, 18)Aquadrenaline, 19)Riters.com, 20)UMMO. I won! Since you will have difficulties to send me a virtual icecream I invite all of you to help me with my vocabulary project, see my page. Get-back-world-respect 14:09, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You want cigars although I won the contest? Strange rules. Go to Cuba and buy them on your own! Get-back-world-respect 15:38, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

vfd (again)

Hi, thanks for your comment. I was just following what someone else started. I tell you what, I'll leave it for tonight then pick up again tomorrow night and transfer all 18th April discussions over then. -- Graham :) | Talk 16:42, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for expanding adverse possession. Your user page was very interesting to read with thought provoking questions. Sorry to say I have no answers. --Rj 07:40, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

Jew Watch

The same user has since visited the page twice and vandalised the article. I am on the verge of protecting that page now. -- Graham :) | Talk 16:38, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Of course they will, but hopefully they'll get bored if you do it often enough. -- Graham :) | Talk 16:41, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Chicken Madras

Please don't make interwiki redirects. They are very difficult to find or edit, and are somewhat decieving for users who don't understand the differences in the various sister projects. Thanks, Gentgeen 02:21, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead and delete, that's how I voted. Gentgeen 03:04, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Weasel word

Thank you, Cecropia, for your appreciation and sorry for my encroaching on "Weasel word" the article you created --Dieter Simon 16:42, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ok, once again many thanks --Dieter

Brooklyn Museum

Uh, OK. Please help me out. Is this in reference to something I wrote. My memory's a bit fuzzy. I thought it was always just the "Brooklyn Museum". Did it change it's name? I'm confused. -- Decumanus | Talk 02:49, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oh, that page! Yeah, those were notes I made when I first joined Wikipedia, just to get the layout of the land, as far as what kind of articles were in existence. I had totally forgotten about that list. It makes me wonder what's on it. Thanks. -- Decumanus | Talk 03:24, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The shame of it all is that I've been in a lot of museums but never in the Brooklyn Museum. But I just put it on the top of my list. -- Decumanus | Talk 03:27, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re: Bush I posted important information about my president and you removed it. Could you please point to a statement that does not have a point of view. All human statements have a point of view - we all see the world in different ways. There is no universal truth. mikeotown@msn.com

While you were protecting your buddy VeryVerily, did you notice that my edit was a mere copyedit 1? He probably didn't even look through my changes. This is just an attempt by him to assert ownership over the article and prevent me from editing it. 172 05:45, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Proposal for Oil for food

Hello -- I've made a proposal for trying to make some progress on Oil for food. The proposal is here: Talk:Oil_for_food#A_proposal_and_some_suggestions_for_moving_forward.

Please read it over and indicate if you feel that you can accept it as a way of making some progress. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 13:18, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)