User talk:Iridescent

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More punnery than you can shake a stick at

Aqui. --Moni3 (talk) 23:24, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you think if I mentioned that the etymology of "gaol" is from "gay hole" (true, check your OED) Peter's head might explode? – iridescent 23:26, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I had the good sense to leave that "gay hole" gaol alone. I'm sure if Sandy were entrenched at home she might prod me to do something with it. --Moni3 (talk) 23:29, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

You don't want to get into the gay hole—there's potentially something fishy about it. – iridescent 23:32, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, not to contradict you, but I'm quite sure the gay hole is populated by people attempting to avoid fishiness. --Moni3 (talk) 23:36, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find that in general, the more people enter the gay hole, the fishier it gets. Although you may find that hard to swallow. – iridescent 23:41, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Hate to spoil your punning party, but the OED actually says "jail" comes from Latin caveola "little cavity" (though admittedly, gayhole is one attested Middle English form). Ucucha 23:43, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The OED does say, also, that "In helle is a deop gayhol." Ucucha 23:44, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Not quite (although both do ultimately come from "cavea"/"caveola": the section of the OED entry in question is:

ME. had two types, from Northern or Norman Fr., and Central or Parisian Fr. respectively:

• 1) ME. gay(h)ole, -ol, gayll(e, gaill(e, gayl(e, gaile, a. ONF. gaiole, gayolle, gaole (mod. Picard gayole, Walloon gaioule);
• 2) ME. jaiole, jayle, jaile, jayll, a. OF. jaiole, jaole, jeole, geole, cage, prison, F. geôle prison (Besançon javiole cage for fowls) = obs. It. gaiola, Sp. gayola (also, from F., jaula cage, cell), Pg. gaiola cage:{em}Romanic and pop.Lat. *gavi{omac}la (med.L. gabiola, 1229 in Brachet) for *caveola, dim. of cavea hollow, cavity, den, cage, coop: see CAGE.

Of the two types, the Norman Fr. and ME. gaiole, gaole, came down to the 17th c. as gaile, and still remains as a written form in the archaic spelling gaol (chiefly due to statutory and official tradition); but this is obsolete in the spoken language, where the surviving word is jail, repr. Old Parisian Fr. and ME. jaiole, jaile.

Hence though both forms gaol, jail, are still written, only the latter is spoken.

So, what you have is separate etymologies for the written "gaol" (from Norman—ONF in OED-speak) and the spoken "jail" (from Old French), with earliest variants of the Norman version being gaiole, gayolle, gaole; the Norman pronunciation then dies out, but (because of Norman French's status as the language of English government) the Norman spelling remaining the "correct" one despite the French pronunciation being the one which survives. Meanwhile, both forms die out in France, and the French (Norman and Parisian both) is "prison". – iridescent 23:57, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

More pertinently, it also includes the quote "Some again are..boring their very Noses with hot Irons, in rage that they cannot come to a Resolution, whether they shall say Face or Visage; whether they shall say Jayl or Gaol; whether Cony or Cunny." From 1668. Plus ca change… – iridescent 00:03, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Your question on ANI

[1] Fact is, the range he uses is larger than any administrator, checkuser or steward can block, and there are literally tens of thousands of other users on the same range. I know it's a pain in the neck. Risker (talk) 07:14, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

"Better tens of thousands of innocent users should be blocked than a single guilty one go free...." Neither of the IP addresses I've been caught by this block on shew any history of being used abusively. Now, the ISP can tell who was on a particular IP address at a given time. If WMF took this issue seriously and made abuse reports we might find that they were prepared to listen. Surely WMF trustees should be acting to protect the Foundation's assets. DuncanHill (talk) 08:49, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a valid point here, and it's one that's going to come up more and more often with the advent of Iphones etc. Cellphones are by their nature going to have dynamic IPs, and rangeblocks are a very crude tool—3 Mobile, the network blocked in this case, is one of the biggest phone networks in Europe. Special/Block still has that big warning notice not to block Qatar's IP address; knocking out one of the big British networks, for however short a time, almost certainly does considerably more collateral damage. (A lot more English speakers in Dorking than in Doha.) Someone really does need to rethink the way blocks are applied, and start officially (that is, from the WMF) notifying ISPs of problem users. Otherwise, the Massachusetts situation is going to end up spreading to cover all networks, and we'll end up with compulsory-registration by default. – iridescent 09:01, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

