User talk:MjolnirPants

Note to self: Don't trust Notepad++'s spellchecker. You may want to increment {{Archive basics}} to |counter= 4 as User talk:MjolnirPants/Archives/Archive 3 is larger than the recommended 150Kb.

Email me

Archives

Request for Comment
Notifications

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

If you are seeking info on my alt account:
MPants at work
you can find my contributions from that account here

Petting my ego

If you want to rub my ego, feel free.

Graphics Lab

Hi MjolnirPants. I recently submitted a request for a cropped and colorized version of an image at the Graphic Labs. I don't know whether you are still active there or not but as you had done a great job back in January 2015 when you colorized a photo of the Duchess of Cambridge, I thought you might be able to do the same thing for this one as well. As far as I know the request hasn't been taken yet so I'll be so happy if you decide to work on it. Thanks. Keivan.f^Talk 00:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey, Keivan. I'm afraid I'm not likely to find time before this weekend to start something like that, and it's likely to take me more than a single weekend to do (if you want to see what's involved, check out User:MjolnirPants/Colorizing). I really don't mind at all, I enjoy doing this stuff. But I don't know that I can do it for you in a reasonable amount of time. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 03:27, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt response. Well, it's OK, I can wait. Actually it's always much preferable to have something done in the best way, even in a long amount of time. Keivan.f^Talk 04:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi again. Regarding this request I just wanted to point out that User:Auguel created a colorized version. You can check it here. He/she has asked for any kind of advice to improve the photo but as I'm not an expert I thought you might be able to help or even improve it yourself. Keivan.f^Talk 01:13, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

And shouldn't its format be jpg instead of png? And the size of the image has been reduced (I thought the cropped version would be still big enough for infobox). I don't know, maybe all of these are normal. I think as you're an expert in this field, you should probably find the errors. Keivan.f^Talk 01:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Keivan.f. Yes, the format for something like this should be jpg. It's an understandable error, as .png doesn't have any lossy compression, so it's the format most graphics types use for single-layer rasters like this. I could probably give advice for days, but that says more about me.

I've been working slowly on colorizing the version you linked me to, and I was planning to upload it full size and uncropped (it can always be cropped and reduced, later). If you prefer, I could see what I can do to punch up that version, instead. It probably won't be as much as I can do from scratch. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:33, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, I suggest you work on your own version and then upload the full-sized and colorized version with the right format. To be honest, something is wrong with the one that has been created by Auguel as the color of dress and even the color of her eyes look unnatural. I have added the current file to the article temporarily because it's much better than the previous image that was used in infobox, but I can wait for you to complete your work and then we can replace it. Thanks. Keivan.f^Talk 20:55, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

@Keivan.f: Yeah, there are some very common mistakes. There's no gradation of color, and the colors are too saturated. I hate to say this, but it'll probably be another month or two before I finish, as I've been very busy at work lately and being in the school year means I can't let my kids stay up late (something which drastically increases my free time at home). This is why I offered to mess with that one. I could lower the saturation, add some ambient color in the shadows and give the teeth some color. It wouldn't be up to my usual standards, but it would be something of an improvement that wouldn't take very much time at all. I don't want to be the one to do it (because it comes across as extremely arrogant), but if you wanted to offer the editor who did that one a link to my little colorizing tutorial, they might appreciate it. Or they might not, some artists are pretty sensitive about criticism, or anything that can be perceived as such. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:02, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, he tried to increase the realism of colors and the whole photo by giving the teeth more color and improving the eyes. He said he changed the format to png "because it is a lossless file format whereas jpg is compressed and can leave compression artifacts on the image." I think that's all he could do and I'm going to mark the request as "Resolved", but I'll still wait for you to upload a better version. Keivan.f^Talk 23:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

But at least now we know where the trolls are coming from

Amirite? TimothyJosephWood 20:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Tim, no argument here. But to be honest, I knew we were getting trolls from voat (and Olgino) in these articles for a while now. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:45, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Eww. What happened to the good old days when trolls came from 4chan? TimothyJosephWood 20:46, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

The days of me trying to explain to my wife that "thigh gap" is not really a thing are long gone, I'm afraid. Now, we get to explain to our children that the our society wasn't always indistinguishable from the settings of dystopian novels... MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Meh. I wouldn't say indistinguishable. I think you underestimate the sheer unfettered access to pornography and cat pictures that Orwell failed to predict. I'm more of a Huxley man myself. TimothyJosephWood 21:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm more of an Iain Banks fan, where people are unwitting slaves/pawns/entertainment for their robot overlords. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Apparently I need to read more Ian Banks. I could have sworn that people in his novels were witting cohabitators with AIs who happen to have some of the greatest names in the history of ship naming. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:11, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems pretty on-point for military type names. Compare the light medium tactical vehicle (LMTV)..."light"... at 23k pounds empty. TimothyJosephWood 21:16, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Depends on the perspective ;) It comes up obliquely in some of the books. 'Minds' (Ships, Orbital hubs etc) are the big AI's, with drones (small robots) the little AI's. There is an undercurrent in the views of non-culture societies that the 'Minds' are the ones in control, with the drones and meatbags their playpieces. Excession is almost entirely from the culture perspective but illustrates to the extent the Minds manipulate the society down to the individual level. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:18, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Although if you have not read all the Iain M. Banks stuff you really should. My personal favorite is Use of Weapons, which is imho his best work, but not his most popular due to the subject matter. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Hmm...I am about to lose tokens on audible if I don't download a new book soon. TimothyJosephWood 21:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Let's not forget George R. R. Martin, where sinister hive-minded telepaths that live underground and look like monkeys plot to make humanity kill itself. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:54, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I much prefer the Martin where humanity has pretty much already died and the survivors cut off their priest's arms and legs because they worship worms. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:17, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• @Timothyjosephwood:I think you underestimate the sheer unfettered access to pornography and cat pictures that Orwell failed to predict. I just saw this, and I graciously concede the point. <wanders off to look at cat-porn-fail-copypasta-rickroll-memes> MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:30, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes. The Soma Huxley never thought to write about, because no one would have believed him if he did. TimothyJosephWood 23:32, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Word to the wise. If you get bizarrely curious and google "cat porn fails" you will regret it. Rule 34 is a harsh mistress. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I learned about rule 34 through Pterodactyls. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:31, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

