User talk:Art LaPella

Archive

Old discussion is archived at:

2005 thru May 4, 2007 archive

May 11, 2007 thru April 18, 2008 archive

April 19, 2008 thru October 5, 2008 archive

October 11, 2008 thru February 16, 2009 archive

February 17, 2009 thru February 1, 2010 archive

February 5, 2010 thru November 30, 2011 archive

You need to recalibrate your threshold for incivility

Are you serious?[1] Malleus Fatuorum 21:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you? You could have said, "It should be Bristol, England," and I wouldn't have said anything. Maybe it should be England; I don't know. But instead you said, "Are you arguing that Bristol isn't in England?" Modest Genius obviously knows the map, so why are you accusing him of arguing something absurd? I know you get away with such things regularly, but the rest of us don't. Art LaPella (talk) 21:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

If you have a dictionary then now might be a good time to consult it for the meaning of "accuse". Jeez, you people! Malleus Fatuorum 21:26, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"to say that someone has done something wrong or committed a crime". Yup. Art LaPella (talk) 21:33, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You have absolutely no insight into your own behaviour, which I find quite illuminating although not entirely surprising for you civility warriors. Malleus Fatuorum 21:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• That was a bit of a stretch as far as instances of incivility go. Art, if you really think this was uncivil, let's run it over to WQA or AN/I and see if anyone agrees with you. Game? --John (talk) 22:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Or perhaps the brave Art might like to try for a bigger fish?[2] Malleus Fatuorum 22:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

That was about as mild a reminder of the expectation of civility as can be made. WP:CIVIL states "Incivility consists of ... aggressive behaviours that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict." It is not unreasonable to find the tone of MF's response to fall under that description. No formal sanction was being proposed, so John's contribution is disproportionate. Kevin McE (talk) 23:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

How are you defining "incivility"? Anything said by an editor you don't like, as it seems that Art does? Malleus Fatuorum 02:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Th way wikipedia does. If you don't accept it, please find your way to the exit. Kevin McE (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

After you Claude. Malleus Fatuorum 00:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm not game to run over to WQA; I'm puzzled that anyone would stick up for Malleus under those circumstances, so what I really need to recalibrate is my understanding of Wikipedia politics. Art LaPella (talk) 23:30, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Therefore you compound your false charge of incivility by dishonesty. Malleus Fatuorum 02:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want a discussion of whether to be civil, years ago I wrote an opinion resembling yours at the civility section of User:Art LaPella/Devil's Dictionary of Wikipedia Policy. However, nothing else you write has any resemblance to reality for me. For instance, Kevin cited the policy defining incivility, and your response was to ask how he defines it. So I don't think discussing civility would serve any purpose, other than jumping through the hoop of attempting a discussion for the purpose of any future dispute resolution, to determine why the rest of Wikipedia hasn't solved this obvious problem. Art LaPella (talk) 14:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I can think of few things I'd like less than to discuss airy-fairy notions of civility with a misguided zealot. Malleus Fatuorum

FYI

Although you are incidental here, I'm required to notify: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility enforcement/Evidence#Evidence submitted by SandyGeorgia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It's Shakesteak

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

I know you withdrew it, but couldn't resist.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:13, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, you resubmitted it. Well, I shall leave this here.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:15, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Máj (literary almanac)

Happy (but at least not last:) New Year. Here is my first article in it. Thank you in advance for checking my worsening English.Aloysius (talk) 22:17, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't change this phrase because I didn't understand it: "that renounced to reflex actual situation". To renounce something (it's a transitive verb) is to say that you won't do it any more. For instance, to renounce a religion is to leave that religion, or to renounce alcohol is to say you'll never drink alcohol again. At a baptism, the pastor says "Do you renounce the Devil and all his works?" I think you meant "denounce" or "announce". A reflex is a reaction. Literally, when a doctor taps your knee, your foot will move by itself; that is a reflex. Or in politics, an automatic reaction to something is a reflex. I think you meant "reflects". Or in more natural English, the books were denounced for criticizing the government – or maybe you meant that the books were proclaimed or honored for their political analysis. Art LaPella (talk) 21:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your correction. By the phrase I meant that they wrote about topics which did not touch the difficult political situation of the country so that they escaped to the idealized childhood in past (The Grandmother) or fairytales and myths (Kytice). It might be something like "abandoned to reflect" or "waived to touch" or something like that? Thank you for advice.Aloysius (talk) 12:57, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