And a lot of 3Mobile users won't be on their phones - like me they'll be on their PCs. Pay as you go and one month contracts are likely to become more common for internet access in the current economic situation and these are accessed through mobile networks, and as Iridescent says the proliferation of mobile internet devices such as iPhone and iPad will also increase the number of editors accessing via dynamic IPs. To get back to the WMF - I don't know the position in American law, but in Britain charity trustees have a legal duty to act to protect the charity's assets - failing to make abuse reports for at least the most serious sockvandals strikes me as not fulfilling that duty. A robust approach to making abuse reports (and reporting on the response) would help protect the encyclopaedia, protect innocent users who may otherwise be caught in rangeblocks, and improve goodwill. DuncanHill (talk) 09:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree that the way these things are approached needs a rethink. Playing devil's advocate, most phone companies and ISPs aren't going to listen to anyone not actually from the WMF (if me, you or Risker approached Hutchinson and asked them to block someone's SIM card, they'd quite rightly tell us to fuck off). However, the WMF has (I think) a staff of five, and Wikipedia gets a lot of vandals.

Although it smacks of running-to-teacher, it might be worth asking Sue Gardner or Mike Godwin for their opinion. When it comes to something like that, their opinions are the only ones which matter. – iridescent 09:36, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

You're right that reports would need to come from the Foundation not from mere mortals or even admins - but it needn't involve the Foundation staff in excessive extra work. The legwork of identifying the prolific vandals is already done by volunteers. Wikipedia is a big enough internet entity for ISPs to be likely to take reports from the Foundation seriously. I think Uncle G made a similar point on one of the board threads. It does strike me as a win-win and a double-dip. Both WMF and the ISP can give each other lots of jolly back-slappery (We're working together to protect our users/customers from disruption") and for those who do get caught if some range-blocks are still needed are more likely to react positively if they can be told that all is being done to overcome the problem. DuncanHill (talk) 09:46, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why you think that they'd do anything even if it came with an WMF imprimatur, and it doesn't do a lot for those vandals who hop ISPs (which is many of them - maybe they're all doing the "pay as you go" process too?). Speaking personally, I'd never sign my name to something like an abuse complaint to an ISP without having personally reviewed and verified the information myself. Here's an idea though - since you two are the ones affected by this range block, how about considering making your own complaint to your ISP? Most companies care a lot more about complaints from their paying customers than they do about those from external sources, even if it's a popular site like Wikipedia. They may be more willing to solve a problem if their customers tell them it's a problem. Risker (talk) 14:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia's customers are telling Wikipedia that it's practices are causing a problem.... Do ISP hopping vandals result in a range of ISPs getting blocked? And why are some networks apparently immune from rangeblocks? If you think that me writing to 3 and saying "Wikipedia is blocking me because they can't find an efficient way of dealing with one of your customers, I can't give you any details about the IP addresses that person has used because Wikipedia won't reveal it, and they won't complain because they might have to check their facts" then 3 might do something, but I doubt it. Would Alison reveal all the IP addresses used by whoever triggered this rangeblock, together with the timings and details of the vandalism to me, so I could write a more effective email to 3? Of course not. It needs to come from the Foundation, and it needs the sort of details that I do not have access to. DuncanHill (talk) 14:41, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

• (ec, re Risker) Firstly, because they'd need the checkuser data and exact times, to allow them to cross-check against their records to identify the account in question; secondly, because after the Virgin Killer farce no British ISP is going to listen to anyone in the context of Wikipedia who can't demonstrate that they're acting in some kind of official capacity. Besides, I was there for Jeremy, A—w, Genius, Archtransit, Poetguy and Horsey; someone else can have a barrage of abusive emails from complete strangers for a change. – iridescent 14:42, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough about the abusive emails; believe me, I know of whence you speak. I know that at least one of the ISPs that I use would not hesitate to contact Wikipedia saying "Why are you blocking our customers?", but then again I've heard some pretty remarkable tales of so-called customer service from several British ISPs. (Do they compete to see who can give the worst service over there?) It was pressure from AOL customers that got that ISP to change its practices of assigning IP addresses, not pressure from any of the sites from which those IPs were blocked. ISPs don't care if Wikipedia blocks people for what we consider vandalism (which in a lot of cases wouldn't come close to meeting their definition) and the certainly don't care if *we* aren't benefitting from the edits their customers might have made; they only care if their customers decide the nuisance caused by *their* practices results in lost customers. And it is *their* IP assignment practices that are resulting in the need for large range blocks; even if a stable IP isn't assigned, the fact that enormous pools of IPs are available to every single customer every time they log on is what leads to this problem. Risker (talk) 15:04, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Give me access to all the information used to justify this rangeblock and I'll happily make a complaint to 3. Without it it would be pointless. DuncanHill (talk) 15:42, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It'd also help to have the number of attempted edits from IPs in the range, so I can give 3 an idea of how many of their customers are affected. DuncanHill (talk) 15:51, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

