User talk:Giano II

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Old messages are at:

• User talk:Giano II/archive 1 (2004)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 2 (2005)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 3 (2005)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 4 (2006)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 5 (2006)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 6 (2007)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 7 (2007)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 8 (2008)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 9 (2008)

Essays:

• A few thoughts on writing Featured Articles

• A few thoughts on Wikipedia (unfinished)

Interesting diffs

Just in case any of you were stupid enough to think that the Ombudsmen was there to protect your privacy "I'm reminded of the characters in Solzhenitsyn's novels."

Please leave new messages below

The reasons

For better or worse, the given reasons in the log have been made public off-site. Could someone who is in a position to know either A) confirm or deny this and/or B) explain to everyone just what "blog trolling" means in this context and why Gerard felt this was a valid reason to hide the revision? --Random832 (contribs) 18:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes that is true. The remainder of your question is really for him to answer and if he does not want to answer it, then for the Arbcom to decide why he oversighted. Giano (talk) 18:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• It is my understanding that Peter Damian (under a previous account) was blocked by WJBScribe for harassment and canvassing in regards to his comments made on FT2's election page. ("I would not trust you with my dog or my labrador, can you guarantee that your tenure will not be interrupted by law enforcement" is pretty bad.) He was unblocked after agreeing to drop the subject, but continued to raise the issue on an off-site blog (I'm not sure if this was WR or his own blog), so he was blocked again. I suppose "blog trolling" refers to the fact that Damian was accusing FT2 of being a pervert (although not in so many words). It does not seem to me like a legitimate reason for oversight. Thatcher 18:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I find it worrying that FT2 pretended, in July 2008, not to know [1] that his edits had been oversighted over six months earlier, especially given how closely he and David have worked together. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Well tell it to the Arbcom or Jimbo, not me here, they are the one's who don't want to know about the matter. This page may seem like Wikipedia Central, but it is not, and I'm going to archive some of this mess very soon. Giano (talk) 18:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

A serious question

What would you like see accomplished in regards to Wikipedia politics?--BirgitteSB 22:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you address that question to the punters standing for election, I was planning to stand but had no intention of having to play cards for my Wikipedian life or be blackmailed and pushed into doing so by Fred Bauder; anyway after al the timely blocks and threats I had rather lost the drive. In a nutshell off the top of my head I suppose I want - an honest and fair and above all open system of Wikipedian goverment, elected by the editors and ruled from wikipedia, with no secret and sinister influences from IRC channels. I have no objection to Jimbo having a final say as a casting vote, so long as he appears in touch and bows to the majority will, as does any constitutional monarch. Giano (talk) 22:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that "an honest and fair and above all open system of Wikipedian government, elected by the editors and ruled from wikipedia" is an idea I can agree with. While I find sinister to be a bit strong, I personally have always been frustrated by the influences of the secretive and partisan type tactics people use to take a short-cut through the wiki process to achieve their favored solutions. I think that we are both frustrated by similar types of incidents, even though we would characterize them rather differently. I occasionally comment on such incidents, but it is done without expectations. From the levels of frustration you have shown, I believe you have had real expectations of making an impact from your input. (I really, really have not done any sort of serious review of the issues you have been involved in. But I have been unable to avoid noticing several incidents to one degree or other. So if my following speculation is completely off-base, please correct me and rightly attribute the mistake to an inaccurate memory.) I am not sure that you really have had much of a strategy for how to make an impact. I think you draw attention to something that is counterproductive to the working of "an honest and fair and above all open system of Wikipedian government". I think you very often right about this. I think you have expected the mere identification and publication of the conterproductiveness to bring about a change. I think that such an expectation is unrealistic. I think you then react to disappointed expectations making an immediate impact by reiterating the issue you find counterproductive more stridently. This is still not effective. I think you continue to use the same method time after time merely increasing the volume and hoping for a better result. I think you understand that there is not much point in being right if you cannot effectively put this good information into use making Wikipedia better. And I think this frustrates you. I think you realize your actions in this area are not very effective in changing Wikipedia for the better, but you seem to credit this result more to active opposition to your goal by bad actors than ineffective strategy on your part. So how much of this do I need to strike? I really want to understand where you are coming from, and none of the simple stock explanations fit. If I am getting close to understanding you above, I think I might be able to offer you some insight you might find useful. If I am off-base, well I won't have much of an idea if I can be useful till I understand better.--BirgitteSB 05:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Strike what you like, I am afraid you are getting too deep and psychy for me :-). There is nothing wrong in striving for Utopia, so long as you are not too dissapointed when you find you are alone when you get there, is my motto. I rememeber my much wiki-quoted Granny on her deathbed being told by the priest that her place in heaven was assured, and she repleid "Yes, but will I know anyone?" Striving for the perfect Wikipedia will always be a losing battle, but there is no harm in trying. Giano (talk)

