User talk:Daniel Quinlan

Hello Daniel, welcome to Wikipedia!

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Don't be afraid of making the odd mistake, there are any number of others eagerly waiting for a chance to correct it!

Also note that this is an international site, so you need to give the nationality of say Molly RingWald, jimfbleak 11:03 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Daniel. Re: Daniel C. Boyer's articles, it's certainly a fine line. Advertising is not welcome on Wikipedia, and linking his works from the "[year] in film" was a little much. However, his works have been exhibited/performed publically, and people have heard of him, and thus these articles shouldn't be excluded simply because they are about the projects of a Wikipedian. If Linus Torvalds dropped by, we'd probably let him write about his software project. :) Basically, I look at it this way. If a Wikipedian has a personal project that has actually produced something, and people who are not his family or friends know about it, an article is appropriate. If you have produced software that other people (besides yourself and a cousin) use, you should feel free to write about it in a neutral manner.

Keep in mind that all of this is my own opinion; others may disagree. :-) -- Stephen Gilbert 14:38 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, it's clear to me that my opinion about the practice is in the minority although I'm somewhat perplexed as to why this is the case. I suppose freedom is more important than accuracy

Could you please precis what, if any, information, you think is inaccurate? It is difficult to know how to proceed from general statements of this type to specific edits in Wikipedia. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:24 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

(I think omission or inclusion of information is often a form of bias). I have a similar concern about how many pages on Wikipedia insist on including crackpot conspiracy theories (which somtimes are a substantial portion of the article) because some Wikipedian has repeatedly insisted on adding them until the standard compromise "Some people believe ..." is inserted, somehow justifying crackpot theories and wild assertions. Some articles cannot even go for one paragraph before a crackpot theory is included.

Going back to self-promotion, my perspective is that if it became rampant on Wikipedia that the system would begin to break down. It's therefore better to draw the line a bit more conservatively. Specifically, people should not really be creating content about themselves or their own works. I actually have edited pages about projects I'm involved in (I'm co-founder and chairperson of the Free Standards Group, for example). I think that's okay. Also, Linus Torvalds doesn't need to create any pages for himself or Linux, they're all already there. At least there seemed to be some agreement about removing spurious links from existing articles (although Daniel C. Boyer has already added some of them back). I'm tempted to suggest their deletion, but I've had enough for now, so I'll leave it (maybe) to someone else. --Daniel Quinlan Mon Jul 14 11:05:33 PDT 2003

Please specify what links are spurious and why you find them so. --Daniel C. Boyer 00:17, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I guess it comes down to a disagreement on where to draw the line. What do you think about User:Sheldon Rampton's contribution of PR Watch? (He also contributed his own biography at Sheldon Rampton, which could use a little work). As to "freedom is more important than accuracy", I have to say that is not my personal motivation for supporting the inclusion of Boyer's works. m:Wiki is not paper is the basic principle I try to follow. Information that doesn't make the cut in Britannica and Encarta is still valuable to people.

Assuming his self-referring contributions are factually correct, Sheldon Rampton's contributions seem to be a less severe example. Bear in mind that I think self-referrential articles should be severely frowned upon, but there are only 6 articles (not counting talk and such) that link back to Sheldon Rampton. On the other hand, there are 17 redirect

These redirect articles only exist as they are either alternative forms of my name people have made (or Dan Boyer, my signature), or misspellings or typos of my name. They are in no way intended to reflect my relative importance or lack thereof. I think there are practical problems with your idea that the number of articles that reference someone or something should reflect his or its relative significance or lack of significance; I don't know how we'd implement this: on the merits themselves, this person or subject merits an article, but we shouldn't include such an article because having another article linking to, or which is linked to by, something else will give readers an exaggerated idea of the importance of that something? I know this is a possibility but I think there is no way to judge whether an article on something should be included other than by the merits and nature of that something, not also by a supplemental system of an infinitely delicate weighing of significances. If you have any specific problems with specific redirects you should make comments on the relevant talk page or nominate the redirect for deletion; it could certainly be true that some of these redirects do not serve a useful purpose. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:29 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think you're really missing my point. While it is true that the Daniel C. Boyer article is not important enough to merit 17 redirects, my primary assertion is that you personally had no business cluttering the directory by adding 17 redirects to your own article. If all those redirects are needed, surely someone else will add them, although I really really doubt it. In comparision to the 17 name redirects for Daniel C. Boyer, George W. Bush, one of the (actually well-known) people with the most redirects I could find, only has 11 redirects for his name (some of them are a bit pejorative and some are due to people mistakenly looking for George Bush, Jr. and such) and he's the current US President. John F. Kennedy has 4, C. S. Lewis has 3, Lyndon B. Johnson has 3, Iain Banks has 3, Harry S. Truman has 3, Dan Quayle has 2, F. Scott Fitzgerald has 1, etc. I also don't think we need to have an infinitely delicate system to weigh importance. We just need to curb the ego of several Wikipedia authors who create new content about themselves. --Daniel Quinlan 16:50 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

