User:Jaxhere/old stuff/Archive-Feb-2007

Fellow Gringo in Chile

como estai, Jack. Thanks for dropping by my page and leaving a note. Concerning the stealing of the places idea, I'll only forgive you if you add New Zealand to the places you'd like to go to some time ;). Well, as you can see, I took it from another editor and that's the whole idea of it. What part of Chile are you at? GringoInChile 23:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Villarica is a great place, I envy you. I'm teaching at Universidad San Sebastián (3/4 jornada) and now Católica (1/4). Yeah, I agree, the universities' charging policies aare rather questionable. My wife is studying nursing and I'm appalled at having to pay so much for enrollment every year. It's more than it is for a whole month's fees -- for what, paperwork? GringoInChile 17:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Estación Central

There is no reason to move Estación Central to Estación Central, Chile, as there was no article at Estación Central. I've never seen such policy about moving all Chilean cities to Settlement, Chile. If there is, please link me to it, because I find it absurd. ☆ CieloEstrellado 22:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Last reversion in Chile

Hi, I reviewed it and maybe using a summary like "rm unsourced statements" would be better there. But I looked at the contribs of that IP address and he has a history with vandalism like edits. So I think the article should stay as it is now. --Bugtrio | Talk 14:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Chilean noticeboard

Hi - thanks for the note about the noticeboard, but as I'm not actively editing any articles on Chile at present, I'll leave it for now. If I start working on Chilean topics again, I'll sign up! Warofdreams talk 23:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Chile interest

I have no special knowledge of Chile; awhile back, I did work on organizing some of its articles into categories. Thanks Hmains 20:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

naming

Well said. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Improving an Article

Sir, Please take a look here. I am intrested in working in this article a like to improve it to FA level. If you can Please take time to help me. Is this article at present fit to be nominate to a Featured article? If not please suggest the ways to improve. Thanks - _Д=|Θ|=_{Д Paul}| 22:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion and sorry for the disturbance. - _Д=|Θ|=_{Д Paul}| 17:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Okey sir. Thanks for the wishes! - _Д=|Θ|=_{Д Paul}| 19:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

edits to userpages

If you go to Wikipedia:User categories for discussion, you will find an active page of changes being made to userpages because of a desire to make the category system make sense. There are notices posted on the categories themselves, and when consensus is reached to delete or rename a category, changes are made to the user pages. Sometimes these changes are made automatically, as when a template is changed and the userpages automatically update. But if you have categories hand-typed into your page, and the forum decides to change the category, someone will have to alter your page. You're definitely welcome to participate in the discussions if you like.--Mike Selinker 14:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Sure, I understand your thinking on this. I just think it's not practical. Instead of making a keystroke change, I'd be posting a note on a talk page, then waiting for the note to get read, then getting a message on my talk page (or some proxy page), then implementing the change. And it's unclear whether I'm waiting for permission from the user then. Certinaly people who've put a userbox template on their page (possibly hundreds of people) shouldn't all be bombarded with an email, right? So just the people who didn't use the userbox? ... Well, as you see, it could become a lot more complicated. My thinking is that the category system is a request by the user to use the structural systems of the mainpages. And that request comes with an unspoken agreement (which, fairly, could be spelled out somewhere) that if you place a category on your page, that category is subject to revision or deletion. And sometimes that work will be done by another user. If that's not what you want (and I expect that some people might not), maybe the category system isn't their method of self-expression. That seems a bit draconian, but it might be my position nonetheless. Thoughts?--Mike Selinker 13:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, no offense taken at all. I don't necessary think your approach is practical, but I'd love to see it discussed. I would suggest such a discussion happen on the talk page of Wikipedia:User categories for discussion to bring in more people.--Mike Selinker 14:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

User pages

Noting several of your comments on MS's talk page, I thought I would note that "your" userpages aren't "yours". Read WP:USER#Ownership and editing of pages in the user space. While general leeway has been traditionally given to userpages, they may indeed be edited by other users, though doing so may be considered by some to be a breach of Wikiquette. The janitorial task of removing a category which has been deleted due to the result of consensus by the community doesn't violate any of the above. If you are concerned about the categories on your user page, perhaps you should add them to your watchlist? - jc37 15:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You'll note that I recognized the ownership of user pages to be community property and I accept that condition.

My concern is the respect and manners aspect, which, in some cases is overlooked where it need not be. It's a lot more pleasant to live in a polite world, and "necessity", in my opinion, is no excuse to forget this. Very few issues are so urgent that we could not take a bit more time to be polite. --JAXHERE | ^Talk 15:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

While I wholeheartedly agree in principle, being "polite" can be rather subjective. Also, see Wikipedia:Canvassing. To notify all the Wikipedian members of a category that it's been deleted, and hope to receive a response from each would be excessive to the point of being considered spamming. (Which could easily also be seen as impolite.) There is also the issue that quite a few of the user pages are of users who are currently inactive, so waiting for a response isn't an option. Besides, I don't believe that there is anything preventing a user from re-adding the redlinked category to their userpage, if they so wish. - jc37 15:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Where it comes to being polite, wouldn't you think that --in the interests of harmony-- that it would be preferable to err on the "excessive" side?

Now that you mention it, I think that in the correct sequence, users should be notified before a caegory is deleted. If it is a little used category, it could be hardly considered as spam, whereas, if it is widely used, then that should be a very strong signal to the person considering the deletion that prior discussion amoung the people who use it is absolutely necessary.