I can't really agree with that. Harm can be done no matter what the original goal was. Besides that I am not an idealist, and I find perfectionism to a miserable pursuit not worth considering. I like to strive for good enough. Try imagining what a good enough Wikipedia would be like for fun. It might even be attainable :) Thanks for helping understand you a bit better. I think I have it figured out better now, but I won't get all pychy on you. I was reading the whole talk page here after posting the last reply and saw your claim that you only ask questions when you already know the answers. I am quite the opposite in that, so I hope you didn't think I was being insincere.--BirgitteSB 09:59, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Most of the problem is that there are now so few significant topics left to write about that those who lack specialist education or resources have nothing left other than politics and their favourite band to occupy their time here. They come along, want to be significant in this huge edifice, and fail to realise that they missed the boat. Plus many of them are grossly immature and lack any understanding at all of anything other than the mores of their own town. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of Wikipedia editors have never left their home country and have no idea at all about the social codes of other nationalities. And the less they know, the more uptight they get about it. But Giano is wrong to call IRC "secret and sinister". It's like anything else to do with Wikipedia, it's a well-intentioned and sincere attempt to do something worthwhile, but which has the potential to be abused. The whole project is like that, ask any OTRS volunteer. The value of shrug and move on is vastly underestimated these days, and that badly needs to change. Guy (Help!) 23:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Let me wilfully ignore your main point and instead pick up your very first subpoint and go off on a couple of tangents. It rather depends on what you mean by "significant topics". Within architecture (certainly not an area in which I can edit with much confidence), all the subjects that receive more than a couple of pages in Pevner's Outline of European Architecture would have been tackled, and turned into articles that are at least slightly informative. But consider a figure such as John Soane. Even those who don't admire his work (and my impertinent guess is that Giano doesn't admire it much), have to concede that he's widely regarded as important. And the coverage of his work here is rather dreadful. It's not at all hard to find information on him, and indeed even my own dilettantish shelves probably contain enough on him to allow for great improvement. While a specialist education would help, specialist resources aren't needed at all -- other than for those people who regard books as specialist resources. And that, I suspect, is the point we're reaching. Mr Average Editor's chair, desk, screen and Google are such a comforting ensemble that it's harder and harder for him to walk across the room and pull a book from a shelf (if he even has one), let alone to (horrors) go to a library and look in some of theirs. And perhaps those who claim to have looked in books and gone to libraries are viewed with some suspicion, or perhaps there's increasingly a notion that if an assertion isn't immediately verifiable via Google it's suspect; either way, articles by people who have researched stuff from books but that (very reasonably) lack specific "sourcing" for every paragraph (let alone every damn proposition) are very vulnerable to those who later slap "{{fact}}" and so forth on what they see. This is mighty dispiriting for the effortful creators, especially when the template-slapper appears to have no knowledge of or even interest in the subject and instead just the personality traits of an eager school prefect and low-rung Authoritarian Personality. (I should add that I too obnoxiously slap "{{fact}}" all over the place.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Two thoughts....1) on the main subject of "what do we want", transparent management and oversight of the few thousand actual regular editors. While I have no inhearant problems with irc channels dedicated for quiet management, they cannot be 'outside' of our wikipedia control. 2) I agree in large measure with Hoary. While I've slapped on my share of fact tags, they are genneraly to articles that have nothing by way of sources, not the heavily sourced stuff that shows up at FAC and get's tagged if each sentance doesn't have a direct reference of some kind. The changing nature of the project is (and has been, it seems) not been managed very well by those who have taken on it's management. I've tried to avoid excessive complaining, as I'm not terribly interested in being part of the management.
  • This whole bit of drama really comes across as trying to get Giano for exposing a coverup of something stupid, no matter how in the 'wrong' or 'uncivil' he might be. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 01:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course, the real question is whether that is what it is, or whether that is what Giano intends it to look like. Since Giano is not willing to share his "positive proof", and those who are in a position to investigate on our behalf are largely also those accused of being complicit, the rest of us are left exactly where we started. Rockpocket 01:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

No you have your proof, thathas been confrimed by Fred Bauder and Thatcher.