And you're missing my point. I think you should focus on the lack of merit of specific articles, as as a practical matter one cannot make modifications to 17 redirects in general, without actually editing or deleting a specific redirect. If any or all of the redirects to my article are not useful, argue the point on the respective talk page, or list the specific redirect for deletion; this could very well be justified. However, arguing about redirects in general is not useful. You are also missing the obvious point that it is not necessarily the importance of an individual which would define the number of redirects; those whose name is well known only in a particular form, a form that tends not to be misspelled, need few redirects. People known F. Scott Fitzgerald almost exclusively as "F. Scott Fitzgerald," so what would be the point of many redirects? Once again, arguments can only focus on a specific article, as specific articles are the only thing that can be modified or deleted. --Daniel C. Boyer 13:48 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

and 27 articles that link to Daniel C. Boyer. There's almost an order of magnitude difference in ego size. The redirect articles alone overwhelm any search for the last name of Boyer (try it). --Daniel Quinlan Wed Jul 16 15:27:46 PDT 2003

As to m:Wiki is not paper, I accept and agree with the concept, but relative balance is very important. If someone can't find the information they want, because there's tons of unimportant (or self-important) material in the way of the user's search for information, then Wikipedia is rendered less useful. Imagine how quickly a user will be turned off to Wikipedia if every search for information on Surrealism leads to Daniel C. Boyer, if every search for fabric leads to a discussion of fetishism, or if every search for information on government-related material includes yet another "some people believe" POV diatribe. A large portion of Wikipedia is already at this point.

As for crackpot theories, I'm quite sympathetic to your position. I think that we should have articles on every crazy belief or idea that has any sort of a following (other than one or two people with a collection of web pages), describing what these people believe and why most people think it's nuts. However, I am against including such ideas in every article on topics the beliefs touch upon. There's no excuse to write in the Earth article, "Most people believe the Earth is roughly spherical in shape, and that it orbits the Sun. However, a few people believe that it is flat and stationary. See Flat Earth." If you could point out some examples of articles that include crackpot theories, I'd be grateful. -- Stephen Gilbert 15:20 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've only really just started contributing more often to Wikipedia, but perhaps I should work on a list -- I usually find it more expedient to just go ahead and make edits directly. Complete crackpot theories of the sort you describe (flat earth and such) are not really all that common, but conspiracy theories aren't too hard to find if you look for stuff related to contemporary US politics (there seems to be a somewhat consistent bias against the current US government). Almost more common is "fringe" or off-topic content (like the majority of the Lycra article talks about Lycra fetishism). Also common is unbalanced political opinion (like the long POV treatment given to the PATRIOT Act on the Police state page when contemporary real live police states like North Korea aren't even mentioned). --Daniel Quinlan Wed Jul 16 15:27:46 PDT 2003

So add info about North Korea! But I think the treatment of the PATRIOT Act is appropriate; sure it would be too long for a proportion of the finished article, but it still says it's a stub, which could be the reason for the imbalance. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:36 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Actually, Article II says that nobody shall be "eligible to the office of President" unless they are natural born. This leaves uncertain whether an acting President (which is all the "line of succession" folks can be) is in the "office of President" or just acting as the President. It is therefore necessary for the statute to disambiguate, and of course, the statute does it the only way it could, to avoid precipitating a needless constitutional crisis. Note that the Presidential Succession Clause in Article II provides the statuted is to declare "what Officer shall act as President" (emphasis mine). By contrast, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and the interpretation of the Succession Clause of Article II, since the first use when Harrison died (and VP Tyler succeeded), the Vice President assumes not merely the powers and duties, and does not merely act as President, but becomes President. The same is not true should, say, the Speaker of the House succeed. He would merely act as President. This whole thing has been a Constitutional mess from the beginning, actually, requiring two amendments to finally nail down the details sufficiently--and even then, it's only nailed down because the statute excludes from the order of succession those who are not "eligible to the office".