OiD, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, here. I'm still a little shook up about that. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:09, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Your edit summary here

Doesn't bother me at all! As you have probably seen on my talk page many times before, many people use it to make casual conversation and have fun. Fine by me! It's kind of what it's there for in the first place (within policy of course) :-P ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:36, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Oshwah I feel the same way about user talk pages, so I'm glad to hear that. I used to feel the same about article talk pages, but then I encountered my first WP:FRINGE article and now I'm glad we have WP:TPG for those. ;) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:20, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

john Carter

How did he get Unblocked? 72.168.128.134 (talk) 22:44, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

He promised not to do it again. Removing the mini-diatribe against me off his page before an admin noticed it probably helped, too. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:51, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Croqui/figure drawing

A while back I made these: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Costume_Construction_Kit

However, it should be obvious that the figures are not as flexible as they could be.

Would you be interested in producing some updated versions of these that can be posed, so myself and other contributors, have to re-draw each new pose (my thinking is some of the balletic ones are missing) long-hand.

The costume construction kit pages also have various other clipart cutouts in them that it would be nice to have "poseable" as well..

In the very long term it would be nice to have some kind of "free" tool for croqui generation analagous to the Make Human tool for doing 3D human models, but as I've not found one online yet, I'm not hopeful of such a thing ever happening.. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

What you're asking for isn't something that can be hosted on WP for technical reasons (it would have to be an app, not an image) as well as due to the fact that it's outside the scope of WP.

With that being said, I'm not unwilling, but as this falls outside my hobby of contributing to WP, it thus falls under the aegis of my DBA. I have a standardized rate, I do all work under a legally enforceable contract, and I do not consider a contract closed out until the customer is satisfied with the end result. You may email me if you wish to pursue this route. Just from what you've said and the images you showed, I don't mind estimating a total cost of about 300USD for the whole thing, if you take it in the form of a flash app. More, if you want a fully pose-able 3D virtual mannequin in a standalone app with image exporting capabilities and transparency handling. That would run up to about 4000USD.

I suspect, however, that you're not interested in shelling out a couple hundred to a couple of thousand bucks for something like this. But you're in luck. DAZ Studio is a freeware (supported by an asset store) 3d studio which comes with a few models which are fully poseable, and it can export high resolution images through the built-in rendering engine. I would suggest using that if you want all the bells and whistles.

If you're looking for something simpler, you may try this site, which has images in a wide variety of body types and poses. Google will find you many more, if you wish.

I do wish you luck in finding what you're looking for. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, for the fast response, I fully understand your comments above, and having NO budget myself, I'll look to the tools you suggest. There's also the open source MakeHuman (seems to do something the same as poser.) which I may look to using more extensively anyway. The Designer Nexus stuff wasn't necessasrily free in Commons terms, which is partly why I ended up drawing the images in the category I linked by hand. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:55, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

ShakespeareFan00, I was unaware of MakeHuman until your comment above, so I owe you some gratitude, as that looks like a wonderful tool to get a hold of myself. I really like what I've read about it, and it seems like it would be very useful. So thank you for that. :) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:28, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Glad I could help. I might also "suggest" to the MakeHuman developers (on their forum) that it spins out some MakePose/MakeCrqoui tools in it's output render. (I'd need to work out a spec first though, so I know what to suggest to it's developers.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:44, 3 February 2017 (UTC) (Ammended17:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC))

As a coder, my instinct is to immediately volunteer for something like that (contributing to open-source software falls within my hobbies), but as I knew nothing about it, it would take me a few weeks at least to get up to speed on the code enough to do anything like that. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:50, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, by "suggest", I meant leaving a comment on their forum, and nothing else, I've amended my earlier comment accordingly. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

re: this

No, I don't think you're evil.

But you might have a witch in your ancestry. :-P 79.40.43.26 (talk) 20:51, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

;) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:55, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Notifications

[Moving here so as not to clutter Talk:Bart Ehrman.]

No, bog standard four tildes. But I'll take out the em-dash to see if that's what's confusing the notifications code.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 08:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, that is strange, indeed. If that works, you might be able to get the dash back in with some advanced text formatting... Perhaps a regular dash in a larger font? CSS has a font-stretch property, but no major browsers support it... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I guess I won't know until I go for a long time without anyone mentioning that they missed my notification. It seems to have worked some of the time. And I need to watch out for how I deal with edit confilict, since pasting the expanded signature might also be a reason for the notification failing. jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:50, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, my pings have failed for that exact reason. I always go to the diff part of the edit conflict page and grab my edit, paragraph by paragraph if I've put a ping into it. I would like to see the software updated to use contextual information to decide if a ping is a new one or not, but I understand how difficult that can sometimes be, being a programmer myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Pants

File:Spongebob Squarepants as a balloon.jpg

A rare photo of MjolnirPants in real life.

After a rebuild I no longer have whatever font it is Mjolnir is in. So now you are just SQUARESQUARESQAURESQUARESQUARESQUARESQUAREPants. That is all. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

LOL I specifically chose unicode characters so that wouldn't happen... All of the characters are from the original (1997 I think) addition to unicode. I know I can see them with Western ISO 8859-1 encoding running on my machine. The sequence is 16D7 16C1 16DF 16DA 16BE 16C1 16B1. It's just MIOLNIR in elder futhark. (actually, it was MIOLIR, but that was a mistake, soon to be corrected). If you're using Chrome, you might be out of luck. I've heard reports that there's nothing anyone can do to get ISO 8859-1 working in Chrome. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, I use Chrome and your runes look fine to me. Very Nordic. Yunshui ^雲_水 15:35, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Goddamn you internets! You lied to me!!!! Well, that's good news, then! We get to blame it on OiD, instead of blaming it on Chrome. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:37, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Old version (read: much smaller stable build without all the crap) of firefox here I use on rebuilds. It will probably work itself out after an update. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:44, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

much smaller stable build without all the crap I had heard such things were but a myth... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm actually seeing the same problem. I'm on the latest stable build of Google Chrome on OSX. AlexEng^(TALK) 21:12, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