• • Guy, if you're having trouble thinking of something "significant" to write about, talk to me and I will make suggestions. Anybody who makes this ludicrous suggestion that the "low-hanging fruit" (let alone the stuff at the top of the tree) has all been taken is either an extreme deletionist or is looking around with one eye shut and the other half-open. Everyking (talk) 04:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Everyking, you stole my thunder. I was on my way to Guy's talk page when I checked here first. I've seen this extraordinary claim made several times and I can't imagine what kind of evidence it is based upon. There are also tens of thousands of articles needing rewrites, image uploads, graphs and charts, etc. I would really like to see people stop making this claim or demonstrate why they think it is true. I mean, just look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index as only one example. There are 1,082,045 stubs! And that's just the stubs that are tagged. Anyone who says there are "few significant topics left to write about" isn't paying attention. Viriditas (talk) 08:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Hoary and Guy are both right and both wrong. There a billions of important pages and subjects yet to be covered and written about, especially in architecture, so my mates and I are OK for the next few years. The problem is a lot of people don't want to write or don't have sufficient interest in anything - probably why we have so many pages on porn stars and computer games. In the olden days it was easy one just rather pompously wrote a page with no references and so long as the subject was obscure and the spelling was OK one was safe - a brilliant new editor was born. Today, it is a lot more work, even if you know a subject inside out (forget the porn star analogy) you have to go get the books and look up the page numbers, or more time consuming still have to go and find a reference for what you know to be true and it all takes time. I see I am being criticised on the enforcement page for not producing much in the last month [2] - well forgive me, one major page, one proper page, a dozen (or so) small related pages and 3 DYKs all with references is about as much as I can manage in one month. You see what people who make these comments don't realise is that writing a page takes time and commitment - a lot of time - and a even more commitment, it is no secret that I completely lost interest in the last page half way through, which is why it took months, but it's a case of what I have started I will finish I apply that to all parts of Wkipedia. It is this time and commitment that the non writing "editors" fail to appreciate. There is more to writing a page than pressing save 100 times. I am not depreciating those who log in for an hour revert vandals with roll back, and then go on to opine on the noticboards, or IRC, braking off from chatting there to execute a few blocks. What I am saying it does not take the same level of commitment - it does not become a chore which writing a page can become - for the simple reason there is nothing to complete. Arbs of course are another subject all together and we don't have time for that. Don't misunderstand I am not complaining about the chore it is my choice to do it, but never underestimate the time it takes; and yes I fully appreciate there are some dedicated and brilliant Admins who work tirelessly in Administration, but they are the exception rather than the rule. In general, the most vocal seldom contribute much of great value, apart from their opinions of course.

I don't juts say this off the top of my head, I get emails from all sorts of people, often they want my opinion about a wiki-scandal they are embroiled in -or more often want to be embroiled in, I was asked last night if I was going to expose a sexy scandal currently doing the wiki-rounds - certainly not - so relax, unless it interferes with Wikipedia it is none of anyone's business, least of all mine. My point is though that in my experience such people have to much time on their hands and don't wish to spend it profitably for Wikipedia. They are the opiners rather than the writers - we are not here to meet new and interesting people - if that is what you want join a dating agency. If people don't want to make the commitment and do the work what are they here for? Giano (talk) 09:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting thoughts. Many don't realize just how much work it is to write a whole article. I cannot even imagine what it takes to get from nothing to a featured article. Still, how to solve this problem? Somebody needs to deal with the vandals and the POV pushers, and the article writers have more important things to do. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately dealing with POV pushers requires a lot of time and effort, or anyway up to the point where everyone has agreed that they're POV pushers. Reverting vandalism is tiresome work too, but at least it can be worked at in short bursts. I think that this is why the latter job seems to attract people: I'm probably not unusual in having thousands of pages on my watchlist and easily thinking that I can give myself a long enough break from my paying job to undo damage here and there. ¶ As for actual constructive work, well, that's a major commitment if it's to reach a satisfying level, and very often indeed I start with modest intentions (which in the rather silly quasi-official terms might be described as getting an article from "stub" to "C") but quickly run out of puff and don't even manage that. I fully agree with the bit about the (relative) ease of writing (fairly unopinionated) descriptions that lack specific sourcing: I very often want to say something that I'm certain every informed person would agree with, but as I can't "source" it without a trip to a specialist library and trawl through books in an inadequately acquired second language of mine, I don't attempt it. Anyway, my hat's off to the authors of FAs. (Or most of them. There's something about an FA on a video game or similar that makes me fume.) ¶ I think that an interest in scandals (real or imagined) needs not just an appetite for gossip (whose lack in me I don't regret) but also a more basic aptitude I wish I didn't lack (though if I had it I'd apply it elsewhere): a memory for names. As I skimread this talk page, I see a number of usernames; perhaps over half look familiar to me but there are no more than three about which I can say anything ("He/she's the person who previously did / failed to do / asserted / denied [this or that]"). This probably renders me psychologically incapable of developing a taste for gossip. ¶ Giano, what do you think about Soane? -- Hoary (talk) 11:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

