User talk:Pi zero: Difference between revisions

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Welcome!

Hello, Pi zero, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! --Pejman47 18:12, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response regarding Burnham merge proposals

From Canadian2006 (talk) 02:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC) The merge proposals are not something I feel strongly about, so I deleted the merge proposals. My reasoning for suggesting the merger was based on the overlap among the three articles. Much of the material in the Daniel Burnham article is about the work of his firm. In a situation like this where one man dominates an architectural firm, it's hard to separate the work of the man from the work of his firm. Also, I noticed that for some of the other famous architects, biographical material and material about their firms were blended together in a single article.[reply]

Nonetheless, this is not something I feel so strongly about that I want to tread on others' toes. Perhaps adding some internal links under a "See also" section would achieve the same end result as merging.

Vampire is now featured!

I hereby award you the "(Poorly drawn) Vampire Barnstar", because as you may know, Vampire is now a Featured Article and I just wanted to thank you for your contributions to the article or its FAC in order to get this goal. You really helped! Spawn Man (talk) 12:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Hi, I would like to ask you a favor. I don't have the English version of HP7, and I need someone who does. Can you look n the book at chapter 7 (The Will of Albus Dumbledore), and tell me which is the page where The Tales of Beedle the Bard is first mentioned (it's where that magician reads from Dumbledore's will about the book he has to give to Hermione). diego_pmc (talk) 07:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done, such as I can — the Deathly Hallows page says the US edition is about a hundred fifty pages longer than the UK edition. Pi zero (talk) 00:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the discussion page[1] diego_pmc (talk) 15:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Explanations

Hi Pi zero,

I take your point on providing explanations for edits reverted and will keep it in mind in future.

The sentence you deleted has problems of tone and clarity. It remains necessary to the section, though, as it underpins the mentions of the "second major concept" and "third concept" later on. I may edit it for style one of these days if no one else does first.

The reason for replacing & ndash; with a simple typed hyphen is that the hyphen makes for a text that is easier to read when editing.

You caught several things that needed to be changed, and these contributions are most welcome as far as I am concerned.

Regards, VikSol (talk) 20:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Interview with" or "interview by"?

How is it correct "Interview with George Bush by Mr. Reporter", or "Interview [...] with Mr. Reporter"? Also do you say GWB stated in and interview BY or WITH Mr. Reporter? I've seen it both ways in quite a few places and I'm a little confused. diego_pmc (talk) 14:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In a generic context, I'd go with "Interview with George Bush by Mr. Reporter". There are contexts where the prepositions would be used differently, though. I think what happens is this (but this is a rationalization, since if it led me to a usage that sounded wrong, I'd go with my instincts): The preposition "by" indicates the party that I am viewing as the initiator of the activity, while the "with" indicates the other participant. The usual (hence, generic) case of discussing interviews is that I'm a news consumer, who thinks of interviews from the perspective of the media; that's the impression that the media try to foster, after all, that the interviewer is asking questions that we the news consumers would ask if we could. In that case, when I reach into my stack of press clippings and pull one out and hand it to you, I might say, "This is an interview with George Bush by The New York Times". But if for some reason I identify with the interviewee — if, say, I'm a member of the Bush administration talking about what we've said to the press and when we've said it — I might say "That was an interview by Cheney", or "That was an interview with The New York Times".

I would say "GWB stated in an interview with Mr. Reporter" regardless of which perspective I was taking. Maybe that's because GWB is then unquestionably the initiator. Pi zero (talk) 20:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concerned comic article

Hi, I'm currently trying to improve Concerned (see my progress here - 2 days' work), and I need some help, and don't know where to turn. As you might have noticed from the talk page of Beedle the Bard, I'm not that good at making summaries. Do you think you can help me by shortening the summary found on the comic's article page? If you didn't play Half-Life 2, or read the comic, I don't really think it is much of a problem, and I'm able to correct any inaccuracies that might appear. If you decide to help, please start from shortening from the third paragraph of the Plot section, to the end of the section (the first two paragraphs are already included in "Plot summary" on my intermediary page). Please help me with this if you can. Thanks! diego_pmc (talk) 21:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to scrape up time to give this a try in the next day or two. Whether I can produce something at all helpful to you, I can't promise, but I suppose that's part of the point of using a forked copy of the article. I see the guidelines for comics plot summaries are here. Pi zero (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I tried to reduce its size a bit, you can check it out at section Plot summary. It is somewhat more reasonable now, but it could be better. diego_pmc (talk) 11:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be only a few more targets of opportunity for surgical trimming — things that are neither allusions to anything much (though I'm guessing on those), nor used later. The business in the second-to-last paragraph about rebel clothing and crossbow seems spurious, but I wasn't sure how to straighten out the narrative line of that paragraph since I haven't read the comic.
If we want to cut it down to noticeably shorter than it already is, we're going to have to start removing allusions. Down that road, I wondered about the Antlions; I suspect they might come out rather cleanly, and if something's got to go they seem like a relatively lesser allusion.
It's possible that cutting things out isn't the right strategy at all, though. Perhaps some kind of rewrite... Pi zero (talk) 19:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well done!