AlexEng, hmm... I really don't want to get rid of it, and I'm pretty sure I recall a "no images in signatures" policy. I would have sworn that it wouldn't be a problem because the ISO standard came out in the late nineties. It might be a font choice issue. Would you be so kind as to try doing this and let me know if that fixes it? If I have to, I'll go back, but if it's only going to be a problem for a few people who have unusual setups, I can live with that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:10, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Mine fixed itself after I went to a later version of firefox so I'm good now. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:32, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Yay! My pants are no longer square, but well-rounded with bulges in all the right places... Ladies. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:54, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Help request

Hi! I have been asked to write up an editorial for The Signpost. It is at User:Guy Macon/Draft of Signpost Editorial. If you have time, could you give it a quick look and correct any glaring errors you spot? Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: I read the article. As far as grammar and syntax goes, it looks great. I spot checked a few references and they hold up too (as expected, though I considered it possible that you could have put a few in the wrong spot). There are only two things that stand out to me, the first being an aspect of argumentation and the second a stylistic opinion. I'll start with the second because it's easier:

I think the final paragraph should be drawn out just a bit more. The writing is good, and the rhetoric builds to a climax, but then ends with a simple declaration of fact. I'd like to see a bit of hyperbole, perhaps a joke or two at the end. Really emphasize the crash. Maybe something as simple as a couple sentences describing the (inevitable?) crash of WP and it's effect on editors and readers.

The first thing from above is that I'd like to see you raise and then answer some counter-arguments. The article is an argumentative one, so I would like to see counter-arguments preemptively raised and shot down. Perhaps raise the possibility that the numbers given represent a normal growth for an NGO like Wikimedia, then raise numbers from other NGOs to show how far Wikimedia's number diverge.

As you can see, both of those rest on my opinion. In neither case is it a particularly strong opinion, either. It's just something I would have done, were I writing the article (and I managed to think of it, which is a dubious proposition). It looks and reads pretty damn nice the way it is. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey User:Guy Macon, I was just stalking MP a bit and saw your article feedback request, thought I'd share my two cents. I get where you're going. But in the spirit of heading off counter arguments, there's a big one in the framing you might want to think about. You say:

"The Wikipedia page on the wheat and chessboard problem explains that nothing can keep growing exponentially forever. In biology, the unwanted growth usually terminates at the death of the host. Exponential spending increases can often lead to the same undesirable result."

However that's really only true for parasitoids. Even most parasites don't kill their hosts, or don't really want to. And why is WP such a leech? Maybe it's just a species in an ecosystem of non-profits and for-profit web services. And while species coexistence and maintenance of population is highly complicated, there's no reason that approaching, or even overshooting the analogous carrying capacity should mean extinction. There's all kinds of self-regulation and negative feedbacks that can buffer an organism or population away from exinction/death, things like context-dependent pressures from predator/prey and the environment and resource competition and... It's complicated. I don't really intend to start a debate on the topic, just wanted to point out the way you frame growth=host death (or organism death), and that in one reading you're kind of assuming WP is a parasitoid...

As for general relevance to WP, I guess I'm not sure why you have so little faith in their institutional ability to regulate and adapt. Cheers, SemanticMantis (talk) 01:23, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to debate either (there will be plenty of that when the editorial is published) but I do want to correct any easily-correctable flaws before publication, and the above comments are a huge help in accomplishing that. There may very well be uncorrectable flaws (such as my basic point being wrong) that can only be fixed by scrapping the editorial, but right now I am looking to fix anything that is fixable.

That being said, let me explain my thinking in the hope that you can suggest a better way to get my point across.

All analogies have limits. Wikipedia isn't an organism, cannot have a literal cancer, and cannot experience a literal death. That doesn't make analogies useless, though; some things (like the fact that exponential growth forever is impossible) are true of websites and organisms. In this case, switching from cancers to parasites makes for a weaker analogy, which is why I did not choose parasitism as my analogy.

A tumor that has self-regulation and negative feedback that buffers it away from causing death isn't a cancer. See The Hallmarks of Cancer and Benign tumor. Nor do cancers co-evolve towards not killing the host the way parasites and diseases do.

The reason I have so little faith in the WMF's ability to regulate and adapt (note that I specified the WMF; I think Wikipedia has shown an excellent ability to adapt) to future financial problems is the horrific track record they have regarding adapting to other problems. In particular, how to avoid the problems we have with software development has been well known for decades and is extensively documented in books such as The Mythical Man-Month and Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, yet the WMF has never shown any interest in correcting the errors they keep making in the area of software development. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Guy Macon, As a non-profit, WMF probably has a much more stable base of developers than most software-based businesses. There's a good chance those developers also have less experience developing elsewhere. I think we all know what kind of effect that tends to have on code: the exact effect you're pointing out here (and a few other deleterious effects which might be worth keeping in mind if you write a followup). There's that built-in desire new coders to a project often have to strip the existing code down to the barest bones, and rebuild it to better host the changes they've come on board to make. Without that push to fix existing limitations and inefficiencies, the existing code gets sort of 'enshrined' in nostalgic reverence and nobody wants to change it. I've seen it happen before.

Hell, I just had to force myself (kicking and screaming, of course) to dump some code I'd written a while back and start writing it again because I just couldn't adapt it to the new requirements. The absolute worst part is that I'm now finding tons of little inefficiencies in that code, so all the pride I took in solving that problem gets crushed as I realize my replacement solution is going to be much smaller, with fewer dependencies. And it isn't going to give me that I'm-so-clever-for-figuring-this-out feeling as I write it because I'm not figuring this stuff out as I go, but using existing knowledge.