You are not the first person to ask me about him and why I have ignored him, I don't dislike him at all, in fact I quite like him, but I have never quite grasped where he is coming from, I mean that literally all that perspective and illusion, there is something of the surreal about his interiors, I could do his exteriors no problem, but that would be only a fraction of the subject,and his page needs to be done properly by someone who knows what they are talking about, for for me that would be a very long job indeed - we are back to edit racheting again. It takes much longer to making few good mainspace edits than it does to proffer half a dozen half baked opinions. Regarding POV we do have a few of those on the "artistic" side too you know, just look at some of the problems Amandajn and her friends have to deal with. However. when I see people saying Michaelangelo or da'Vinci were the greatest of artists, I don't have a problem with that. I don't get POV trouble so much because what I write about is pretty straight forward. Guy is completely right, that one has to be more and more scholastic now to write an FA, people who don't seem to want to write and help with the page will always pop up as RL experts once it gets to FA, that is one of the reasons my FA days are now well and truly behind me - someone said to me the other day that I had used references that had not received a scholarly review (presumably on the internet) well bugger that, if that's what an FA now has to be, someone else can write them, life's too short - a published source is a published source and as long as it makes sense to me I will use it, and as long as my stuff is comprehensive, readable and as accurate as possible that will do for me. I do think it a shame now that "ordinary people" are now hesitant of writing a FA for that reason. A real live academic asked me for an opinion on a prospective FA last night, he was worried about being accused of own research, the subject was way over my head, but it's quality shone through, but I expect if it becomes an FA it will be so pruned it will be half the page because of the lack of a scholarly review, so my advice is withdraw if that happens and trust your own judgement and integrity. So my advice is forget the FAs and honours (they are pretty fleeting these days anyway) and just write brilliant pages that you know are brilliant. Forget GA, waste of time just one person's opinion, who usually knows even less about the subject than you do. Regarding those above: I don't know half of them either, I hope some of them are scandalous and gossip-worthy the good are always dull. Giano (talk) 12:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing is nightmarish, for if (out of madness, for a bet, or whatever) one decides to follow the martinets' strictures to the letter, one would end up with something terribly vulnerable to mistakes by other well-meaning editors (let alone vandalism, of course). The pattern would be: Proposition [source], proposition [source], proposition [source], etc. (Whether the source is via footnote or "in-text" is by the way.) But as soon as proposition_A [source_A] is edited by another hand to form proposition_A-with-a-twist [source_A], the "source" is no longer a source. The only way to proof against this that I can think of involves verbose footnotes and is perilously close to saying everything twice: Proposition_A<ref>Proposition_A: source_A</ref>. This isn't that bad for the reader, who's unlikely to bother with any footnotes, but it's a major pain for the writer. (Yes, I've actually tried implementing it.) ¶ I have some sympathy with that annoying person who wanted academic reviews of the books you were citing. Yes of course he was wrong but in a different context he could have been onto something. Pardon the descent into the bathetic, but Are you lonesome tonight? consider Elvis Presley for a moment. Gods know why, but for a period I was protecting the uninspiring article on this (to me) uninspiring singer from POV pushers. The POV pushers were fully equipped with references for the factoids they wanted to insert. Actual page numbers of actual books, and books from publishers you'd have heard of too. Even material from university presses. And it was pretty awful: these writers were clearly desperate to wring a mass-marketable (even best selling) book or at least an "academic" paper out of very little. I don't suppose such desperation has yet come to books about pre-20th-cent architecture, but the poor reader might be sceptical if his previous exposure to prose was limited to school textbooks, speculative biographies and postmodern "interventions". ¶ Soane: I'm quite fascinated by his work and also by him. He and his friend J M W Turner were stupendously hard working; when you look at where Soane was and when, and the conditions he'd have had to endure (cartwheels on unmetalled roads) to get there, it's mind-boggling. The extraordinary house in Ealing -- staffed, when I visited it, by two overtly bored guards, one of whom kept yawning in as noisy a fashion as possible -- is now a dreary train-ride away from Russell Square; Soane would walk there. Inside his buildings, I love his ochres and the way in which he opens up gaps so you see elsewhere. His pendentive [are they called?] ceilings reduce space but somehow seem to enlarge it, or at least aggrandize it. There's always something to revel in, or, if it's his own house, to re-revel in, for I visit it every time I'm in Britain. -- Hoary (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree Hoary (but you're a bit abstact) - here's a case in point [3]. An IP adds information to an FA, I've no reason to doubt the information, but it is unsourced - it is added to my sourced sentence giving it the appearance of validity - very worrying in general. I'm reading Pugin's biography at the moment, hard work such as you mention above was quite typical it seems - Pugin's father ran a drawing office (doing work for Nash amongst others and various publishers). The boys and staff would start at 6, do 2 and a half hours before breakfast at 8:30 - the working day was typically 14 hours and 6 days a week! Hardly enough time for eating opium and so much for European 35 hr weeks. Hoary, Giano or others - can anyone recommend a good overview of the sublime's influence on 19th century painting and architecture? --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