To reiterate, the people to be addressing this to are Sue Gardner and Mike Godwin (suewikimedia.org / mgodwinwikimedia.org); because this would be a change from a reactive to a proactive policy regarding the way Wikipedia deals with checkuser rangeblocks and handles potentially sensitive personal data, it's a decision neither Risker not I could take regardless of whether or not we wanted to. – iridescent 16:04, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I know, I was just a bit narked by Risker's "nothing to do with us, guv" suggestion. Whether or not I can be bothered to get onto Mike or Sue I don't really know. I'm sure Wikipedia will survive without me or other 3 customers, and certainly there don't seem to be many admins bothered by the current "solution". Nothing radical ever happens here without the right few people backing it. DuncanHill (talk) 16:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Hiberniantears

Come on Iri... is a little fact checking next time too much to ask? I made two edits, not one, and the "controversial" edit was the first edit, which included an edit summary considerably different than the one meco is complaining about. Thanks! Hiberniantears (talk) 18:27, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough—I didn't realise there was an intervening revision. Still not sure it ought to have been deleted, since on looking at it this is an article about his views, no matter how cranky they are, rather than whether his views actually stand up to scrutiny. – iridescent 19:07, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Equally fair enough, and no doubt the conversation that Meco should have tried to have with me in the first place... :-) Hiberniantears (talk) 19:10, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm truly embarrassed

I just don't know how this could have happened. Must try to be more careful. Malleus Fatuorum 20:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

And on a current FAC, too… Just be glad M didn't spot it first. – iridescent 20:23, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. I had a quick look through the whole thing again and found a few other little niggles as well, as the article history shows. Ah well, I never claimed to be perfect. Malleus Fatuorum 20:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Very minor question, but is the existing greyhound stadium the original? If so, the bit about all the buildings being demolished to make way for the car dealer probably ought to be amended. Plus my usual hobby-horse; how did the 1958 closure of Longsight station impact the business? (I appreciate it's probably impossible to separate out the impact of the station closure and the fire, but did it have a long-term "sod it, we'll go to Blackpool instead as it's easier to reach" effect?) – iridescent 20:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It's rather a complicated story, but the present greyhound racing stadium is the original, yes, although obviously with additions and updates. The complication is that the stadium was really nothing to do with Belle Vue; they never owned the stadium and they didn't build it. It was built by the Greyhound Racing Association (GRA) on land initially leased to them by Belle Vue (it just so happened that Belle Vue and the GRA had the same chairman, Sir William Gentle), and subsequently sold to the GRA in 1937. The "buildings being demolished to make way for the car dealer" is referring only to the site of the Kings Hall exhibition space. The car auction occupies only a very small part of the former Belle Vue site, most of which is now a residential area. Any suggestions you have to make that clearer will be gratefully received.

You ask an interesting question about Longsight railway station. I hadn't clocked that it closed in 1958, but it's clear that Belle Vue was in a serious decline by then in any event, and the recurring fires weren't helping. I don't recall having come across any discussion about the specific impact of the station's closure, if indeed it had one at all, but there is perhaps a loose end to be tied up about how visitors got to the gardens in their later days. I'll see what I can dig up. Malleus Fatuorum 21:05, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

PS. Thanks for taking the time to read through the article. Malleus Fatuorum 21:08, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Haven't finished yet—been dipping in and out of it. I remember reading it back in WH's time, but it's obviously changed quite a bit since then. (Speaking of which, I notice a Fearless Defender Of The Wiki has reverted WH's cleanup of the insanity of Lordship Lane, Haringey. Mustn't let those Evil Uncivil Banned Users prevent The Kid In Africa™ from learning that "the awning on the used car dealer resembles a cricket pavilion".) – iridescent 21:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