I have no idea if that really helps you at all, but I figured it can't hurt to have a possible explanation for one of the problems in the back of your mind. I agree with what you said about analogies, and about your cancer analogy vs the parasitoid analogy. Your point about cancer not evolving to avoid killing the host is exactly what occurred to me when I read SemanticMantis's comments. Stick with what you've got on that one, although I have to admit that his counterarguments were pretty interesting. It makes me wonder if there's some valid analogy of parasites (I mean this to include parasitoids) to certain groups of wikipedians, such as our resident lunatic charletans. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:28, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

One final comment on the analogy: WMF cannot exist without revenue and expenditure, these are the basic "life processes of a nonprofit. Cancer is something that has gone wrong, a corruption of normal life processes. It may well be that something has gone wrong with WMF's spending, but that's not to say the spending itself is cancer. Put another way: if possible, we excise cancer in humans. I don't think you'd argue to excise all revenue and expenditure from WMF. If possible, I think you'd like to excise the bad processes, while still leaving "healthy" and normal spending intact. So I think the article could be improved a bit by describing what you think is the cancerous bit, ideally without relying solely on growth. Unrestricted growth is a consequence of cancerous genes, it is not the cause. We can look at various allometric growth charts, and fit exponential growth functions to things like lung volume, ages 0-3. If we only used "exponential is a good fit for this window" as a diagnostic of cancer, we'd conclude a healthy child's lungs were cancer.

Anyway, have fun with it, I also think MP is right some sort of joke or punchline at the end might help. I guess I'll subsscribe to the signpost, I look forward to seeing the discussion this generates when it comes out! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:05, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

SemanticMantis Hmmm, I think Guy's analogy addresses this already: A malignant tumor is one which grows out of control, consuming more than it's 'fair share' of resources to fuel this growth, which seems to be Guy's point. I'm pretty sure he's saying that the amount of funding and spending is the cancer, not the fact of funding and spending. Walking further down that analogy, one wonders if there is a discrete focus of spending and funding that's resulting in this. I think if so, that would then be the actual tumor in this analogy (whereas cancer is the disease caused by malignant tumors, or the condition that permits the forming of malignant tumors). Of course, I'm not an oncologist, nor do I even have a particular interest in oncology, so there might be more to it that I'm missing, or perhaps I've oversimplifying something. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:16, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

For the record, as we've had little or no interaction before, I should warn you that I thoroughly enjoy arguing as well as collaborative discussions. I'll nitpick details to argue about until it becomes obvious that people are getting upset (and I'm as socially inept as any nerd, so sometimes that takes me a lot longer to do than most folks). So don't take it personally if I keep poking at your comments; I honestly want to hear your rebuttals and I honestly enjoy being proven wrong and made to change my mind. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

All good. I don't think classification of problem by means of growth alone is very solid, as described by my bit about childhood growth. Of course we do know a bit about human development, but using near-exponential growth as the sole indicator of cancer would lead to diagnosing lots of children with cancer. As with the healthy child we mistakenly call cancerous, the same retort works for WMF spending: "come back in X years, you'll either see continued rapid growth, indicating you were wrong about precisely how long said growth could last, or, you'll see that it has leveled off, indicating that you were right that said growth could not last indefinitely." To some extent, Guy's basic argument is essentially inviolable: exponential growth cannot last indefinitely. But I hold exponential growth happens all the time, and WMF/WP are still in their childhood. It's a tricky line to critique the writing without getting into a debate over the content, but my main point (now) is that by focusing on growth itself as a problem, the essay is sort of ignoring e.g. the normal "exponential growth" that takes places during phases of development, like the early part of a logistic curve or the height of a child [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

All good. I don't think classification of problem by means of growth alone is very solid, as described by my bit about childhood growth. I agree with that, but I think I was unclear earlier (Okay, I can plainly see that I was, my bad). What I meant was that the central point of the analogy is out-of-control growth, or at least the appearance thereof. In reality, it takes people at the WMF to direct this money, so the growth in spending is obviously being controlled, but that's just a weakness of the analogy. The strength is that it provides a framework to examine the issue in a way that leads us to question the motivations of those controlling the spending. Are they spending logically? The evidence Guy compiled seems to suggest not (though to be fair, it may be that a counter-argument could produce just as much or more evidence to suggest that it is). By the way, check out the latest version, I noticed the other day that Guy made some changes and said they were due to your comments. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:05, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Sources

Maybe someone needs to explain to him what a secondary source is [2], or maybe I misunderstand what "independent of the subject means". Slatersteven (talk) 16:09, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Well he is broadly correct in that. Where something is just an interview with no analysis or extra comment/editorial etc, its considered a primary source for most purposes. However assuming he was introduced on the show as 'Scientist blah blah' and billed as such, its not really primary as the intro/titling is chosen by the interviewer/show rather than the subject. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:40, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the above: When something is just an interview, that's a primary source. In this case the actual source was a bio page on him, as he's apparently a regular guest. Not being very familiar with the Space Show, I don't know if they're generally considered reliable or not, so from where I sit, that's where the issue lies. However if they are, then I think Slater is right that this is an acceptable source. That still isn't the final word on the issue of whether to call him a scientist or not. I tend to think "No" on that, but I haven't been very involved in the discussion thus far. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:45, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I am not so sure I agree with this. I have never heard of the Space Show, but are we correct to rule that all interviews are primary sources because some editor/s believe they are not fact checked (how would the editor know this?)? When Michael Parkinson interviews David Attenborough and says "So Sir David, how does it feel to be the first scientist to have brought animals back from Madagascar" (this is totally made up), don't we assume this has been fact-checked and is therefore a secondary source. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:01, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@Slatersteven by coincidence I have only just been looking at the Talk page guidelines and WP:TALKNEW states "Don't address other users in a heading". You might like to consider a more neutral heading for this thread such as "primary or secondary sources". I leave this with MjolnirPants as it is their Talk page. DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done As I'm sure no one will terribly mind, and it's best to store all flammable substances and explosives in a secure location which is a safe distance away from fires. TimothyJosephWood 18:05, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

DrChrissy, anything said by the subject of an interview would be a primary source -regardless of the actual medium through which they said it- because the subject is quite naturally a primary source on them-self. Since the meat of an interview is the things the interviewee says, the majority of interview sources would be primary (exceptions would be for claims such as your example, which are made by the outlet doing the interview, of course).

