User talk:Guy Macon

A Wikipedia Content Dispute.

Welcome to Guy Macon's Wikipedia talk page. Please Click here to start a new topic. Please post your new comments at the bottom of the comment you are replying to. Please sign and date your entry by inserting "~~~~" at the end. Please indent your posts with ":" if replying to an existing topic (or "::" if replying to a reply). I will generally respond here to comments that are posted here, so you may want to watch this page until you are responded to. I delete or collapse most messages after I have read them. The history tab will show you a complete list of all past comments. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated, and that the user this page belongs to may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User_talk:Guy_Macon.

"Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about strong views the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. We put up all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem." --WP:TIGER

Only 993157079 articles left until our billionth article!

We are only 993157079 articles away from our 1,000,000,000th article --Guy Macon

Depiction of Wikimedia Foundation destroying Wikipedia with Visual Editor, Flow, and Mobile App

Depiction of Wikimedia Foundation destroying Wikipedia with Visual Editor, Flow, and Mobile App.

--Guy Macon

Calvin discovers Wikipedia

• "A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction into a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day." -- Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes. --Guy Macon

Another chart

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Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time." --Neil Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

--Guy Macon (talk) 22:37, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

You know, I finished that book in a rush (I actually bought the audible narration so I could listen to it while I was driving, as well) and loved every word of it. It was so steeped in 90's internet culture and honest-to-god real/realistic CS and cryptography, so possessed of real insight into both and so stocked with fascinating characters both major (Bobby Shaftoe) and minor (the gun-toting computer geeks protesting the FBI raid about 3/4 of the way through) that I found it utterly fascinating. It was only after I finished it that I discovered that it's one of the top books people pretend to have read (there's lots more such lists with Cryptonomicon at or near the top). It tickles me pink to know that I'm not the only one geeky enough to have read it. I'm fairly certain the density of hair under my chin increased ten-fold by the time I was finished.

tl;dr good quote from a good book. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:23, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Your edit summary and comment "I will now return you to the usual apologists"

Guy, you've been around long enough to know better than that. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

You are right. I let my frustration show through, and that was wrong. Sorry about that. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:01, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

See [1]. I just unwatched the page. I stand by my assertion that NPOV is being violated, but I am withdrawing from attempting to address the problem as a lost cause. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

WMF response to Wikimedia referrer policy RfC

Hey Guy. In case you didn't see it, the WMF has posted a response at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy. — JJMC89 (T·C) 18:20, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Better source request for File:Smallbasic-screenshot-3spiros.png

Thanks for your upload to Wikipedia:

• File:Smallbasic-screenshot-3spiros.png

You provided a source, but it is difficult for other users to examine the copyright status of the image because the source is incomplete. Please consider clarifying the exact source so that the copyright status may be checked more easily. It is best to specify the exact Web page where you found the image, rather than only giving the source domain, search engine, pinboard, aggregator, or the URL of the image file itself. Please update the image description with a URL that will be more helpful to other users in determining the copyright status.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source in a complete manner. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page or me at my talk page. Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:35, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Done. [2] --Guy Macon (talk) 21:51, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:20, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Discussion move

Hi, could you please move this discussion to WP:RSN? Thank you! --S. Roix (talk) 12:32, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Done. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:33, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again! :) --S. Roix (talk) 08:08, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

My fault

Sorry about the hatting, I misread the withdraw and thought you had made it. Primefac (talk) 13:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

No problem. And sorry for the late response. I somehow missed this section of my talk page the first time (Note to self: next time, smoke crack after editing Wikipedia...) --Guy Macon (talk) 20:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

No Guy, just stick to before, after would be too much. -Roxy the dog. bark 20:51, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Brilliant!

"We don't consider the president of the United States to be a reliable source on what is and is not fake news. For that we need an assistant professor at a tiny college who decides what is and is not fake news by the tried and true "I know it when I see it" method... :( --Guy Macon"

-Loved it μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) And here I thought we went by what random IP's said.... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:42, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

The opinions of random IPS would, in my opinion, be far better that what I have seen at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Zimdars' fake news list and Wikipedia talk:Zimdars' fake news list. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I can't agree with that. Zimdar's list has at least some thought put into it, and the methodology of it isn't "news outlets that disagree with my personal politics". While I understand your criticisms of the list, I'm curious if you believe there are any outlets on that list that you would consider a reliable source for statements of fact. I'm seriously curious, not asking in a "if you answer yes, I'm going to assume you're an idiot" way. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:01, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