PS, even back in The Old Days, why would anyone have paid an admission fee to see "a captured thrush"? – iridescent 21:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

This was Manchester pretty much at its industrial height, so thrushes may not have been such a common sight to a city dweller as they might have to you effete southern bastards. In fact, now I come to think of it, I can't recall ever seeing a thrush, although I may just be displaying my awesome ignorance of ornithology, as I'm not sure I would recognise one anyway. On the other issue you raised, I find the notion that it's OK to revert anything posted by a banned user, regardless of its quality, to be completely contrary to the idea of building an encyclopedia. I also find the attitude that the only people who are allowed to contribute to wikipedia are the people me and my friends like is becoming increasingly common. Therefore, needless to say, I've reverted that Defender of the Wiki. Malleus Fatuorum 21:39, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I gave up watching that one a long time ago; in my opinion, it's past saving. I kept an eye on it when I was looking at a River Moselle FT (Noel Park, Broadwater Farm, Bruce Castle etc—Lordship Lane pretty much parallels the river), but gave up on that idea PDQ once I took a good long look at White Hart Lane. – iridescent 21:46, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Another question; is "Klu Klux Klan" the spelling in the original quote, or a typo? – iridescent 21:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

"Klu Klux Klan" was a typo, fixed. I guess I just like the alliteration. Malleus Fatuorum 21:53, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

And another: "North-West Amateur Brass Band Championship" or "Northwest Amateur Brass Band Championship"? – iridescent 21:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

The source says "North-West". Malleus Fatuorum 21:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Murrays

Hi, wondering how can a company without significant coverage in multiple sources be notable? Lionel (talk) 18:34, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That's an argument for AFD, not for speedy deletion. "Operates over 250 coaches, including the Canberra-Sydney express route" is patently enough of an assertion of notability that A7 doesn't apply. – iridescent 14:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

for fixing my spelling of pseudonym. I wish one could make typos pseudonymously. David in DC (talk) 00:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Deleting a dab page

Hi. I want to delete Winchmore Hill (disambiguation). It contains only two entries. I just added "For the district in North London, see Winchmore Hill." blah blah to both of them. What is the normal { { db - zapme } } tag for this kind of thing? Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G6, I would say - general housekeeping is said to include "deleting unnecessary disambiguation pages". In fact, I've already zapped it to save Irid the trouble... Bencherlite^Talk 13:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G6, noted. Thanks for that, the little fix, and the quality zappin'. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

This month's Metro

I do like that gallery—I think it's a nice departure from the usual "line-up of blurred photos of trains". – iridescent 17:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that

You're more diplomatic than I; I was inclined to leave an edit summary recommending that he take his own advice. :-) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 18:02, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I've already blocked him for an (unrelated) legal threat, so that should be the end of his short Wikipedia career. – iridescent 18:03, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

He'll be back - he's an incredibly persistent sock. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 18:48, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

And we block them again… and eventually someone gets annoyed enough that they rangeblock his ISP. Not at that stage yet, though. – iridescent 18:49, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Getting there - I've seen him on newpage patrol three times in as many days. I'm not that observant, and even I've begun to figure there's something up.

What that says about me, I'm not sure, exactly. :-) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 19:13, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

You've seen...

this one? Eight watchers currently. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antoine Dodson. If it weren't for the inevitable delete-create-delete-create-delete-go whining to ANI cycle, I'd have done an out-of-process speedy on that, on the assumption that The Jimbo would back me up when the complaints started. – iridescent 18:55, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't even going to try a deletion discussion. I mean, the man has a Twitter. And a Facebook page. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:29, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

On the subject of AfDs, any here have idea what to do with the dozens of articles starting "Libertarian perspectives on ..." (they can be found at Category:Controversies within libertarianism). Most of them were created within the last few days by Tisane (talk · contribs). While some such as Libertarian perspectives on LGBT rights and Libertarian perspectives on abortion have been around for years, the new creations are concerning. I think is probably a case of content forking, and that the various views are actually notable they should be integrated into the main article, but I'm unsure where to take this issue. I don't have a huge amount of faith in AfD. Nev1 (talk) 19:41, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Then you have more faith in AfD than I do, as I have none. I think there are many articles on wikipedia that for your own peace of mind you just have to pretend don't exist. Malleus Fatuorum 19:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