Timothyjosephwood THanks for that. I was a little uneasy about the thread title myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I totally understand and agree with what you are saying about statements by the the interviewee being a primary source. I was thinking more about how do we know whether or not fact-checking goes on before the interview is published and therefore what the interviwer states is secondary. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:55, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

DrChrissy, I actually raised that same point at talk, against the assertion that they didn't do any fact checking. To my mind, it seems like we have to rely upon the reputation of the interviewer. To return to your example, we can trust that Parkinson's lines were vetted by fact-checkers, whereas if a random blogger asked Attenborough the same thing, we wouldn't trust that this was the case. This is why I raised the reliability of the Space Show in general; if we trust them to fact check, then that bio is probably okay. If we don't, then it's not usable. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:00, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

As I said, I have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of Space Show. How do we decide as simple editors whether the sources fact-check or not. Didn't a very prominent peer-reviewed scientific journal (Nature perhaps?) publish an article on the discovery of cold fusion? DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:27, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

When it comes down to it, that's why we have editors instead of summary-bots: We have to use our judgement. I know it's OR and SYNTH to pour through an outlet's output looking for mistakes in order to compile into a dataset that can be used to make a determination of how trustworthy an outlet is, and what (or who) it's most likely to lie about or just be mistaken about. But that's how it is. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to reply and Yes, of course "it is what it is". I guess having a rather black-and-white approach to things, I'd like to see a more objective approach. I tried this at a noticeboard a long time ago regarding the Daily Mail, but got blasted out the water. I get the feeling that the tides may have turned after seeing what is going on about the Daily Mail over at RS noticeboard. DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:00, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Ehm...

I wanted to rub your ego... and it bit me! (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:29, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

My ego can be a little aggressive... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:07, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

RE: Your comments at RSN pertaining to Collect

Bullshit.

They're direct comments on the long-term false narrative he's been peddling -- and SANCTIONED BY ARBCOM FOR -- regarding reliable sources and his misuse of them, and his FUD campaign to denigrate reliable sources. I strongly suggest you learn what personal attacks actually are before giving advice about them. --Calton | Talk 09:12, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Calton They were unprovoked, and did nothing to advance the discussion. The only meaning behind them was to impunge upon Collect's reputation. That's as unambiguous of a personal attack as I've ever seen, and it reflects very poorly on you that you would double down on it. It's fairly clear that your motivation in commenting there was to turn the discussion against Collect, but I am telling you now that all you accomplished is letting me know that you're focused on Collect to the point that I might as well discount anything you say in any discussion in which Collect is involved. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:28, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Surprise Based Goodness

De728631 (talk) has given you a Cheeseburger! Cheeseburgers promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a Cheeseburger, whether it be someone you've had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy eating!

You just made my day with the calculus reference at Bish's talk page. So please have a Royale with Cheese! De728631 (talk) 13:46, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Spread the goodness of Cheeseburgers by adding {{subst:Cheeseburger}} to their talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cheeseburger on the giver's talk page with {{subst:burger-munch}}!

@De728631: I'm glad someone else found that as funny as I did. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:54, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Club Car

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Club Car. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments on 2601:84:4502:61EA:E492:DB5F:B7AA:EB8

Let me tell you something, You know a lot about ANI comments. You make the best ANI comments. They're terrific. Everyone agrees. :D Bravo! --  StarScream1007  ►Talk  07:02, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I...uh...

Should I be worried about this...because I feel like I should be worried about that. I...am extremely confused how that happens. TimothyJosephWood 15:51, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

@Timothyjosephwood: It could be a hijacked account but I doubt it. I've seen the same thing several times in the past year or two. The most recent American presidential election seemed to be a catalyst for a growing divide in American politics that has encouraged a large number of editors to start editing politics pages (myself included, as a matter of fact). In some cases, those editors really seem to be quite ignorant (willfully so, in many cases) about the nature of the entities involved. That seems to be the case here. Zach has been editing a large number of articles, (Grace Kelly being his most-edited article with only 69 edits) for a long time, with his most active year being 2008. I wouldn't worry too much about it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't know that I've ever seen such a lengthy and one sided contribution history, with almost zero talk page participation in 11 years. Combined with what is apparently a...less than stellar understanding of reliability, doesn't exactly inspire confidence in what the quality of those 35k edits might be like. Here's to praying that they are actually just an excellent copyeditor. I'm just...not even gonna look. TimothyJosephWood 16:26, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Timothyjosephwood, yeah, it's hard to get an idea as to the character of edits from an editor with such a long history. I've got my fingers crossed, too. To be fair, the standards for reliability are a bit lower when it comes to non-controversial stuff, which is most stuff, so... knock on wood. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:37, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Accidental Click

Dear User:MjolnirPants, I apologize for my accidental click that caused a revert on your talk page. I hope you are doing well! With regards, Anupam^Talk 20:18, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Anupam No problems. Mistakes which are quickly corrected are not mistakes at all. Unless we disagree about something in the future in which case I'll immediately use this incident as an excuse to request a CIR block at ANI. ;P ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:28, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Well played! I hope you have a great day! Cheers, Anupam^Talk 20:33, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

If you don't mind

I'd like to ask you a question with regards to your response over at the Trump dosser talk page. I'm not trying to change your mind, debate , etc. or else I would have brought this up at the talk page. I'm only asking for my edification, and asking you because you happen to be one of the last people to post there. You basically said Gregory's opinion was one of many, which is true. But that article is full of opinions, which you may not have reviewed because the Rfc was limited in scope. What makes one person's opinion more relevant than anothers? Is it not the relevant experience that truly matters when deciding if an opinion should be included? If you haven't read the entire article, could you please do so? While the question of whether or not Grregory has expertise in matters of intelligence gathering is a fair point, that litmus test doesn't seem like it has been applied to the other attributed opinions. Thanks for listening.That man from Nantucket (talk) 04:28, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

@That man from Nantucket: The basic heuristic I use for judging whether or not information is due is twofold.