"avoided reflecting the political situation too explicitly", but I'm not sure that's what you mean either. Were the fairytales an indirect political comment, in the same way that Animal Farm indirectly criticized the USSR without naming it? Or do you mean the books were unrelated to politics in any way? Art LaPella (talk) 19:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

They "avoided reflecting the political situation" at all, no relation to the police system of the time so I used the phrase without the ending words, sounds ok, doesn't it? Thanks again Aloysius (talk) 19:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if you understand the difference between "political" and "police"; "political" relates to rulers, their supporters and opponents, such as the Bach government you mentioned; "police" look for thieves and other criminals and take them to jail. Art LaPella (talk) 21:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

MOS discussion that may be of interest

Because of your previous input on various iterations of the debate about the lower-casing vs. capitalization of the common names of animals (domestic cat, blue whale vs. Domestic Cat, Blue Whale), you may be interested in this thread proposing key points that should be addressed by the guidelines: WT:Manual of Style#Species capitalization points. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Josef Jiří Kolář

Hi Art, can you please check my hook and language of the article? Template:Did you know nominations/Josef Jiří Kolár Thank you! Aloysius (talk) 19:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The article includes several 20th-century dates. They can't be right because Kolář died in 1896. Art LaPella (talk) 22:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I have corrected the dates.Aloysius (talk) 08:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Umlaut

Thank you for your correction at Blucher (horse). I wrote firstly "umlaut" and was surprised to get a bot message to tell me that was a disambiguation page. I dealt with it badly, and diaeresis was wrong. You corrected that to "umlaut", but on searching I find there is a page called "Germanic umlaut"! If "Germanic umlaut" covers the primary meaning of "umlaut", which I think it does, do you feel that umlaut should redirect there, or else Germanic umlaut be moved to umlaut, with the dab page at umlaut (disambiguation)? Moonraker (talk) 01:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe but there is a discussion at Talk:Germanic umlaut#Splitting, again continuing to the next section. Some there think "umlaut" has other meanings, so that would be the place to ask. Art LaPella (talk) 02:16, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear Art LaPella,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 15:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I'm who you want. My experience as an administrator is completely unique and atypical, so your questions would likely be irrelevant to my experience. I was made administrator to fix typos on the Main Page. I have never blocked anyone, and I have almost never used my administrator power for any other purpose except to edit protected Main Page sections. Art LaPella (talk) 16:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Would You like to Help?

Hi, I am starting Wikipedia:WikiProject Ravidassia. I would like to get help from people who are interested. You may sign up for the project on the [[3]]. McKinseies (talk) 15:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Mariánská Týnice

Hi Art, I think this time there will be a lot to correct (not because of the article lenght but due to my state of ingnorance last days). Thanks in advance.Aloysius (talk) 22:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• I changed "12.000 goldens" to "12,000 goldens". In German, and I think in some other European languages, twelve thousand is written as 12.000 . But in the U.S., I never saw big numbers written that way until I was about 15, while studying German. Anyway, if there were only 12 goldens, I don't know why you would use a decimal point.

• "golden" means made of gold, so is it also the name of a coin? Or should it be "12,000 golden coins"?

• "Legal disputes between the monks and the House of Griespek were ended in 1613 when king Matthias returned the site to the Cistercians.[1] The Griespeks lost their property due to confiscation after the battle of White Mountain" in 1620. But if the Griespeks had already lost the property in 1613, how could they lose it again in 1620?

• Twice you described an "alter" as "ilusive". I corrected Wiktionary:alter to Wiktionary:altar, but I couldn't guess what you meant by "ilusive". Wiktionary:illusive? Wiktionary:allusive? Wiktionary:elusive?