What I generally do with things like that is ask User:DGG. If there is a good reason to keep them, he'll come up with it; if he can't think of a reason to keep them, they're almost certainly not worth keeping. – iridescent 20:17, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Henry of Normandy is one that just came up on my radar - I have never heard of this person, and the liklihood of him actually being free to hunt in the New Forest (before 1120) when his uncle Henry I of England was actively hunting down William Clito, is just a bit suspicious. It's "sourced" but to two "amateur" genealogy sites. Nor is this "Henry" mentioned in current biographies of Henry I or either of the biographies I own of Curthose, his supposed father. But, the liklihood of me managing to get the article GONE is .. zilch. "It's printed somewhere..." argh! Even if the child existed, he's not worth his own article! Ealdgyth - Talk 20:38, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

It's quite possible that I completely misunderstand the purpose of wikipedia, in fact I'm becoming almost convinced that must be the case, but my faith in AfD as a rational process was shaken by a lad who died aged 11 who may possibly have influenced one his father's plays with a similar name. Robert Dover's AfD just sealed the deal for me; AfD is just a playground for the article rescue squad, whose motto apears to be "no article shall go unsaved". Malleus Fatuorum 21:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

This descent into stupidity is what's doing it for me right now. There are five places in a half-mile radius of this place with their own Wikipedia articles (Broadwater Farm, Bruce Castle, The Mall Wood Green, Noel Park and our old friend Lordship Lane), and I wrote four of the five—I like to think that if there was anything to say about the place, I'd know it. The "keep, it exists" brigade have always been with us, but lately they seem to have mistaken everyone else giving up in disgust at their antics for some kind of endorsement. – iridescent 21:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I got motivated to actually search, and some others are chiming in so Henry of Normandy might actually reflect the actual nature of scholarship soon. Anyone wanna tackle Larry Pierce (jockey) which I prod'd in Feb as you can see in the history. I'm not thinking that being in the Washington State Racing Hall of Fame is exactly going to meet WP:ATHLETE, but what do I know? Or Oliver Skeete also deprod'd back in Feb? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:16, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

With my admin hat on, I'd decline a {{prod}} on Oliver Skeete without hesitation, and I'd vote to keep in an AFD; aside from Pippa Funnell and Princess Anne, he's probably the only showjumper 95% of the British public could name. He's distinctly non-notable as a showjumper, but he spun a reasonably successful media career out of it and gets quite a bit of coverage for being the first significant black figure in a traditionally entirely white sport. – iridescent 23:24, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

More and more, I'm wondering if these people actually aren't notable under the ridiculous current standards or if we just don't want these people to be remembered for the future. I guess that's the problem with trying to judge notability as events happen. As much as I don't want to see an article on Antoine Dodson (and majority ("consensus") opinion at AFD may ultimately back that up), he's now got a single on iTunes, which probably makes him more "notable" than, what, 25% of current BLPs? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this does apply some of the time--a judgment that something will not be remembered in the future can be partly a value judgement and partly an objective opinion, and the !votes in many cases seem to line up accordingly. My own vote on this one is somewhat affected by my total distaste for this sort of reporting by the sources. DGG ( talk ) 03:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

quite a mixture of problems. Since I've been mentioned, from my perspective (and I must say I feel a little like a Capulet who's wandered into the Montague household):

Hamnet as a first order relative of a famous author is notable because a/he's been much written about and b/the close relatives of authors generally do influence their work and always their life--there are a number of cases where children dying young have been particular influential--Anne Darwin is a particularly famous and considerably more important example--and that's the reason they've been written about. The extent we should go into it depends on the importance of the author,and the minimum qualification here is "extremely famous"

Roger Dover has a full bio in the ODNB, which is accepted as a sufficient RS for notability (indeed, generally the best possible RS to prove notability), just as for other selective national biographies--how someone aware of that could have supported the deletion puzzles me. How someone aware of that could regard it as an exceptional dubious example of notability really astounds me.

As for Dodson, I think it as excellent illustration of what we should exclude with BLP 1E, and I said so at the AfD earlier today, though I don't say delete on this grounds very often.