First, is it verifiably true? I this case, it's an argument we're discussion, so instead of fact-checking we check the qualities of that argument. The dossier probably is fake, IMHO, but nothing Gregory wrote is a slam-dunk for making that case, nor did he introduce anything really novel to the discussion of it's authenticity. (For the record, I am an unabashed Trump hating liberal, but I don't believe for one second that this is true because it's just too salacious, with too little evidence to back it up. I wouldn't be surprised if the central thesis of the dossier is true -that the Russians have blackmail material on Trump- but just not the specific blackmail material described by the dossier).

But for information that does, I then ask: does it change the narrative? Now, every article has a narrative, which we try to keep on track with the sources.

For example, the narrative of Acupuncture is that it is a very popular alternative medical treatment that has made forays into mainstream medicine, yet despite countless papers written on it, countless experiments done on it and its immense popularity, there remains no evidence for its efficacy, and indeed, it is often held to be an example of quack medicine.

In this case, even if the information were verifiably true (read: if Gregory made a powerful case, acknowledged by independent sources), the narrative remains the same: Some former MI5 guy produced a dossier alleging that Russia has specific blackmail material on Trump. The contents of the dossier are demonstrably wrong about some claims of fact, and extremely salacious in others. The mainstream media is mostly divided on whether or not there is any truth, but hardly anyone believes the claims of the dossier are true outright. How does Gregory's argument change that? The answer is, of course, that it doesn't. So how, exactly does it benefit the article? The answer, of course, is that it doesn't.

There is one thing that it would do, however, which is why I opposed inclusion rather than being indifferent: It needlessly defends Trump on an issue where he needs little defense. In doing that, it shifts the POV to be slightly pro-Trump, which is, I believe, the intent of the proposal. It's an understandable push, because we don't paint Trump in a very good light whenever we approach topics with a moral or ethical dimension. We don't paint Trump as being particularly competent or skilled at anything either. In short, our article is not very complimentary, and that looks like a non-neutral POV. But the truth is that it is Trump's decisions, actions and behaviors which produced the material we included in the article, and thus it is Trump, not WP which is responsible for the slight anti-Trump POV of the article. Attempting to balance that ironically creates a non-neutral POV.

tl;dr: We have enough explanation that the dossier is false already. Adding Gregory's argument doesn't do anything but push a slight pro-Trump POV into that section. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:43, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed reply! Unfortunately the RFC is a little pointed. To understand such you would have to poke into the talk page and see that an editor jumped the line in order to get their preferred POV, but that's Wikipedia. I too can't stand Trump, but am very much against this article being used as an attack piece. Indeed, some of the arguments on the talk page are outrageous in that they attempt to "verify" the dossier. Not our job. The article does mention opinions of notable people on the veracity. Ignoring Gregory for the moment, shouldn't we only use opinions of people who have relevant subject matter?That man from Nantucket (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I can't speak for the state of the article right now, but at the time I looked at it, there were already two or three commentators' reaction to the dossier, which is plenty. The dossier has mainstream press coverage, but it's not something that showed up in the headlines and stuck around, the way, for example, the more general subject of Trump's honesty has, or the allegations of Russian involvement in the election. It doesn't require a lot of commentary. Adding additional criticism makes the article read, to me, like a group of anti-Trump editors managed to force mention of the dossier into the article above the objections of the pro-Trump or neutral editors, who then responded by 'balancing' that out with repeated denunciations. It carries a subtext of WP backstage drama with it, which is just bad. So if someone wanted to replace some existing negative criticism with the Gregory bit, I'd be okay with that, I suppose, though it's not ideal. The Gregory source seems pretty heated to me, and not ideal for making an encyclopedia. I'd rather the more calmly worded sources I saw then be the only commentary on the dossier. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 06:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Help with references.

MP,

this started with some bad english. It does not really allow to decide whether to give due weight to the "exponential" or the "nine-fold" side of the statement, but the real problem is that there is no reference backing up the paragraph. I'm no expert in drug overload, so I had in mind to add a "reference needed" template, in the hope that somebody else can help; have no idea where to find such a template. Can I ask you to point me in the right direction?

Thanks! 79.40.43.26 (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@79.40.43.26: The template {{Failed verification}} provides the following note: .

Then, there's also {{cn}} which produces: . One of those should do you just fine. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:28, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you again - navigating templates can be a problem; so many of them! 79.40.43.26 (talk) 19:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Fix??

"fix, don't edit war" you said when you created the phrase "The idea was published, notably from the geographer Carl Sauer".

I was not trying to edit war. I honestly hadn't a clue what you were trying to say. There was no way I could fix it. Now you've left it as "The idea was published by the geographer Carl Sauer,[10] but was generally ignored by the scientific community thereafter".

What idea? It wasn't his idea, it was Hardy's. Carl Sauer responded to the idea as I said in the first place.

Over to you. Chris55 (talk) 00:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@Chris55: I honestly hadn't a clue what you were trying to say. Your edit summary was "ungrammatical". If you have a problem with the grammar of an edit, then fix the grammar, don't just hit revert. See this diff which compares my two edits for an example of how to fix something.

What idea? It wasn't his idea, it was Hardy's. What do you mean "What idea?" The sentence doesn't say "his idea" it says "the idea". You can't figure out that it's the subject of the article from the context of it, you know, being in the article? Hell, the more specific subject of the article also being the subject of the sentences preceding it and following it also didn't also make it clear? Don't be disingenuous, and stop fighting over the article. You're only hurting yourself with the way you've approached this. I mean, I'm seriously trying to help you and you're just fighting me every step of the way. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

If you don't recognize that the sentence that I quoted above is ungrammatical, it will be hard to have a conversation. And "the idea" (in the context) could only refer to the AAH. But it's incorrect to suggest that Sauer published a version of the AAH. What he said was:

"Sir Alister Hardy has proposed lately that the evolution of man may be accounted for by a more aquatic past, as by seeking food in tropical water...It is a curious fact that no other primates appear to have taken to living on seashores...Whether the human lineage won through on freshwater shores and moved thence to occupy seacoasts, or whether the direction was reversed is undetermined."