No reliable sources that I can see, but "not a reliable source" is not the same as "fake news". The methodology is definitely "I know it when I see it" and the person doing the seeing is a self-admitted liberal and freely admits to being anti-trump. It contains a number of sources (Zero Hedge, for example) which are biased right-wing political websites but who proudly say that they are right-wing political websites -- nothing fake about them. It conveniently fails to list biased left-wing political websites such as MoveOn.org and HuffPost. Yet she does manage to include anarcho-capitalist biased political website LewRockwell.com. The list isn't 100% "news outlets that disagree with my personal politics" but it contains a lot of sites that disagree with Zimdars' personal politics and no sites that agree with them.

The main point is that even if the list was perfect and without flaw it would still be a list compiled by someone with no qualifications to determine what is and is not fake news, no published methodology or criteria for inclusion, a freely admitted bias, and a suspicious absence of any listing of a source that agrees with that freely-admitted bias. In other words, exactly like Donald Trump's fake news list. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:16, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, but I would point out one major difference between Zimdar's list and Trump's list: Trump's list includes anyone who disagrees with him, or has ever (to his knowledge) said anything critical of him, whereas Zimdar's seems to be a good faith effort from someone who has a bit too much bias. I've always been more concerned with results than intentions myself, so I see a huge gulf here. I would say that Zimdar's biased-but-still-not-far-off-the-mark list is a completely separate beast from Trump's it's-fake-because-they-don't-admit-how-awesome-I-am list. As to the list coming from random IPs, that seems to be 100% based on sources that disagree with the IP's politics. Though I agree that random IPs are bound to be closer to the truth than Trump, I think it's not a sustainable argument to suggest that all three are of equal -or even similar- validity. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:27, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Has Donald Trump actually called everyone who disagrees with him or has ever said anything critical of him "Fake News"? As far as I can tell, unreliable source https://www.axios.com/the-outlets-and-topics-trump-deems-fake-news-2449858042.html has a complete list. Also see http://ew.com/tv/2017/06/27/donald-trump-fake-news-twitter/ --Guy Macon (talk) 22:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Guy, I just saw this comment. I was being hyperbolic. I don't think Trump has tracked down every news story critical of him and referred to the publisher as fake news. What I was trying to say was that Trump seems to see every news article that comes to his attention and which disagrees with his view of himself and the world as wrong, and frequently announces his disagreement by labeling the publisher "fake news" on twitter or in a speech. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:41, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's clearly a cheap debating tactic, and it seems to be working for him. Previous politicians were a lot more subtle but it appears that being subtle is not an advantage any more. I think he is playing the media like a violin. I don't vote, but I encouraged everyone I know who does vote to vote Green or Libertarian just so we can be disapointed by someone new. And yes, I agree that Zimdars is almost certainly trying to be more objective, but the two still share two core aspects: No published methodology other than "I know it when I see it" and an inability to "see" any fake news that agrees with their political position. They aren't identical in the way they show themselves to be unreliable sources, but they are both unreliable sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

...it appears that being subtle is not an advantage any more.I think a big part of that is that people are sick of politicians holding political office. They want someone whom they think is a "regular guy", not afraid to "say it how it is". Unfortunately, regular guys who aren't afraid to say it how it is are usually pretty stupid and ignorant. Personally, I want to start electing academics, specifically scientists. Not only would their decisions be more informed and intelligent, but the debates would be a lot more entertaining. Between academics and engineers, I don't know which group is the more intentionally offensive and hilariously crude, but I know that either group could out-insult truckers, sailors and comedians without breaking a sweat. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:44, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, I know that you are interested in the topic of liberal./onservative bias on Wikipedia. What do you think of the following opinion (not necessarily my opinion)?

"And I'll add that WP:Identifying reliable sources seems, unaccountably, to focus on Breitbart and other right-wing sources, while neglecting to discuss Huffington Post, which openly and explicitly pushed POV on every article on Donald Trump with an extremely derogatory "disclaimer" until after the election - which is no different than Breitbart's attacks on Hillary Clinton and other politicians. It also fails to mention Crooks and Liars, which baldly bashes Republicans while failing to mention the Left's own "crooks and liars" - and does so with no eye toward balance in reporting or care not to defame politicians for political motives. WP:Identifying reliable sources is a broken resource for our work, because it's skewed leftward."[3]

If true (I haven't checked the facts for myself) that might be a good area to apply the old NPOV hammer (pants) to... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 22:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I don't agree with the conclusions of that argument, because they don't follow the premises. In fact, the premises seem to be falsehoods. There's nothing in WP:IRS that specifically excludes Breitpart in particular, nor that particularly endorses HuffPo in particular. Indeed, there's nothing in IRS that excludes sources with right-wing biases nor endorses sources with left-wing biases. If there were, I would have expected the author to have mentioned which particular parts. I certainly can't find any.