As for the place mentioned, I made a sufficient comment at the AfD about local opinion on notability of neighborhood places.

But as for the libertarian perspectives group of articles, in general I think we ought to permit splits such as (Buddhist or Hindu or Moslem or Jewish) views on Jesus Christ, or on abortion, etc. though I'd word them the other way round as Jesus Christ--Hindu views etc. I'd think we ought to do this when there was a really major topic with sharply controversial views and sufficient documentation. It clarifies the presentation; it helps readers form their own opinion by indicated clearly what the likely biases are; it eliminates a lot of futile argumentation over whether we say N.M., the conservative commentator, wrote ... or to say N.M, wrote... ; it makes lack of balance easier to determine; it would greatly diminish the tendency to interpersonal conflict on political./ethnic/religious/nationalistic grounds. But all these are oughts. I personally think this change would help NPOV, but it is very clear most people have not thought so. There are many more important changes I think should be made, and many more important things to work on, than trying to alter this policy. At present, it is against standing consistent Wikipedia practice, and so i would not make any such article, or support them, unless there were really critical reasons for having it as an exception (though it practice, we do sometimes find a way to do something like this, by calling it "religious aspects" or the like.)

As things are, the introduction of this group of articles seems a poor idea, and I think mostly an attempt at propagating a POV through the multiplication of articles on it. There's a special problem, relative to the category heading. There is a possibility that controversies with the movement on a particular issue might be relevant. (This would seem to apply to only a few of the article; almost all of them are where there is no controversy whatever, as with National Debt, or only a fringe position, like the one on abortion.) In general, where there is no controversy, it just repeats elements of the platform, and is an unwarranted split of the main article on the movement. At most they do no more than state the predictable opinion of different significant people in the movement--many of them seem designed to highlight Murray Rothbard. Such material should be integrated into the article on him and the other theorists. The lojng-established abortion article seems to have survived only by being un-noticed--as with other problematic old articles. As a basic concept of how to work at Wikipedia, I don't support making this sort of insidious attack on established principles. If we want to change them, we should start the usually slow process of discussing them. (I have sometimes been accused of giving my own views at AfD as if they were policy--looking back, there might be some justice to that for a few of my earlier statements, but nowadays I try to be very careful to say specifically when a comment is a public attempt to question the policy or to apply IAR. Certainly when someone asks my opinion or when I act administratively, I give the orthodox advice & enforce the orthodox standard--witness my deleting according to BLP prod, though I have consistently opposed its use.) My advice about what to do with these is the same as what I advise people for any somewhat related group of articles, whether or not I support them: try to delete or merge the weakest, and go on from there according to the expressed feelings of the community. DGG ( talk ) 03:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"Roger Dover has a full bio in the ODNB, which is accepted as a sufficient RS for notability (indeed, generally the best possible RS to prove notability), just as for other selective national biographies--how someone aware of that could have supported the deletion puzzles me. How someone aware of that could regard it as an exceptional dubious example of notability really astounds me." You clearly haven't read Dover's ODNB entry; it's almost entirely about the Cotswold Olimpick Games, which has its own article here on wikipedia but obviously couldn't have an ODNB article. Rather similar in fact to Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. Malleus Fatuorum 03:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Malleus on that one. Taking the full text of the ODNB entry, and stripping out those parts which are about the Cotswold Olympick Games rather than the man himself, one is left with:

Dover, Robert (1581/2–1652), was born in Great Ellingham, Norfolk, the second son of John Dover, gentleman. He went to Queens' College, Cambridge, as a sizar, matriculating on 15 June 1595, but left without taking a degree. In 1599, at the age of seventeen, he was examined at Wisbech Castle as a gentleman's son, sent by his father to serve one of the priests held captive there. On 27 February 1605 he was admitted to Gray's Inn and was called to the bar probably six years later. On 23 May 1623 he was further called to be of the Grand Company of Ancients of Gray's Inn. By 1611 he had followed his sister Anne and his brother Richard to the Vale of Evesham, Worcestershire, settling initially at Saintbury, Gloucestershire. Some time before he had married Sibilla Sanford (d. 1653), daughter of William Cole, dean of Lincoln and at one time president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and widow of John Sanford, a Bristol merchant. They had four children, Abigail (b. 1611), Sibella (b. 1612), John (1614–1696), and Robert (b. 1616), who died soon after his birth. Dover lived and undertook legal work in the Cotswolds or the Vale of Evesham for almost the rest of his life, residing at Saintbury and Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, and from 1628 at Childswickham, Worcestershire. He remained at Childswickham until 1650, serving as steward for the court of Wickhamford, and then went to live with his son, John, at Barton on the Heath, Warwickshire. He died there, at Shirley Farm, and was buried at Barton on 24 July 1652; his wife died fifteen months later.