In other words, a perfectly normal academic reference, remarkable only by the fact that it's the only one. Why it's considered crucial to have a reference about Sauer than to record his contribution at the time I fail to see, but I've no objection to the final outcome. Chris55 (talk) 09:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@Chris55: If you don't recognize that the sentence that I quoted above is ungrammatical, it will be hard to have a conversation. If you can't describe what is ungrammatical about it, then it's not. And you haven't pointed out any grammatical problems with it, instead you're saying it doesn't accurately reflect the source. But you're ignoring that it wouldn't have accurately reflected the source in the version you reverted to. So just fix it, then! I haven't read the source, I put my trust in you and the other proponents working on this article that it did so. If that trust was misplaced, then complaining about it on my talk page as if it were my doing is just disingenuous. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:22, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

"The idea was published...from...Carl Sauer". Now an idea can be published from a place, but not from a person. It doesn't make any sense to me. What sense does it make to you? None of the other ways of rephrasing it that differed from the original made much sense either for reasons I've already said.

However I've just finished reading the Erlandson 2001 paper that you referenced on the page and thanks very much for doing so. It gave me a whole new perspective on one area of anthopology/archeology. I had briefly read his paper in the Human Brain Evolution conference but without the 2001 paper it doesn't really come across strongly and of course he didn't repeat that there. He admits that in 2001 he didn't understand the brain/fat argument that is behind that conference. I now need to chase his more recent publications... Chris55 (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

"The idea was published...from...Carl Sauer". That quote does not appear in my edit. My edit made it say "The idea was published by the geographer Carl Sauer..."[emphasis added], which you accurately quoted above. Ideas can most certainly be published by people. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:58, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

See this edit. Chris55 (talk) 16:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

See the very next edit. I'm really getting the impression that you're more interested in arguing than improving the article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:44, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be argumentative simply trying to the record straight. Your edit was made at 22:40, I made mine at 23:50. So at the time my "ungrammatical" comment was entirely correct. You tried to fix it at 23:54 accusing me of an edit war but in the process made it say something incorrect. It was cleaned up by Chakazul at 7.08 the next morning. At the time I was extremely stressed by jps's aggressive threats. I'm told by the admins that I should know he wasn't an admin and therefore couldn't do anything about it and therefore it wasn't harrassment. Well I don't take on WP as a contact sport and it sounded threatening to me. And I didn't know at the time how many times jps had already been banned for this sort of behaviour. That was when I sounded off about him–and you, for which I've already apologized. Despite what people have said I'm not fanatically attached to the AAH, but I had put a hell of a lot of work into the redraft and to see a mob of editors suddently descend on it and not only slashing but making incorrect and nonsensical statements into the bargain was very upsetting. Chris55 (talk) 17:18, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

You're "setting the record straight" by pointedly leaving out the fact that your reversion made the claim both factually and grammatically bad? Because you criticized the factual nature of the overall claim (which your reversion maintained), as well as the grammar of using "from" (which your reversion maintained). My point, as made in the edit summary you quoted above remains: If you see a problem, fix it, as I did with both my first edit and my second edit. You simply hit revert because you disagreed with something, a tactic that is actively contributing to the battleground mentality at that article. JPS was frustrated and annoyed at the state of the article and the discussion when he arrived, the fact that you keep trying to blame him for it is extremely unhelpful. Stop focusing on blame. Stop trying to "set the record straight" or anything of the sort: focus on improving the article within the framework of WP's policies and guidelines. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I give up. You can't admit anything can you. Chris55 (talk) 21:28, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

That's the last bit of sheer hypocrisy I'm willing to put up with on my talk page. Don't post here again. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:59, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Abusive, mean, petty Wikipedians

Kindly note your user name was listed in category, though it was not your page creation. This has been done under section G10. Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate, or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose. Thanks.Junosoon (talk) 11:00, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Junosoon: The category was 'fictional' (ie., it did not exist) when I added it to my page to play off the "Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user talk page" cat. I was unaware it had ever been created. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:40, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Beware the Categories Police. They're everywhere. -Roxy the dog. bark 16:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I was a bit drunk two weeks ago and actually started the process of creating all the categories on this page and wondering how long before MP noticed they had gone blue. Then fell asleep before I could hit save. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:47, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: Tis true, but we can impose some constitutional protections.

@Only in death: Honestly; it would probably have taken me a week or two, bare minimum. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:10, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

MP, you may...

... enjoy this. I hope.

87.19.188.227 (talk) 18:13, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Aquatic ape

The level of 'red mist' that jps induces in me makes it not worth my while having any interaction with him. The article can go to the dogs for me - you know, the fat, bald, aquatic dogs. -Urselius (talk) 09:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@Urselius: I generally have a great deal of respect for jps, but I understand your frustrations in this case. I am beginning to feel much the same way towards Chris55. Please consider taking a break for a while before returning; as much as you and I have argued, I've noticed you have done so with great decorum and I am appreciative of that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll respond here so as to not bother the person who hates me so. Generally, I think Urselius and I share a lot in common. Neither of us really cares for the Wikipedia model as a model per se. Where we differ is that I think Wikipedia should be ultra-stolid as a reference work to the point of either excising new and exciting ideas or focusing on the mainstream appraisal of them even when such appraisal is minor compared to the hefty work the innovators are doing. It seems that Urselius wants a reference work that is fair to ideas. Having seen what comes when people try to be "fair" to outsider ideas when they truly are bunk (please note: not saying AAH necessarily falls into such a category, but neither, to be honest, do I have a good understanding for what the full aspects of "AAH" actually are these days as the goalposts seem to be ever shifting), I try treat all outsider ideas in the same fashion. It annoys the hell out of people who understand the mainstream is monumentally unfair to outsiders. But I see no other option in regards to the way Wikipedia runs. If we are going to have a crowdsourced reference work, we have to work very hard at eliminating novelty lest Wikipedia with its popularity unreasonably skew students' understanding, popular literature, etc. None of this is personal. But it feels personal when the other person is trying to do something else with Wikipedia. I cannot blame them for trying, incidentally, because the open source aspect of Wikipedia means that alternative agendas are tolerated and can even become status quo if enough people arrive arguing for a particular way of doing things. jps (talk) 15:10, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS:, I agree with your view of what WP should be as described above. One thing I will say is that all of us seem, on that page to have a very clear POV informing our edits. Now, in your case it's a skeptical POV so I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but I've seen you make a handful of claims of fact which simply aren't true (I can be specific if you like, but I've addressed them at talk so I don't see the point as I'm not here to berate you over it). In the overall sense, I suspect that your POV is more "right" than Urselius' apparent POV, and far more "right" than Chris55's. But that doesn't change the fact that much of the discussion has taken the form of butting heads, due to conflicting POVs. I'm not excluding myself from that, either. All five of us who've been active on that page have contributed to it. Really, I think that's the issue. I truly believe that if everyone stopped caring about the article, we could get more done. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:01, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm actually very interested in knowing what the specific claims that aren't true actually are. If you don't mind telling me here, I'd appreciate it. I like improving. jps (talk) 18:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, it was when you said that MOS:CAPTION states that image captions need to be standalone (I quoted what it actually says, which is fundamentally the opposite), when you said that my suggested caption ("A child of modern Sea Gypsies demonstrating their diving behavior and ability, often used by proponents as an argument for a "more aquatic past".") asserts opinions as facts (even if proponents don't do that, then it's just an incorrect assertion of fact, not the assertion of an opinion as a fact), and when you said that same caption makes an argument that doesn't exist (which takes as a fact that proponents don't make that argument, even though that's the argument made on the blog where the image originated).