Second, the problem with Breitbart isn't that it's biased. We don't care about bias here, I have repeatedly stated that Fox News is a generally reliable source and I stand by that, and they're just as biased as Breitbart (though they try to hide it, which by many measures makes them worse). The problem with sites like Breitbart is that they're unreliable. If Breitbart publishes a story claiming that a black woman in a high powered government position proudly and publicly announced that she would deny services to a white family, we cannot trust that there's anything true to that, even if Breitbart shows us video of those comments (see here). Meanwhile, HuffPo (which I am not a fan of in any way, due to their support for alt-med and anti-vaccination bullshit) is only accused of telling such bald-faced lies in random internet forums and of course by Breitbart itself, with a contortion of logic so severe that even pretzels wince at seeing it. Consider this: The rationalwiki.org article on HuffPo is an attack piece in all but name. The purpose of that article is to call out all the bullshit HuffPo engages in and shine a light on their falsehoods. Now, try to find a single criticism about their political coverage in it. In fact, even though the article is written with an intentionally snarky point of view, and straight up says "the truth is not in them", it never accuses them of a single falsehood that isn't related to alt-med. Because it's written by skeptics, who take telling the truth seriously. They're going to spin everything in a libertarian/anti-religious/anti-superstitious way as much as they can, but if HuffPo doesn't lie about politics, they're not going to say "HuffPo lies about politics".

The difference between Breitbart and HuffPo is that HuffPo covers a lot of subjects, not just the one they're dishonest about. And they're pretty good about being truthful in those subjects. Meanwhile, the subject that Breitbart is unreliable on is politics, and 90% of Breitbart is politics. So... They've fucked themselves over, to be honest. If they'd just been truthful (or at least taken a skeptical approach to their reporter's claims) about the facts, they'd be a reliable source.

tl;dr The comment presents several false premises, then uses those to make a non-sequitur argument that WP:IRS is broken. But the author never identifies how WP:IRS is broken, likely because any suggestion of a specific change that would re-include sources like Breitbart would reduce the quality of the project in an unacceptable way, and the author knows this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:24, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

addendum This just occurred to me after I wrote my response above. But it seems to me that a lot of complaints of this nature presume that we decided which sources we would use, then wrote policy such as to only include those sources. But I think you've been around here long enough to know that's not how it works. Policy gets written by a shit-ton of editors fighting tooth and nail until they all finally settle on something that no-one can find any serious problems with. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:29, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Good analysis. I say we make you King Of Wikipedia so we no longer have to fight tooth and nail. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 00:23, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

"King ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱ and his dog, Roxy" has a nice ring to it. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:25, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I knew you had complaints about WP, but the knowledge that you'd be willing to subject this project to my tyrannical rule reveals a depth of hatred I had no idea you were capable of. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Roxy would make for a great presumptive heir though, for after I'm inevitably assassinated.

On a less horrifying (for WP, I've come to grips with the knowledge that someone will eventually tire of my shit and kill me long ago) note, I have to say that I actually agree completely with the altered version of that comment. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:40, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

COI Requests

Hi Guy Macon. I was wondering if you had the time to do one or two COI reviews. One of them is three distinct issues I raised with some recent edits made on a controversial issue regarding America's relationship with a Russia-based IT security company.

The other involves a shared draft on an IT security company that would better balance the article and bring it up to GA standards. (it's possible Bilby will respond to this on, as he was involved on the Talk page some years ago and I pinged him)

CorporateM (Talk) 18:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I started on the first. Will try to get to the second later today. --Guy Macon (talk)

Recent edits of talk page archives

Hi Guy. Can you please explain the basis for your recent edits of talk page archives? As I understand it archives should be left alone so as to preserve the record of what was said by whom. You edits also probably violate WP:TPO. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:43, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

From WP:TPOC:

• Disambiguating or fixing links, if the linked-to page has moved, a talk page section has been archived, the link is simply broken by a typographical error, etc. Do not change links in others' posts to go to entirely different pages. If in doubt, ask the editor in question to update their own post, or add a follow-up comment of your own suggesting the alternative link. Only fix a link to a template that has been replaced or deprecated if the effect of the new template is essentially the same as what the poster used (otherwise, simply allow the post to red link to the old template, as a broken post is preferable to one with altered meaning)."