• I didn't understand the last paragraph very well, but I changed it to what I think you meant. In the old version, the phrase "herbs wall paintings" was confusing because the herbs are part of one of the two paintings on the ceiling, not the wall; it was as if several words must be missing in between "herbs" and "wall". Does it mean there were four different groups of paintings: ceiling paintings, wall paintings, portraits of abbots, and pictures of the monasteries? Art LaPella (talk) 00:37, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you. I tried to correct or explain the first four points in the text of the article. You were right in the last point. Aloysius (talk) 13:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

DYK Not exactly

Thanks for correcting my error at Wikipedia:Did you know/Not exactly. Before I made the change, I spent several minutes looking for this rule referenced as "P1" and never found it, and in a random check, it appeared that other pages listing just sections of the full list of supplementary DYK guidelines, such as Wikipedia:DYKFN, identified them by the same prefix letters as in the full list (and you yourself had it as D8 on the "Not exactly" page when you first created the page 3 years ago), so I concluded this was supposed to be identified as D9. Actually, even now, I still cannot find a rule "P1" anywhere else in the DYK pages, even on the "One page" page, which doesn't list any rules with a "P" prefix – but I'm sure you must be correct (I'm being sincere), because you probably have more DYK experience than I do. For my edification, can you tell me where the "P" shortcuts you referred to in the edit summary are located? SJ Morg (talk) 10:06, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• I don't understand the reference to DYKFN as an example of "identified them by the same prefix letters as in the full list". F2 at DYKFN, for instance, matches A4 at supplementary guidelines. It doesn't match F anything at supplementary guidelines.
• P1 was D8 when I first started transforming it from what is now supplementary guidelines. But it was P1 by the time it left my user space.
• "One page" doesn't include everything, on the theory that you could understand the rest of the system without that exception. However, we could change that if people use it the way you did.
• The "P" shortcut means Wikipedia:DYKPN, whose upper right hand corner names that shortcut. Every page in the Learning DYK system has a similar shortcut, all the same except for the identifying letter, which is "P" in this case. So if I want to refer someone to rule P1, I know without looking that I can link it as [[WP:DYKPN|P1]]. Unfortunately, nobody else seems to have learned that technique.
• The original idea of Learning DYK was to replace (not add to) the existing lists of rules at WP:Did you know, the supplementary guidelines, and unwritten things regulars just expect people to know, with one system where people could really find things. Each page in the hierarchy can be understood as one piece of the puzzle at a time, to avoid beginners being overwhelmed by everything at once – that is, with one unfamiliar abstraction defined in terms of more unfamiliar abstractions, and no place to begin. But others didn't agree with me, so in addition to "One page" we have an additional layer of rules instead of a simplification. It should probably be all condensed down to one, but as my influence on that subject is limited, I have moved on. Art LaPella (talk) 20:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about my reference to the "F" rules, as an example; I failed to notice that the "One page" page and supplementary guidelines pages didn't match in their F-prefixed rules. As to "P1", I think I understand now. It seems that "P1" was a designation you gave to that rule yourself, on its shortcut page (which you created), as it made sense to you for it to have a designation independent of the other guideline lists (seems logical). But I still don't find a mention of a "P1" guideline anywhere else in DYK, and I suspect this is why (quoting you) "nobody else seems to have learned that technique" of referring to this guideline as "P1". However, it appears harmless, other than the potential for confusion such as happened in my case, and if that has only triggered a discussion once in three years, then I cannot really argue it's an issue worth our spending any more time on. Anyway, I greatly appreciate the time spent on DYK and other WP maintenance by editors such as you, and I know that the DYK process has become more complicated and undergone extensive changes over the past year or so. Some editors such as myself don't have enough time or patience to keep up with all of that, so I do appreciate your (past) work helping editors understand DYK, and I also thank you for taking time to respond to my confusion over P1. No need to reply to this message. Even if my understanding is still wrong, rest assured I am dropping the subject and moving on. SJ Morg (talk) 03:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)