		The Editor's Barnstar
		For your work and copyeditting on Concerned to allow the article to successfully pass to good article status. Keep up the good work! Sabre (talk) 20:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to thank you for this, and want to ask for your opinion. Do you think there is any point in listing Concerned for FAC now? Diego_pmc ^Talk 17:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You want advice from someone with much more knowledge of that process than I have. (I was only a bit player on the huge Vampire upgrade last year.) Leafing through the Wikiproject Comics pages, it looks as if you could get the right sort of advice by requesting a peer review, giving as you reason that you'd like to know what could be done to improve the article further, with an eye toward eventual FAC. Pi zero (talk) 23:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seems it's not necessary, and besides that advice given at the proj page is sometimes semiautomated, which won't do me any good. Diego_pmc ^Talk 17:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anne Rice

Hi there Pi Zero! I would value your input on the place of Anne Rice in Vampire literature at Vampire literature. Colin4C (talk) 22:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Voynich Manuscript: The hint is/are two symbols

Hi Pi,

In the Voynich Manuscript, you lately changed the sentence "Another hint are two symbols..." to "Another hint is two symbols...". Wouldn't both be correct, since the hint consists of two symbols, but at the same time both symbols make up the hint? (Since it's an equivalent, it goes both ways, methinks. Not meaning to criticize your edit -- I'm just curious, since I'm not a native speaker.) --Syzygy (talk) 12:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The verb agrees with the subject, not the object, even though they're being equated. Thus, They are the same person, and He is two different people. Pi zero (talk) 19:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense... Thanx! --Syzygy (talk) 11:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ndash

Many thanks Pi, I wil fix that immeediately. Rich Farmbrough 15:10 28 December 2009 (UTC).

AfD nomination of Magic in Harry Potter

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Magic in Harry Potter. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Magic in Harry Potter. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reasons for revert?

Hello, Π₀, I wonder what your reasons were for this revert? At the top of the page it says the following: “… Its purpose is to record decisions made in discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. … This document is meant as a reference of consensus decisions on the Wikipedia Manual of Style and, when available, the reasoning behind each consensus. … This register is meant only to give editors better understanding of the current state of things, which is useful both to those considering proposing changes and to those seeking to better implement the MoS as it exists.” The topic of typographical vs. programming quotation marks has never had a consensus. Thus the page have to document this fact. By blanking that section you make it appear as if there was some kind of consensus only nobody had the time to document it. While in truth there wasn’t a consensus through many years of MoS existence. And it is ok for that section to be biased towards the typographical quotation marks, since the MoS itself is presently biased towards the programming glyphs. // stpasha » 19:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Stpasha.

The MOSR is, to my understanding of both its intent and its useful function, akin to an article in the sense that its mission is objective presentation of fact (like an article), not presentation of consensus (like a policy or guideline) or persuasion to an opinion (like an essay or talk page). By that understanding, it's not an appropriate place to argue your case pro curly quotes, which to be honest is what your original entry did. An example of something that would be useful, and could be exquisitely neutral, would be a list of links to past discussions on the topic, similar to what is now provided at WP:MOSR#Article titles.

It is direly difficult to write more than a list of links in a MOSR entry without being POV. Every additional word or phrase is fraught with hazard. Some entries seem to me to show evidence that past contributors have tried very hard to at least briefly explain the different sides of an issue with NPOV, but they've achieved only mixed results. Part of the difficulty is, of course, that writing nontrivial commentary on all sides of an issue without bias requires enormous effort and time and has the potential to be even more contentious than deciding what the MOS itself should say — and it's just not worth it, not when less effort (collection of archival links, which should be there in any case) will usually produce a more useful resource. The winning strategy is to give people the evidence that they can study and refer to, and let them forge their own interpretation; if they agree with your interpretation, you've got an ally, and if they disagree with your interpretation, then you're better off with someone who disagrees and is having no problem assuming you're reasonable, rather than with someone who both disagrees and suspects your side of unreason. Of course they'd still fight against the urge to perceive your side as unreasonable, if they've got Wikipedia nature, but things will run more smoothly if they don't have to fight for that perception.