There are some proposals (reinvigorated after 9/11 and the near-attack on Washington D.C.) to amend the US Constitution again to fix the succession issues (I really hope they remove/lower the President Pro Tempore of the Senate too), hopefully such an amendment would fix this problem as well. --Daniel Quinlan 08:45 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I can provide references if you'd like. Accordingly, I've reverted the change, but made the explanation a little more full. --Tb 08:24 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Not necessary. I reread that section of the Constitution and clearly you're right. (A lot of meaning in a few words, although I think it's better than the EU version of constitutional clarity). I also agree that it should probably be clarified a bit in the article. --Daniel Quinlan 08:45 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Check it out now and let me know what you think. "Be bold!" Even though I think your correction may have been wrong, it prompted me to go back and get some sources, with the result that there is now better history in the article and I cleaned up some other stuff too. So it was all for the good of the wikipedia! :) As for the EU constitution, I reacted much as you did: "this is clear?! eek!" It turns out, though, that it's mostly existing language in existing treaties and documents, and the EU constitution is very conservative. it really changes very little (unless the majority voting thing passes), and just gathers all the stuff together. Of course, it also has a huge symbolic role too. --Tb 08:49 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oh, "Hi Thomas", I didn't realize Tb was you (although I had a hunch just before I checked your user page). I liked your changes. I made a few minor revisions which I think also improve the article (a few are unrelated). Small world... --Daniel Quinlan 09:10 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dan, that's some Irish name you have! Let me guess, could there possibly be an Irish connection there somewhere? :-) lol FearÉIREANN 05:43 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yep, one in the past. It would be hard for me to claim (both in fact and feeling) that I'm anything other than wholly American, though. Both of my parents were born in the United States and my mother's family has been in the US for quite a long time (so, little or no Irish there). Some years ago, I was playing around (as in, I didn't get very far and have forgotten everything) with learning Irish Gaelic and I hope to make a more serious effort (as in, take a real class) in the future. Some of the result of my interest is the [Enya - Translations and Lyrics] page (which is all too frequently copied without attribution or permission). Nowadays, my musical tendencies are moreso Celtic (Irish and Scottish) traditional music. Enya was one of my first exposures to anything particularly Irish (other than knowing I was Irish, I suppose) when I was in college and Clannad was the gateway to a lot of the music I enjoy today. I think it's mostly (not all, surely) just that I like Irish traditional music... (I don't particularly like U2, for example.)

I do seem to be reading a fair amount of stuff related to Ireland on Wikipedia, though. Maybe I'm just another person trying to connect with my past on a subconscious level. All that aside, I think my last name is great. *grin* --Daniel Quinlan 06:30 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I wrote that stuff ages ago, but FWIW...

Re: "aeroplane" (233,000) vs "airplane" (1,940,000) etc.. All that proves is that there are a lot of fans of Jefferson Airplane and the movie Airplane! and that California has more websites selling aircraft related products than India. The word 'Airplane' didn't exist until World War I when the US armed forces dramatically increased the number of aircraft in use and then sold them all off at the end of the war. Someone, somehow, somewhen misheard or misread the word aeroplane and the word airplane came into common usage. It was essentially born out of ignorance. The Wright brothers used the words "flying machine" and aeroplane. Mintguy 11:31 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"aeroplane" may have been first, but your claim of "ignorance" is absurd and smacks of anti-Americanism. Even if it was born in ignorance, "airplane" is now the globally more common term. I realize some Britons may resent the influence of America on the English language (or that we don't seem to mind changing the spelling of chiefly British words), but English was designed to be an evolving language, I think it's made better when it is allowed to evolve rather than held back by any kind of pedant. --Daniel Quinlan 11:17 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into a petty argument that "smacks of anti-Americanism". I was simply giving you a history lesson about the origin of the word which cannot be denied. But FWIW you haven't grasped the fact that just becuse the word shows up on the web more often doesn't mean that it is more common [1] [2], Internationally (when you take out the references to the movie Airplane! and Jeffesson Airplane etc..) the word aeroplane (and not just countries of the former British Empire) is more common. At this point the discussion ends. Mintguy 11:48 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I never tried to deny that "aeroplane" came first. Asserting that "airplane" was born out of ignorance seems to indicate a clear anti-American (or anti-North American) bias. There's no evidence to support a claim of ignorance. Altering spelling is not a sign of ignorance (Noah Webster). Incidentally, "airplane" is also the primary word used in Canadian English. My use of the web was to try to measure actual use of the word. There must be cultural references where only "Aeroplane" is used that would balance out a movie and a music group? If not, why shouldn't those cultural references be part of any evaluation? Daniel Quinlan 08:31 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There are 341 million first language speakers of English, 210 million of those are in the United States (228 million in North America). There are 508 million including second language speakers, and 240 million of those are in the United States (260 million in North America). Yet, some Wikipedia editors feel obliged to move pages and alter spelling on the basis that Commonwealth English is not only more correct, but is also more common than either American English or North American English. (My United States figures are a bit low since they date from 1984 and most of the other figures are from the late 1990s) Daniel Quinlan 08:31 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The main reason I moved your summary out of VFD is because it seemed to be a bit off-topic. Especially the bit about the lists he added himself to. Also it was pretty long for a summary. We try to keep pages under 32 KB but I'm starting to think it's a lost cause with VFD these days. When I move content out of VFD, I often leave an NPOV summary behind, essentially listing the users for and against deletion, and giving the main arguments on each side. You can write something like that if you want to.