We disagreed on a few other points, but I get that those other points are subjective (whether the caption draws the reader in, or is sufficiently related to AAH for example). But those statements above which you made are demonstrably wrong, as I pointed out at talk. I understand that mistakes are made, and I haven't lost faith in your judgement, but things like that create the impression of POV overriding reasoned judgement, which was my point. I know me telling Chris55 to fuck off did the same thing, and that similar impressions have been made, all around. It just seems like the talk page has gotten a bit heated as of late, and I think we could all benefit from fucking off and leaving it. That being said, the discussion today is progressing much better than yesterday, so maybe we should just keep going and see where that takes us. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:55, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I think that WP:CAPTION does imply that image captions need to be stand alone. No, I do not think what you quote says fundamentally the opposite. The idea is that a caption may be the only thing someone reads on the topic. That's the sense in which "standalone" is necessary. As for the WP:ASSERT issue, the claim that the image shows a demonstration of diving ability and behavior that is what is being associated with proponent claims is an opinion about what the image is showing, after all. That's an assertion, as far as I can tell. You fixed that in the next go round. Finally, the "argument" as presented is opaque or incorrect, as we're currently getting at in our discussion. I have to admit to being disappointed in this list. I was hoping there would be errors of fact, but they appear to be only differences in interpretation. jps (talk) 01:42, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

jps, I quoted the MOS page. It says explicitly that "...it is best not to tell the whole story in the caption," which is, unquestionably the opposite of saying that the caption needs to stand alone. The only comprehensible meaning of making the caption "stand alone" is to tell the whole story with it, as you did with your initial suggestion. The second half of that sentence makes it clear; "...but use the caption to make the reader curious about the subject." Hence the guideline to create a caption that draws the reader in. In other words, a caption should make the reader want to read the text, not be a replacement for the text. I'll admit that the MOS page may, in places, imply what you said. But it explicitly states that the caption should not tell the whole story, and we can't ignore what it explicitly states in favor of what it implies, if you only read certain parts.

Your statements about the assertion of the quote is, frankly quite bizarre. What would the image possibly be showing if not a diving boy? Is he flying? Driving a car? Is it a dog, instead of a human? Is it a photograph of the Cistine Chapel? Or are you saying that "used by proponents" does not qualify as attribution? Are those just filler words with no meaning? Do they reflect a claim being made in wikivoice? You say that I fixed it in my next go around, but I didn't alter the meaning at all, just the wording. The assertion that "proponents" make the argument that diving is evidence of the AAH remains the only statement in either caption I proposed.

This is not a difference in interpretation. This is a disagreement on facts, it is a binary proposition. You were wrong. It's not a big deal, it happens. But the fact that you're pushing the argument further instead of acknowledging this and moving on is a problem. When you first started commenting at talk, I expected another rational voice. But what I've seen is a POV push. Your POV might be much more in line with WP's policy than Urselius' POV, but it's still a POV push. I see you refusing to drop an argument that, frankly, you stand no chance of winning. I can't even imagine a way in which those three claims could possibly be interpreted as factually correct, or the result of a legitimate disagreement over interpretation. Realistically, there's nothing you can say that will convince me that you honestly still believe that, for example, MOS:CAPTION still implies that we need to fully explain, with context, every image we post. Instead, you've already convinced me that you're arguing to avoid admitting that you were wrong to make these claims, because you feel that any admission on your part will be the beginning of the end of skepticism in that article. As much as I normally respect your judgement, in this case what I'm seeing is more emotional than rational. You may still disagree, but trying to convince me without an argument so good that I can't possibly imagine it is an exercise in futility. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:55, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

"Stand alone" in my mind means that the caption can be understood without referent to the text. This is not in opposition to the wording you quote. If the captions was "a diving boy" and didn't discuss "ability" or "behavior" I would be fine with the assertion. The wording was the problem. You see, there are multiple ways to interpret the caption and while I have no doubt as to what your intent is, I saw problems with the precise choices. I think that's basically the argument, right there. I may not have ben clear in my points, but I still do not see them as a disagreement over facts. You might even be correct that I was "wrong", but I don't see this issue as being one of being factually wrong. If I'm wrong in that, well, I think this really has become an argument over philosophical approach rather than substance. jps (talk) 10:49, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I've addressed this argument above, already. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Request to overturn administrator's decision". Thank you. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

You may now safely ignore this. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:34, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Awww, I was having fun! (I'm half-serious; this was one of those rare disagreements about a fringe topic where the other side's arguments were well-considered, well-put together and well worth considering, and it remained civil throughout.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:06, 17 March 2017 (UTC)