I appreciate your efforts, after reverting my revert, in adding links into the archives, which provide a gateway to a substantial amount of (I'm inclined to believe) unbiased information; but unfortunately your presentation surrounding the links is still heavily biased. Beyond the obvious biases in the position descriptions, your interpretations of past events don't appear to me to be well supported by the archival links provided.

I don't agree, BTW, that an empty MOSR section implies a consensus (though it scarcely matters now, as with some substantive content an empty section is no longer a reasonable choice); my understanding of an empty MOSR section is that it means, exactly, that the MOSR does not yet provide any information on that topic. From the state of the MOS, a naive reader is likely to infer the existence of a consensus for what the MOS says, and a reader with more MOS experience is likely to infer the likely past existence of a consensus for what it says, and a current lack of consensus for changing it. Making the MOS a sort of decaying average of past consensuses (well, sort of).

No, it absolutely is not okay for the MOSR to be biased. This has nothing to do with whether the MOS is biased toward straight quotes (and it's actually not necessary to parse here just what that means). Assuming that it were biased, your position seems to be that two wrongs make a right, which they absolutely don't; in my experience, two wrongs make a miserable situation that leads to a worse future than a smaller number of wrongs would have. --Pi zero (talk) 04:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that my presentation of the facts is biased. But I tried, really. I searched through the archives trying to find any real argument in favor of straight quotes, and I couldn’t. They are all either come down to laziness (that is, people simply don’t want to use to curlies because they are hard to type), or are entirely made up (for example, someone made an article “hole saw” (quotes are part of the name) as a redirect to drill bit instead of the hole saw, in order to “demonstrate” that curly quotes fail in the search function), or maintain that curly quotes would present compatibility issues (regardless of the fact that Wikipedia uses Unicode characters in most of the articles now). Thus I infer that I became unable of producing the unbiased summary of the opinions, my sight is just “too clouded”. So I did what I could, and I guess someone will have to fix it now, but at least it’s better than the absence of any information on the topic. // stpasha » 05:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Check in IE-browser

Hi, a request, because of your earlier interest. Here User:Aeusoes1 described a problem with Template:IPA consonant chart in his IE browser (then he retired for some days). I found a possible solution, but I cannot check behavior in IE (Firefox and Safari did OK). So if you can use IE, could you check the effect of the sandboxes experiment, linked in that talk? Expected & unexpected behavior is described in the talk. -DePiep (talk) 12:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC) linkfix -DePiep (talk) 12:55, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews style guide

Hi, I see you made an edit there. The style guide desperately needs a thorough copy-edit, and I've started by examining the first few paragraphs, on the talk page. I have no particular agenda in changing the substantive guides—at least not in the near future. Just in cutting back the verbiage so it's easier to read. You may be interested in this endeavour; the style guide probably needs assistance from more editors in the long term. Tony (talk) 16:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you, by any chance, thinking of me as a sometime contributor to MOS talk? I am that, of course. To be certain we're on the same page though: I'm also a Wikinews reviewer and admin, and lately I spend more time on Wikinews than any other WMF project.

I've effectively spent the past two years studying the deep-down differences between WP, WB, and WN. From that perspective, a few thoughts on why, it seems to me, you're getting such a mixed reception at Wikinews:

The trouble isn't (exactly) xenophobia, nor lack of "social points". Wikinewsies can be very friendly to newcomers, from Wikipedia or anywhere else, who are trying to learn how to contribute to Wikinews. However, it does take hands-on experience writing news at Wikinews to have a real grasp of the how and why of the place, and that grasp is needed when tinkering with site policy — so voice on policy matters is (sort of) earned through on-site news work, i.e., mainspace edits. There's a stereotype (alas, with uncomfortably much truth in it) of the Wikipedian who doesn't try to understand what's different about Wikinews, but instead assumes that Wikipedia is what all other wikis just haven't realized they should be, and sets about trying to import Wikipedian practices that mismatch the task-driven demands of Wikinews.