It's unfortunate that moving a discussion from one place to another often seems to kill it. Maybe you should move your summary out of the quoted section and into the main flow of the talk page. -- Tim Starling 05:48 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Can you edit your perl script to not list pages that weren't edited by PP? Those pages prove nothing, of course... Evercat 02:25, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, I take it back. Since we have a complete list, it shows that most pages edited by multiple Lir aliases were also edited by PP.Evercat 02:36, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You should reconsider your vote on New Imperialism.

A temp page with an uncertain future that is not a communally edited text but a rival to the main article by one single user should not be advertised as a rival on the main page. PP's temp page was not created not as a communal new edition of an article but as a rival to a communally drafted text.

It is bad policy to effectively present a reader with two alternative rival pages. It gives the impression we are offering them two POVs where in fact we are in the business of one NPOV. Right now, the talk page where the temp maximum visibility. The article will be split soon once this dispute is put to rest and there's no reason cut out relevant information. This would set a very bad precedent. Jtdirl, a professional encyclopedist, has repeatedly stated that this goes against every principle of encyclopedic design.

It's also unfair to all the other contributors who have worked on this article. It's also irresponsible to link such a page to an article that has attracted the kind of peer editing that we've seen on prominent articles, such as WWI and WWII. This is not solely my article, as PP claims. Others have been doing substantial work. 172 07:16, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Daniel C Boyer

I agree with you totally on Daniel C Boyer, and all related redirect. He hasn't doen anything significantly famous. It is very common for an artist to have one's work published, even if said artist is not famous. To say that because he is published he is famous, and therefore warrents are article is ridiculous. MB 21:30, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

While it is fruitless, overly subjective and inappropriate for me to argue about how famous I am or am not, I think there is an obvious problem with this argument. It is not the main activity of a visual artist to publish books or to have writings included in anthologies or periodicals. It tends to be the main activity of a visual artist to display works in exhibitions. --Daniel C. Boyer 00:31, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if you noticed or not, but this message was to Daniel Quinlan, not Daniel C. Boyer. I know your opinion about yourself and the article about yourself that you yourself contributed most to. MB 00:47, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Do you (Daniel C. Boyer) see any obvious problem with people adding articles about themselves or their own works? It seems overly subjective and inappropriate for people to advertize their own works (e.g., The Octopus Frets), themselves (e.g., Daniel C. Boyer and adding Daniel C. Boyer to numerous pages), or subjects directly related to either (e.g., "chocolate coulage"). I do. For you to continually alude to your own objectivity and appropriateness is amazing to me. I would feel genuine shame if I added articles about myself and got caught. Daniel Quinlan 00:51, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

