User talk:Josiah Rowe

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Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived.

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Thanks...

for the notice. Haiduc 12:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks Josiah. I appreciate it! Khoikhoi 21:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The D-word

Josiah, I first want to say how impressed I am with your cool-headed, open-minded contributions to the maelstrom over on TV-NC. You are setting an excellent example in that discussion and you should be commended for it. Pursuant to that discussion, I was reading through Wikipedia:Disambiguation just now and saw this gem, which apparently you recently restored to the page:

When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page.

I am intrigued by this, since it seems to represent the basic standard of disambiguation, and thus strikes at the core of the TV-NC discussion. My novice impression is that the this guideline implies its own inverse: "When there is any risk of confusion, disambiguate." That, however, seems to go against the standard policy of "Disambiguate only when necessary." I'm curious what you think about this, as you obviously have a great deal of experience with it. Please feel free to reply here; I'll keep it on my watchlist. --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 16:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Toby. My interpretation of the disambiguation policy is that disambiguation should do just what it says on the tin: resolve ambiguity. To that end, if there are two articles that could have the same title, some form of disambiguation is necessary. By contrast, if there's only one article that could have a given title, then no disambiguation is necessary. I think this is the way out of the contradiction you're seeing.

The "confusion" that disambiguation hopes to avoid is confusion between articles that might otherwise share a name, not the potential confusion of readers about an article's subject. For the purposes of disambiguation, it doesn't matter whether a reader coming upon a link to All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues can tell that that's an episode of Lost. (Ideally, of course, they would come upon such a link only in a context that would make that apparent.) What matters for disambiguation is whether any other article could possibly have the title All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues; since, to my knowledge, there is no such other article, the general guideline would be not to disambiguate this title.

Does this address your concern? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, though it's not really a concern as much as a curiosity. It seems very apparent to me that this:

The "confusion" that disambiguation hopes to avoid is confusion between articles that might otherwise share a name, not the potential confusion of readers about an article's subject.

is the interpretation of the disambiguation principle that is universally understood on Wikipedia. I merely found it interesting that it's not stated explicitly on WP:D, and wondered if that was an intentional omission or just simply something no one has found necessary to clarify. Obviously, it could very quickly come down to debating what the meaning of "is" is, and I don't see much value in taking it anywhere close to that. :)

Not trying to stir anything up here (there's more than enough of that on TV-NC)... just making sure I'm clear about the original intent of the policy. --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 21:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

My guess would be that it's just that nobody's found it necessary to clarify that so far. That said, perhaps there's an argument for doing so now. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:26, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Wissahickon Creek

...was actually User:Bonaparte. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably everything in Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Bonaparte should be added to it. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be, except that User:Gurch and others are now deleting all userpages of permanently blocked editors, so soon enough all the evidence will disappear. Apparently 4 people agreed to this in some obscure discussion on an MfD last month, so now it's policy forevermore. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Gurch alone has deleted 20,000 User pages so far. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if they're using WP:DENY, they're using it incorrectly, since it explicitly says "Userpages for indefinitely blocked users (except sockpuppets and banned users) that have no practical purpose should be deleted after a short while". And there's no discussion I'm aware of WP:AN or WP:AN/I, but there probably should be. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Roger Needham vandal

I just scanned through the user creation log for the time when the previously blocked accounts were created. You will wish to block the last one from that time - Fresh Squid with Peanuts (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Matches the Chinese restaurant theme too nicely to be a coincidence. Kavadi carrier 10:15, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

may you please unblock me

Please unblock me!! To tell you the truth, I was a wonderful contributor to articles in Wikipedia "Yu-Gi-OH and Pokemon". The story began when a user named Mitsumasa began creating and upload Pokemon images and articles.

After about 5 months after the start of the articles the PCP began merging the articles (A Man in Black, Ryulong, Interrobamf) i tried talking to them, and the PCP but they did'nt listen. I even tried to leave a committ on their usertalk pages but A Man in Black is the only one that responds to my committ. I gave up until recently students at my school "The Learning Community School" began bullying me, they knew that I was a contributor at the site "Wikipedia", so they told my teacher that they logged in some accounts and began vandalizing the articles that I personattly was currently having problems with you. My teacher Mrs. Lisa Mercato talked to the students Jene', Jessica, Aaron and restricted them from using the school computer.