On Soane - loved his house last year, all that mucking about with space was great - until you get to the first floor and look out on the hideous array of lead and rooflights that enable it. But he was monstrously influential by all accounts, not least to the BeeGees who took up the Soanne Medallion and ran with it as late as 1979 - we should have a better article. But seems I'm looking for a new job at the end of the month. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Say Bolox to the job, you now have the time to become Wiki-important, what a compensation that would be. Did soane design the staircase at Ickworth it has a look of him about it? Giano (talk) 15:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

No. Though Mario Asprucci (no more articles left to write, you say?) may have borrowed from his original design. Yomangani^talk 16:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Hogarth's The Distrest Wikiped'n. The reason he is distressed has been oversighted.

Believe me, I've considered sacking off the house, fiancee and family and living in a garett with only broadband for company, but if my reward for such victorian work ethic is ultimately to be treated the way you are - I'll give it a miss. No idea about Ickworth, sorry - any Sublime sources? BTW, did you catch this last week? --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

No I had not seen it, are you trying to hint you are Melvyn Bragg (or whatever his name is) or that they pinched that intro from Wikipedia? I never listen to radio 4, we have it on at breakfast, but Mrs G is talking and giving me my daily instructions through out it. actually a garret, broadband and a couple of bottles of gin could be quite appealing. Giano (talk) 16:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Me, I'm living in a garret with dial-up. (My books on Soane are at my office.) ¶ Ox Comp J M W Turner has an article on the sublime, beautiful and picturesque that refers the reader to Morton D Paley, The Apocalyptic Sublime (1986). I'm not familiar with the work. For art, I'd pick up a book on Fuseli or Martin and see where that led me; for architecture, I'd do the same with one of the less whimsical works on [deliberate] ruins. This here article has a splendid nugget: Art provided models [for the Sublime]. Gray exclaimed on crossing the Alps in 1739: 'Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings, Salvator Rosa'. There you have it! -- Hoary (talk) 16:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

@Hoary - many thanks, The Apocalyptic Sublime sounds great - all need to do now is retain the garret, loose the job and join Giano as a professional wikipersonality, although I've heard he's stingy with the Gin. @Giano - 'In our time' has been a favourite for some time, they always have various professor's on shamelessly plugging books - but covering a vast breadth of subjects - last week it touched on your field, and I wondered what you thought about it; no one seemed to be able to agree even what Baroque was - all very interesting nonetheless. --Joopercoopers (talk) 16:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Hoary, your quote, I think, is actually from Gray's companion traversing the Alps, Horace Walpole, my own first, trustiest companion in exploring the C18. The development of a taste for "agreeable terror", first evinced in the appreciation for wild and mountainous landscap among the collectors of Salvator Rosa, is well charted by Simon Schama in Landscape and Memory 1995, "Delightful Horror", pp 447-78, with an excellent choice of illustrations, part of the small bookcase that would travel with me to Purgatory itself. My own Wikipedia approach is to work upwards, starting with sources, and make points solely by ventriloquism, through cited quotations. So I avoid the unspeakable attentions that Giano draws as by a lightning rod.--Wetman 20:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Architecture and Typography on Wikipedia