I have never once alluded to my objectivity or appropriateness. This is a bald-faced lie. Chocolate coulage is not an article and it never has been and for you to say that the mention of chocolate coulage directly relates to me is a bit of a stretch. Whatever the validity of your complaints about my contributions, it has been diluted to some degree by your inaccuracies and your extremely POV (directed against me) definitions of "advertizing" [sic], definitions that include content in which the product is never mentioned and the brand name is, at least, very difficult to determine. There is no question of my "getting caught" as I have not attempted to conceal the authorship of my contributions, so this is a total straw man. I would say that I would feel genuine shame if I shaded from a laudatory concern for the objectivity and integrity of Wikipedia into extremely far-fetched complaints, wild exaggerations and untruths because of an animus towards a particular user. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:44, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A little off subject, but you are using straw man to mean something it does not mean here. Please read the definition. But don't worry too much, a lot of people don't know the real meaning ;). MB 18:17, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

"Continually moving the discussion to the Talk page never results in a completed vote"

There are ways around that. First you've got to write a summary for VFD, I told you that before. If you're worried about a stagnating discussion, you can organise a vote, like on Talk:Slogan 'AIDS Kills Fags Dead'. It might be a good idea to decide on the voting rules first, not like what I did.

I think I've made my position pretty clear on the deletion of Daniel C. Boyer. I was the one who removed the redirect entries last time: see [3], so you can probably guess what I think of that. I will make a comment on VFD soon, though.

I understand the problems with Connecticut, etc. I've made several comments to that effect, the most recent of which was on User talk:Daniel C. Boyer. I've also helped clean up the Boyer references, see for example [4].

-- Tim Starling 02:17, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Oh ok. I was just going by the date more than anything -- it seemed like a beefy issue, that substantial editing had taken place, and that it had all been on VFd for more than a week, and that the consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of condensing the material, which it seemed was done. I know youre the one who put it all up for vfd in the first place -- so forgive me if I take your stand on the issue with a grain of salt. ;) VFD is for a specific purpose -- it does appear that the issue has passed the VFD test, judging by the compliance of the original author and the antipathy of the community toward outright removal. Best -戴&#30505sv 19:15, Aug 8, 2003 (UTC) (comment copied to Wikipedia:VFD:RST theory)

Good job cleaning up the trash left by that neo-fascist crackpot with the shifting IP address. I'll keep an eye on him too. 172 19:35, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Actually, the four examples in binary numeral system were not originally intended to be the same (I think a later editor changed a couple to match). The numerical value of each kind of depends on how you interpret the symbols. Is "+" equivalent to "1", or "Y" equivalent to "0"...? I think it may be better for them all to be different, with no mention of their numerical value (if any), since the emphasis is on any mechanism capable of showing two exclusive states. -- Wapcaplet 02:09, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

What exactly are you referring to as bias on that site -- at a glance, the top stories seem about as fair and balanced as any. If you object to certain terms, like "anti-Saudi smear campaign", and "occupied jerusalem" these are subjective to their respective audiences. Noone is NPOV -- but I dont see the normal flags on that site that I would on indymedia for example -- or the socialist, pro-american, conservative, left wing, Zionist, anti-Zionist, etc. sites. If this bias is just an undercurrent, then the same critique can be made of any POV. As long as its not the only source - POv sources can be good sources. Again, to eliminate any POV--rather than frame it as POV-- would mean to eliminate any source that had an adjective in it. May as well turn of the lights at that point. -戴&#30505sv 03:42, Aug 20, 2003 (UTC)

Rather than entering into an edit war on User:Saddam Hussein and reverting a user's own namespace, which itself is against Wikipedia:Wikiquette , I think you should look at Wikipedia:No offensive usernames and raise the issue in the appropriate forum, i.e. Wikipedia:Village pump. Users with offensive user names have in the past had their name forcibly changed and all edits in the database under that name changed to reflect a new name. Mintguy 22:45, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I brought it up on the mailing list and it's been ignored. What's the point of going anywhere else, especially with mav on the warpath to make sure I don't post things in more than one place? RickK 02:24, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Do you have anything else better to do other than objecting to my name? SH

Yes, most of the time I do have better things to do. Just the same, while your username is only one of many blemishes on the face of Wikipedia, I still think it is time well-spent. If you were not interested in offending people, I would think that you would be content with another name. Daniel Quinlan 03:45, Aug 26, 2003 (UTC)

Hello Daniel -

I see that you are interested in Sigmund Freud, as am I. Perhaps you could consider your recent reversions to this article. As you know, Wiki says that "In general a revert is the advised action to deal with vandalism." If work does not meet your approval, yet is not vandalism, you might want to consider editing it to improve it. I'm certainly looking forward to any improvements you may make. NuclearWinner

Why are you removing links to words such as technology and organization? Lir