That is to say, aside from the Games, even his biographer has nothing to say about him other than birthplace, family, and the fact that he lived in Gloucestershire and practiced as a lawyer. I don't always agree with WP:BIO1E, but it is Wikipedia's accepted custom and practice, and Dover is pretty much a textbook case of it.

Regarding The Roundway, I think you're misunderstanding what constitutes a "major road" in the Great Britain road numbering scheme. Four-digit roads (in this case, A1080) are minor roads which run between the radial A-roads. A short section of the eastern end of the Roundway is designated as part of the A10—which is a primary road—but it has no connection to the historic Hertford Road; the renumbering is purely an artefact of a scheme to reduce traffic jams on Hertford Road by encouraging traffic to take back-routes. (In practice, this entire area is now bypassed by the A1055 road, and only local traffic uses the North London sections of the A10.) The people claiming that it's some kind of major highway or dual-carriageway are incorrect; it's a completely ordinary narrow suburban back-street, with no notable buildings or significant history. (This photograph of the road in question may make the "this is a narrow and little-used residential street" point better than words can.) As I said at the AFD, there is an argument for having an article on every road in the world (similar to the argument successfully used for having articles on every railway station), but it isn't and never has been Wikipedia practice. – iridescent 11:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Spilling over

Just to spread it around, I'm really offended that a discussion of the oldest twat on Wiki never included my name. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd have voted for you. Malleus Fatuorum 03:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Twat! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:39, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is it that Wikipedia's collective mind invariably accepts "health problems" as a legitimate excuse for any kind of obnoxiousness? We had exactly the same thing with Mattisse and LGRDC. Certainly, everyone can have bad days, but in any real-world job if a grown adult repeatedly acted like a school bully, but whenever anyone called them out on it claimed they were too ill to reply, after a while even the mose generous employer would show them the door. (Notice how the swarm of Arbcommers and Civility Police who watch your page have all gone strangely silent on this one, incidentally?) – iridescent 11:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

They generally turn a blind eye when one of their own does what they'd be queuing up to block me for, so no surprise. On the health theme, I find this rather telling. Malleus Fatuorum 12:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I intend to blame you for my kidney stone and ruining my health ... after all, you did vote me a twat. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:31, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't you know that if you're not "discussing admin duties", you're not allowed to post on talkpages? Another of the non-existent policies RHE appears to have invented. (If he'd actually bothered to read that WP:UKNATIONALS page he kept citing as 'proof' that 'Wikipedia policy is always to use "British"' when talking about English people', he'd have seen that it actually says 'Re-labelling nationalities on grounds of consistency—making every UK citizen "British", or converting each of those labelled "British" into their constituent nationalities—is strongly discouraged.') – iridescent 16:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Number of page watchers: SG, 363; Iri, 280; MF, 274-- MF, you're slipping! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Heh. I'm currently not even in the top 50, I'll have you know. – iridescent 16:13, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Some of those count reductions will include me. I tend to unwatch user pages when it gets bitchy. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh goodness, now we have old twats and bitchy twats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I tend to watchlist talk pages when they get bitchy, so I guess we cancel each other out. MastCell ^Talk 17:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

A d'livery from one of your watchers

A wet, rubbery smack to the lot o' ya for vanity and basking. :) (P.S. When I come begging for some help, I want you to forget all about this post.) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I wish my liver looked that good. MastCell ^Talk 17:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen your liver? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Only in my mind's eye, but it's not a pretty sight. MastCell ^Talk 17:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

you are reverting my edit.

but i am certain that 78.09% of earth's atmosphere is not nitrogen-- because we humans are not very good at breathing nitrogen, so i assume we must be breathing oxygen. that is why i am making this correction. i also have strong visual evidence, looking out my window right now, that suggests that most of the air i see outside appears to be either oxygen or hydrogen of some kind. so please do not make this change unless you can prove that what i am looking out at is nitrogen. -sio. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sio6627 (talk • contribs)

The atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% other. Oxygen is highly explosive; if the atmosphere were 78% oxygen, life as we know it wouldn't exist and nor would other things which oxidise, such as rocks and metal. You've already been warned repeatedly about introducing your pet theory into Atmosphere of Earth; if you continue doing so, you'll be blocked from editing Wikipedia. – iridescent 18:13, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

On a related note Irid, Standard Dry Air needs loving. I have no knowledge of this subject. –xeno^talk 18:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Vaughan Pratt is the one to talk to. My atmospheric science is all 20 years out of date; I wouldn't want to touch it myself, as I've forgotten too much to be useful. – iridescent 18:24, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

uh,,, but isn't nitrus/nitrogen/nitrides/etc usually a big component of nitros? (the part that is very explosive) -- and oxygen might be flammable, but only when it is under extreme pressure or super-concentrated. (i've never run into any flammable oxygen, certainly none that will explode readily)-- i mean, yes, oxygen is necessary for a fire (why we use oxidizers in space rockets) but isn't 'explosive' or 'flammable' the same way in which gasoline is. -sio. (talk) 18:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Oxygen is not flammable; flammability is the measure of something's ability to react with oxygen. My patience with you is running very thin; I would strongly suggest you stick to editing articles on topics you understand. – iridescent 18:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

and where is all of this nitrogen coming from, anyway? i'm sure your aware of oxygen-producing plants but where is the nitrogen coming from? -sio. (talk) 18:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Go read it for yourself. My patience with you is exhausted; any further posts from you on this page, or unconstructive posts on article talkpages, will be reverted. – iridescent 18:22, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

MF magnets. How do they work? --Moni3 (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I was sorely tempted to say "God put it there" just to shut him up. – iridescent 18:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Earth's atmosphere is 78.08% nitrogen (N₂) per Earth and its source for that statement, Williams, David R. (2004-09-01). "Earth Fact Sheet". NASA. Retrieved 2010-08-09.. Also, "Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere" per Nitrogen. Please stop disruptively claiming otherwise unless and until you can produce verifiable reliable sources proving otherwise. Thank you.   — Jeff G.  ツ 18:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Any rational discussion of the composition of the earth's atmosphere requires a statement defining the earth time were are discussing. This present discussion concerns the current composition; during the Proterozoic for example, there was less than 2% free oxygen in the atmosphere --Senra (talk) 19:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for that information, but a key word in my post was "is", as in "present tense".   — Jeff G.  ツ 19:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"we humans are not very good at breathing nitrogen". Actually we humans are very good at breathing nitrogen, so much so that it's a favoured method of committing suicide. It doesn't cause the panic to breathe that carbon dioxide does, and it results in a very quick loss of consciousness. Just thought you'd like to know that. Malleus Fatuorum 20:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Careful.... Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, now I've seen it all. When discussing the properties of a gas it's forbidden to mention that it's quite commonly used as a method of suicide. I'm quite frankly gob-smacked. If you're so concerned Newyorkbrad you might like to address this euthanasia device, which is quite comprehensively described here on wikipedia. Malleus Fatuorum 20:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Brad, how come the veiled threat of a block for taunting wasn't wheeled out for RH&E's crude baiting attempts at Malleus's talk? Since you commented there yesterday, I presume you're aware of them. – iridescent 21:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I was assuming it was glossa in bucco Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

For gosh sake, my post here was a joke. But I suppose no one remembers any longer that my first encounter ever with the Arbitration Committee, as a rank newb, was opposing Fred's proposal?? Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that a joke that eludes everyone and has to be explained isn't much of a joke. Sorry everyone. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Tricky area to play for laughs; when it comes to threatening Malleus with blocks, it's happened too often in reality, for even more spurious reasons, to have much comic potential. Although he doesn't like to mention it, I distantly recall that he was once blocked for using the word "sycophantic". – iridescent 21:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Lingua in buccā - dammit, now I am confusing Greek and Latin :( Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

nitrogen

but it doesn't seem strange that what is being referred to here as a 'preferred method of suicide' is 78.09% of our atmosphere? that doesn't seem at all odd? -sio. (talk) 21:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)