A similar (but not identical) situation is dealt with at WP:REDDEAL:

• "...The link is broken and no longer leads to an article (perhaps because the underlying article was deleted). In such a case, the link usually needs to be removed or renamed to point to an existing article."

Once I determined that WP:ZIMFF links to a page that no longer exists with no plausible replacement I made the minimum change that would avoid the user seeing a redlink that can never be fixed. I was very careful not to change the meaning on anyone's posts; Changing the link from WP:ZIMFF to WP:ZIMFF does nothing to change the meaning of the post.

If I have violated a policy or guideline, I will be happy to go back and undo all of the edits in question. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. In WP:TPOC, were you referring to the language "a talk page section has been archived"? If so, I believe that's referring to a linked-to talk page section being archived, no a linked-from talk page section being archived. That would make more sense, don't you think? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 15:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I was simply referring to the "etc." in " fixing links, if the linked-to page has moved, a talk page section has been archived, the link is simply broken by a typographical error, etc."

I believe that my actions were for the good of the encyclopedia (my reasoning follows) but of course we all know how easy it is to have a good-faith belief that you are helping when you are actually doing just the opposite. Here is my reasoning (sorry if it runs a bit long):

Premise: Modifying the meaning of someone else's comment is Very Bad. I don't need a rule to tell me this. It comes from respecting other people.

Premise: Modifying someone else's comment is allowed, but never in such a way to change the meaning. For example, If I am about to refer to a comment you made and I notice that in the comment you link to an ANI discussion that has been archived, I can correct the link so that it now point to the archived discussion. I can do this anytime you linked to something and that something is now in another place. This does not change the meaning of your comment but, in a small way, restores meaning that was lost by the move. This is a common and uncontroversial action.

Premise: (Correct me if I am wrong.) There is no rule saying that I cannot do the above if your comment is in an archive. Doing so is a common and uncontroversial action.

Argument: Just as moving something you linked to in a comment changes the meaning of your post in a small way, Deleting something you linked to in a comment changes the meaning of your post in a small way.

Argument: If the material that was deleted becomes a redlink, anyone can create a new page in that place. This in unlikely in the case of a long article or essay name but very likely in the case of short redirects.

Example one: WP:BU was deleted in 2004.[4] There are still multiple comments that link to it, saying things like "For banned users see WP:BU."[5]

Let's say I write an essay tomorrow explaining that some things are not allowed even in the sandbox and suggesting that the user make a local backup. Let's say I give my essay the shortcut WP:BU. Suddenly I have changed the basic meaning of the comment "For banned users see WP:BU" And I have done so in such a way that the user who make that comment sees no edit to his comment.

Example two: WP:ZIMFF was deleted in June if 2017.[6] There is still a comment that links to it, saying "The page is nothing but a WP:POINTy attack on the folks who drafted WP:ZIMFF".[7] (BTW, I am the one who drafted ZIMFF.)

Let's say that tomorrow I re-use the now-redlinked ZIMFF redirect for an essay on Zimbabwe Freedom Fighters. Suddenly I have changed the basic meaning of your comment "The page is nothing but a WP:POINTy attack on the folks who drafted WP:ZIMFF" And I have done so in such a way that you see no edit changing your comment.

Conclusion: In general, when a redirect is deleted and thus open to be re-used, it benefits the encyclopedia to fix as many comments that link to the deleted redirect as possible.

Related question one: did I fix it the right way? I could have replaced your WP:ZIMFF link with a link to Wikipedia:List of reasons why Zimdars' fake news list is itself "fake". It would still be a redlink, but one that is extremely unlikely to be re-used. In fact, I suggest that you do this yourself to avoid the potential problem I described above.

Related question two: Currently, WP:OL is a redirect to Wikipedia:Overlistification. I am thinking that maybe it should redirect to Wikipedia:Overlinking. If I propose such a move and there is consensus for it, I would have to fix the existing links to WP:OL so that they link to WP:OLIST so that the meaning of the comments are not changed. This is, of course essentially what I did with ZIMFF. Is there a policy or guideline that forbids me doing that? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:26, 2 October 2017 (UTC)