I'm very sorry. May you please unblock me and my IP address 72.177.68.38. May you please just make it that I can create a new account. It is a total misunderstanding. If you want to talk to my teacher, please email her at lmercato@yahoo.com. The block is casuing the school not to edit Wikipedia.

Thank you, and God Bless —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yukiudaigx (talk • contribs) 14:19, November 10, 2006 (UTC)

Battlestar Galactica episode names

I noticed you redirected the Resurrection Ship article to the episode by the same name and put the ship's article in another. I think all BSG episodes should be named as so; "EPISODE NAME (Battlestar Galactica)" like most of the Star Trek episodes have "EPISODE NAME ("SHOW ABV" Episode)" in their names. It might make them easier to sort out and identify and keep them consistent with each other. Just my suggestion. Cyberia23 05:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well I see your argument - however in the case of the Trek pages - titling them as they are helps disambiguate what series the episode came from, TNG for Next Gen, TOS for The Original Series, etc. That might be a point to consider when deciding on their proper formatting. Cyberia23 05:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Marthajones.jpg

You said: "Hi, Yamla. You recently removed this image from the Doctor Who article, saying that it lacked the required detailed fair use rationale. The image page does have a four-point rationale on its page — what more would be required in order to keep the image? (I'd like to learn.)"

The rationale is only for Martha Jones, not Doctor Who. If a picture of this companion contributes meaningfully to the article on Doctor Who, a rationale for use there must be added. It is not at all clear that it was contributing meaningfully to that article and the article is already quite long. --Yamla 18:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You said: "The rationale says that she is a main character in the programme, and there's a short paragraph at Doctor Who#Companions about her. I don't really feel strongly that this particular image should be included, especially since the character has yet to appear in the series, but I do feel that it's important that an image of a companion appear in the article. It had previously included the image Image:Rosetyler.jpg, which does have a specific rationale for Doctor Who — would that be more acceptable? [...] I agree that the article has become very long, but I don't think that removing that image was necessarily the best way to start cutting. There are far more extraneous bits."

To be clear, the reason I cut the image is because it was missing a rationale for that particular article. Making the article shorter was just a side-effect. The image definitely does have a rationale, but for an entirely different article. It's clearly valuable in that other article but not so clearly valuable in the article on Doctor Who. With an appropriate rationale, I agree it would be appropriate to have an image of a companion. Ideally, it should be a companion significant enough to merit at least a full paragraph discussion in Doctor Who. Which specific companion is probably less relevant. --Yamla 18:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

House episodes

Thank you for telling me about the policy on episode names! I wasn't aware of it before. I will keep it in mind for articles in the future. PullToOpən ^talk 22:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Tainted poll?

Hi. Sorry to bother you. You participated in a television episode article naming poll which now lives at this location. Some feel that wording changes have compromised the results of that poll. If you don't mind, could you please take a look at what is there now and add a quick note at WT:TV-NC#Looking for anyone who objects to the last poll to say whether your feelings on the matter remain the same? Of course you can feel free to read over the entirety of both links for more information. Thanks. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the laugh...

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		For a particularly hilarious song parody related to the debate on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television). BlueSquadronRaven 05:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be funnier if it weren't done at the expense of other editors. --Elonka 05:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It's pointed at the situation, not the individual editors. Naming a participant in a debate does not equal making fun of them. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If you single out and name specific people, it's pointed at them. You asked me before to point out if you did anything that was uncivil or unhelpful. I count "ridiculing other editors in the middle of a debate," as unhelpful. It contributes to an "us and them" mentality, discourages consensus building, and it encourages incivility on the part of other editors, towards the people that have been targeted. I know that you may see it as a "one time" occurrence, but what if it gets repeated? What if other people start the same "ridiculing" behavior, saying, "Well, Josiah made fun of that person, I can make fun of them too?" Please re-read WP:CIVIL and ask yourself whether that song helped the situation, or hurt it. --Elonka 06:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)