If you think architecture is badly represented on Wikipedia, just think about typography (and related subjects). We still don't have articles on Giovanni Mardersteig (de, it), or Bram de Does, or Kurt Weidemann, or Emil Rudolf Weiss, or Georg Trump... names that probably don't mean much to you, but I assure you are very well-known in the field of typography and type-design... The coverage of serious subjects on Wikipedia is far, far from complete. 131.111.223.43 (talk) 17:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Quite right too! Guy clearly does not know what he is missing, I am sure these links will all be blue very shortly......Guy where are you? 17:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Our Leader was quoted in public not long ago, saying that all the important things were already represented in an article in Wikipedia, and only needed adding to. That may be supporting the misperception. --Wetman 19:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I suppose importance is a matter of priorities, I can think of several important (to me) people not mentioned, but then again there are whole categories of people I would not consider of any significance. Perhaps out Leader and I have different priorities. How intersting the world is. Giano (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Surely Our Leader wouldn't have said anything that obviously dumb, unless perhaps his interlocutor was Katie Couric and he'd refused the offer of a rehearsal. For an obvious fact is that en:WP has very little that hasn't already been much discussed in the anglosphere. Recently my editing interests/obsessions seem to have slid toward Japanese photography. If you look in just the single (and admittedly large) most authoritative English-language book about the whole subject, you'll encounter hundreds of write-uppable subjects; to its credit, the book makes it plain that there's much more where all this comes from, and if you add a small number of authoritative Japanese-language sources you soon find yourself with perhaps a thousand photographers, of whom a dozen or so have tolerable articles here (thanks considerably to Pinkville, some of them better than what's available at ja:WP), a couple of dozen more have half-hearted starts toward tolerable articles, over two hundred have horrible substubs created by somebody's bloody bot, and most of the others of whom are unmentioned. And those are just the individual people. There are also themes; Japanese photography of architecture, for example, has been so vigorous that there'd probably be enough material for an intelligent article on just "Japanese photography of Romanesque architecture". (Don't worry, I mean real Romanesque as at Albi or Canterbury, not some Japanese invention that is to Romanesque what Walpole and others' "Gothick" was to Gothic.) ¶ Bram de Does, that name rings a carousel. -- Hoary (talk) 00:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

"As we have gotten bigger, and the low-hanging fruit is gone, now people are writing biographies on less and less famous people, which is harder and harder..." --Jimmy Wales, 6 August 2007 on-line text, under headline ' 2 Million Articles Down and More to Do').--Wetman (talk) 10:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy is quite wrong. Speaking as one whose only two FA are obscure biographies, I'd say these are easier to write than most other articles. Sure, the sourcing may be more difficult, but there sseveral distinct advantages 1) Relatively limited scope - once you're exhausted the material from the sources, you're done. 2) Chronological order generally gives you an outline without much thought being needed. 3) Most importantly, the chances of you having to negotiate some other wikipedian and get a consensus is limited - you can own the article (providing you're happy with the MOS and Infobox brigade pushing you about at the margins. It is much easier to write a mono-authored article like John Michael Wright than to take some better known article which is in terrible shape and sort it. When I was writing Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany, it did occur to me that it would be far more useful if I spend my time fixing the awful Charles Edward Stuart article - but I really couldn't bothered fighting the Scottish Nationalists, Royal Cruftists and modern Jacobite wankers that would have descended on me if I had.