Unfortunately, you're setting yourself up to fit the profile of the stereotype, which is not likely to win friends and influence people. You come from Wikipedia with no Wikinews mainspace edits, talking about improving the Style Guide and what's wrong with the project that has to change. For perspective, in my two years there I've scarcely touched the Style Guide. --Pi zero (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 138: / Line 138: @@
 : Unfortunately, you're setting yourself up to fit the profile of the stereotype, which is not likely to win friends and influence people.  You come from Wikipedia with no Wikinews mainspace edits, talking about improving the Style Guide and what's wrong with the project that has to change.  For perspective, in my two years there ''I've'' scarcely touched the Style Guide.  --[[User:Pi zero|Pi zero]] ([[User talk:Pi zero#top|talk]]) 05:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
-::And when you ''did'', of course, your (correct) improvement was promptly reverted, wasn't it.
-::I cannot disagree more with just about every assumption you have made here. "So voice on policy matters is (sort of) earned through on-site news work, i.e., mainspace edits". This is at the root of the degraded, closed-shop culture we find at ''Wikinews''. That it is there to serve the entrenched power of a few people—notably Brian McNeil—is quite clear to everyone else; but not, apparently, to you. No wonder there are only 30 active editors (if that is indeed an accurate number). Many WPians must have been turned off by the dictatorial culture there; it's rather like being back at primary school, being told what you may contribute to, when, and where—actually more told ''off'' than told. It is unconscionable that the Foundation's brand name should be dragged down by this kind of scandalous bully-boy culture, and ''you'' are supporting it.
-::It is neither acceptable in terms of a wiki nor sane in practical terms to effectively ban anyone Brian McNeil et al. deem as being not part of the little club of mainspace contributors from touching their messy, poorly written style guide. But what really concerns me about your role is that as an arbitrator, you supported the abject abuse, bullying, put-downs and rudeness that McNeil has meted out to me and others. I see that he boasts about the put-downs on his talk page. Not a single reprimand for such appalling behaviour? '''<u>You should be ashamed of yourself, Pi zero.</u>''' It beggars belief that a crat would survive when he behaves in this way (not to mention the "involved" admin action that seems to have slid past without your comment). But now we know, through you, how this happens.
-::The fiction that a language/style expert lacks the "knowledge" to edit a specific style guide is plain rubbish. Do not presume to know what I can and can't edit. In fact, even a newbie to copy-editing could improve that SG. It is laughable, for example, that we are told not to use future tense in headlines, and a few seconds later read examples with future tense. Or that we are told to make headlines short (good advice) and are then confronted with long, silly examples of headlines, such as "Trio commits largest bank robbery in Los Angeles history, flees on motorcycles".
-::A WP friend who has looked on at this exposure of the sad joke that is ''Wikinews'', said this yesterday:
-{{cquote|The very premise of Wikinews is founded on a bankrupt idea. They have no primary news-gathering capability; the entire effort is founded on re-writing Reuters and (mainly) Associated Press news articles that appear in subscribing publications like MSNBC and CNN. In the effort to use original wording and not plagiarize, errors are inevitable because professional copywriters pay attention to language and boolean nuances to make perfectly factual statements when all the facts are not available. It is all too easy to think something is being implied when it is not.}}
-::Hard to disagree with that. There might be hope for ''Wikinews'', but it needs a solid influx of editors to help it out of its current mire: new ideas, new roles, more labour. McNeil needs to be divested of his bully-boy role, which has a greater chance of surviving if the community is kept tiny (conflict of interest there, I think): if you can't see that, you should resign as an arbitrator. Your contributions, including that bizarre effort at "translation", appear to be a weak-kneed capitulation to everything McNeil stands for; in particular, the "translation" was a lame attempt to reinforce the notion that "we WN editors are different, we know, you don't, you'll have to learn our ways". I don't buy it, and neither should you nor anyone else. No one there is willing to stand up to him, so it will continue to be a serious little embarrassment for the WMF. [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 03:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
-*There are few words I can think of to describe Pi zero's attitude. He's doing a great job, not as an authority figure, but as "apologist" of [[WP:UNCIVIL|inexcusable]] and [[WP:NPA|intimidatory]] behaviour, and "appeaser" of evil [[WP:OWN|warlords]]. --[[User:Ohconfucius|<span style="color:Black;font:bold 8pt kristen itc;text-shadow:cyan 0.3em 0.3em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Ohconfucius</span>]] [[User talk:Ohconfucius|<sup>¡digame!</sup>]] 04:16, 27 September 2010 (UTC)