I do think that there is a serious analysis to do in terms of what wikipedia most needs people to do, and where motivations and incentives lie. Yes, some people like quietly fixing up an article and seeking no plaudits. But the reality is that in an interactive project, people like to be noticed. People like to have their message bar ping, and find people commenting on their work when they refresh their watchlists. Now, we can moralise about the narcissism in that but, actually, it is just a fact of life. The difficulty is that it attract drama-seeking. I can spend a fortnight writing a quality article and, apart from infobox pests, I'll be ignored. When finished I can pop it on GA (really pointless, yes) or FAC - where maybe I'll get a bit of attention, but days can go by with little comment. Maybe it will get on the mainpage - but the odds are against me since there are more FA then slots (my two FA have never been used). However, if attention is what I want, my 30 min creation of a new article can get DYK mainpage 5 days later. (DYK motivates new articles, but not real quality or improvement, which I think are the things we should encourage.) And, and this is the real problem, if I really want to be noticed, doing something controversial in project space is far more likely to earn me barnstars and curses. So I block Giano, or unblock him. So I close a difficult xFD. So I sleuth to make myself important, or start a wikiproject on some silly subject - or hang about on ANI - all convince me of my self-importance. We do really need to address the balance here. My suggestions would be a) List all new FA on the mainpage for 24 hours when they first pass (I don't mean feature them, just list them - "wikipedia's latest quality certified articles include...." b) Stop taking DYKs from new articles - take them from old ones that have been substantially improved. c) Start some type of "writer's notice board" (not sure)? d) . e) I'm too humble to want barnstars - but since they motivate some people, let's use them to encourage article work. Or what about annual wiki-academy awards? "Best New Article" "Best Article in a controversial subject" "Best article in a technical subject" "Best historical article".... Anyway, phew, maybe I should take my own advice and do some writing before Christmas.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I agree with most of that, when I was writing Lade Rosebery I was very aware that I really should have been doing Lord Rosebery which was the even worse than it is now, but the obscure is more fun and safer (allthough I do remember that page earned me my only serious accusation of POV on the talk page) You are write in all you say, I'm not sure I would be in favour of awards or singling editors/pages out for special praise, you would eventally create an elite, we have an eleite at the moment, but to have an acknowledge elite would be against the ethos of the project. I certainly agree with "Make substantial content improvement a pre-requisite for adminship - better than checking off edit summaries and other such nonsense - if you can collaborate on a good article, you can handle a mop" and seem to remember launching a campagne to bring that about - it received parctically zero support I suspect that won't have changed. I am though beginning to wonder if we should move away from this culture of FA and concentrate on the editors who churn out dozens of smaller but very good page, but then you are vack to singling people out - problem isn't it? Giano (talk) 13:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I have a plan which is to find all the alt med stubs by assigning a class to them, then I'm going to get every stub I can be bothered with up to start class, doing a bit at a time. As someone said above there are over a million stubs to play with, the wiki would be so much more helpful if these one-sentence articles were turned into a bit more info with refs, and people would actually get some info rather than a dictionary definition. Plus it's a job for anyone who's like me with a short attention sp... As to drama, maybe some people like it, they think of themselves as 'investigators', and others are used by people who want to get a message out etc. Who knows? I don't think most people who are involved in it want to be though, they just experience something they think is not ok and want something to be done about it. But unless they've been severely f'ed over, they soon move on to do something else (at least for most of the time) as they don't need the aggro. One has to pick one's battles or entertainments- unless one truly has too much time/energy on one's hands.:) Let's all remember when we were innocent editors who just wanted to tinker with or write articles, and forget the intrigues if we can, leave those who are really absorbed in it to play those games (for as much of the time as they'll let us.) :) Sticky Parkin 01:05, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but when those games start to affect other people, does one sit back and watch or do something about it? Giano (talk) 08:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the problem- personally I'm not one to just sit back, but that is not the way popularity or a quiet life lies.:) Sticky Parkin 15:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Critical mass

Rock, I'm reading a book at the moment called "Critical mass - how one thing leads to another" by a Mr Philip Ball. Allegations of "conspiracy theories" are facile and I believe knee-jerk and unreflective; the observation of flocking behaviour doesn't mean a belief that there is a sinister organising mind. Just that there is flocking beheaviour. Sarah777 (talk) 02:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Tipping point (sociology): Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference?--Wetman 19:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Mr Ball claims that tipping points are the result of many people following simple (?) rules, following their own self-interest, instincts etc. This can lead to group behaviour that none would want or predict. So when claims of a "cabal" are dismissed as "conspiracy theories" it might sound clever; but cabals exist without the need for any "conspiracy theory". Like, in my opinion, the flocking minds who enforce British/American WP:BIAS even though their individual intentions may be WP:NPOV. Sarah777 (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I recommend David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson's "Evolution 'for the Good of the Group'" in the September-October 2008 issue of American Scientist.[4] This could challenge what Ball is saying. See also: Group selection. Viriditas (talk) 03:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Very educational place this! Ball makes great play about the fact that the supercooling is one way only; gas→liquid→solid. (It is central to some of his conclusions on traffic jams - or rather that there is some underlying principle connecting jams with substance phase transitions). The Wiki article says differently - I think. I may have to stop using him to support my tidbits :)Sarah777 (talk) 08:34, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Houston - problem. To read that article I'd need to be an "active Sigma Xi". And I'm not even an inactive one :) Sarah777 (talk) 09:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Something different

I was reading The Troubles case and found your statement there very much on target. It was cogent, well written, calm and insightful. Exactly the sort of thing that was needed.--Tznkai (talk) 16:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Was it? I'd better go and see what I said, that makes me nervous. Giano (talk) 16:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

On Slim virgins and arbcom dragons

User:Scott MacDonald/On Slim virgins and arbcom dragons

Other than you won't agree with a word of it, I'd dedicate this essay to you. I took a leaf out of your book by recoding my musings in a userspace essay. However, as has already been told me, it lacks your eighteen century image panache.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 09:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• As a matter of fact I don't disagree with all of it - quite a lot of it, but not all of it. However, what you forget is that like all the other writing editors, I am not an Admin, I have no magic button with which to block and attack. I cannot invade privacy or revert embarassing edits for my fiends wanting acquire more power, nor do I have powerful firends on the Arbcom. In spite of the Arbcom painting a target on my head, I have got where I am by contributing to the encyclopedia and my wits, not by a hundred friends from IRC dutifully trooping out to vote, or by cultivating friends in high places. Reform on Wikipdia would be great, but it can only ever work if it comes from the top downwards, not the other way. Giano (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your post to User talk:Deskana

Hi Giano. I wanted to address some of your concerns. Firstly I acknowledge that there are concerns.

Regarding David Gerard and FT2, we've not had a case brought before us (either publically or privately) yet. Now that may sound like me being picky, but were any other person to write a complaint about abuse of the oversight tool on their talk page, nothing would come of it. People need to bring things to us to consider. It's not really our job to actively seek out problems and try to fix them. That's never been the case, and it isn't now either. People bring cases to us, and we decide whether or not we want to do anything, then we decide what we want to do.

I assume you ask whether FT2 will have his list access removed somewhat rhetorically, knowing full well that the answer is that it has never been the practice to remove people from the mailing list when a complaint about them is lodged. We simply ask them not to comment, so as to not bias things. Now, are you saying that you do not believe he can be trusted to not interfere? I do not ask this question rhetorically; I honestly do not know your answer, and I would be interested to hear it.

I assure you that all of us Arbitrators are not painting a target on your head. We are here trying to help contribute, as you are, in a different way to us. I, in particular, am happy to help you with any concerns you have, since I believe (possibly mistakenly) that at the very least, you dislike me less than you dislike the other Arbitrators.

I would politely ask that only Giano reply to me in this section, and that anyone else addresses me on my talk page. If you really want you could leave a link here to your post. I ask this because I am getting sick of trying to pick out useful comments from the surrounding irrelevant diatribes (see the now-archived bits on RFAR for many such diatribes).

Deskana (talk) 11:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

It is quite simple; are the Arbcom interested in the fact that David Gerard (guardian of the Arbcom's mailing list) tampered against policy with the edits of a friend and sitting candidate during an election? We are now told that this is "old news" to the Arbcom, so one assumes they are either not interested in the legitimacy of Arbcom elections or they thought it could be concealed for ever. We will never know how many people would have opposed FT2's candidacy had those edits not been made. For this reason FT2 should stand down from the Arbcom and Gerard investigated for abuse of his priviledges. I find it dissapointing that this responsibilty for basic fair play has to be pointed out to the Arbcom, and more so that certain Arbs respond with open hostility when the subject is mentioned to them. Is this because such election engineering has been common place? Or is there another valid reason? I have no intention of bringing an RFC or an RFArb, I have never appealed to the Arbcom's justice for anything, and have no intention of starting now. Either they are interested in fair play ot they are not, they change the rules often enough when it suits them - it is their duty to look at this, not my duty to point it out.Giano (talk) 13:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

They are not interested in fair play, but in whatever is immediately useful. I think they mean well, more or less, but the majority of arbs follows the path of least resistance; if they keep on they'll soon reach the predictable end. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Quick poll

What's your opinion on Wikipedia having articles on fictional things? Jtrainor (talk) 12:31, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the fictional thing in question. Utopia seems a pretty justified page. So I supose I don't have a problem with it. I don't see the point of pages on the characters in every (here today, gone tomorrow)computer game, but as Wikipedia is not running out of space and some people want to spend their time writing such material, well I'm not much bothered. Giano (talk) 13:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

My head hurts...

Giano, I have read Scott's essay and been answering [these questions] and my time is limited and I need to sleep. Has there been a formal mediation with a neutral referee somewhere, if so, can you show me where? If not, who would you say should be on which side, and who would you select as referees/mediators? All this arbstuff came as an FAC of mine went completely pear-shaped, for various reasons, but some of the blame lies with me. Just spectacularly bad timing to juggle both things :( Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Need to sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PS: You can email to avoid more incendiary sitautions here. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Big Jim

Your oversight concerns are being 'reviewed' by JimboWales; vindication, may be heading your way. GoodDay (talk) 15:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

So far only one thing has ever headed my way from that particular area of Wikipedia, and it was not vindication - so I don't hold great hopes for it now, but at least he professes to be more intrerested than some of his Arbs. Giano (talk) 17:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Photosensitive epilepsy

You know that flying bird atop your talk page, well it gave me the above reaction...— Realist² 19:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Take an aspirin. Giano (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I like your wit. — Realist² 20:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

No, a better medicine for a seizure would be 10 mg of diazepam....OMG I just gave medical advice....oh no....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)