Waiting for responses isn't an issue. A reasonable deadline would be stated in the notification, if one didn't respond during the time they would then know that the change had been put into effect. If the number of responses was great, this might be an indication that the deadline might need to be extended.

And you're right that any user could re-link to a non existing category, but isn't that just being annoying? After all, what this is saying is that it's OK to do something which somebody else might want to undo, thus requiring an extra effort, but it's not OK for you to have to make sure no one objects first. That would be a very self-centered attitude and certainly not one which is conducive to building a community. JAXHERE | ^Talk 15:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think that there's a world in which I'm entirely in favor of Jax's approach. That world is where it's easy to notify everyone. I think it's a worthwhile goal to build tools that alert people better. But we're not in that world yet. Maybe some of the tool-builders can help us get there. In the meantime, I put a note on Wikipedia talk:User page to see what people think about making a guideline for categories on userpages.--Mike Selinker 21:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Municipio and Municipalidad

Thank you for your messages. I see your point and I would like to express the rationale behind my original editings (which you altered) and the more recent ones.

Throughout this encyclopedia (, , , as well as in official texts and the more discerning media, the term municipality is generally used in its sense of a territorial unit of local government ("... a municipality is a political subdivision of a state within which a municipal corporation has been established to provide general local government for a specific population concentration in a defined area"; Encyclopedia Brittanica article) . This meaning of the term municipality translates into Spanish as municipio.

The term municipio is used in this sense in generic Spanish as well as in regional Spanish - in several Spanish-speaking countries . This is the predominant term used in Spain to denote the territorial unit in question (or to its inhabitants, considered as a whole) ; (it is the third level of local government after the region and the province). In France, the equivalent term would be the commune, and in Italy, the comune. In Chile, it is equivalent to comuna.

On the other hand, it is the concept of the "municipal corporation [that] has been established to provide general local government..." which is aptly translated into Spanish as municipalidad (or "ayuntamiento de un término municipal") . In Spain, as in Mexico, this municipal corporation is generally called ayuntamiento , , while in Chile, the usual word that describe it is municipalidad. In this sense it is akin to what it is understand as (the institutional meaning of) a municipal council, a city council or a city hall .

While on certain occasions there is some overlapping of the terms municipio and municipalidad, it must be remarked that this occurs by extension (and not by the correct application of the primary meaning of each term) as well as in colloquial and lax language, in the less-discerning media and not infrequently, in error. Beware of the faux-amis.

As concerns the issue of the theoretical situation of a municipalidad administering one or more communes, this fact does not detract from, but rather enhances, the point that it is municipio, rather than municipalidad the primary meaning intended for the English-language term municipality.

Linking comuna and municipality by an "and", when describing some Chilean comunas would likely confuse the reader, given that municipality means primarily "municipio" - which is synonymous with comuna. Now, if confusion wants to be avoided and the casual reader be protected or properly guided, then why not use only the term "comuna" (and avoid the term "municipality" altogether) when referring to one of the third-tier, Chilean "political subdivisions [ ] within which a municipal corporation has been established [ ] in a defined area"?

P.S: Sorry if I gave you the impression of persisting in making changes ("Why do you persist in making changes"?) These editions were made in a row, days ago, before I read the note you left in my talk page. -- Eguirald 00:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Eguirald, To respond to your point and question:

Linking comuna and municipality by an "and", when describing some Chilean comunas would likely confuse the reader, given that municipality means primarily "municipio" - which is synonymous with comuna. Now, if confusion wants to be avoided and the casual reader be protected or properly guided, then why not use only the term "comuna" (and avoid the term "municipality" altogether) when referring to one of the third-tier, Chilean "political subdivisions [ ] within which a municipal corporation has been established [ ] in a defined area"?

The Chilean government, in the constitution, has created a distinction.

1. it divides provinces into comunas
2. it assigns administrative duties to municipalidades

This is not making them the same. If it did, the constitution, would have either divided the country into municipalides, or it would have simply gone on to describe how the comunas were to be administered and describing their conditions such as electing a mayor, setting up consultative committees, etc.

It's not up to us to decide what the government's intentions were... if that needs to be decided it would probably be in some courtroom. Our job is to simply present the situation as clearly as we can.

Whether or not this was a good idea using different terms as the constitution did is not for us to judge in an encyclopedia, but there is a situation which is difficult to understand and we must, at least, try to describe it so that a reader can reach their own conclusions.

If there is a better approach than the one I've applied, please put it forward, but I insist that telling readers that "comuna = municipalidad" is not what the law states any more than it states "provincia=gobernador" or "region=intendente". JAXHERE | ^Talk 16:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

League of Copyeditors participation drive!

Dear League member,

We've started a participation drive for the remainder of February. If you can, please help clear the backlog by adopting the following goals each week:

• Select an article to copy-edit from the backlog. After your copy-edit, list the article in the articles ready for final proofread section.
• Select a different article to proofread from the articles ready for final proofread section.

Thanks for your help! BuddingJournalist 08:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Prohibited articles

We don't prohibit articles, however we are here to write an encyclopedia, not to be a dumping ground for anything and everything. In order to meet that goal articles as written have to meet our standards such as neutral point of view, no original research, notability, verifiability and biographies of living people. Some articles fail to meet those standards and are deleted through one of the various deletion processes. Sometimes there are some individuals who are unable to accept the deletion (or in some case what wikipedia is not attempt to continually recreate those articles. In order to prevent such disruption the pages get protected. If an article on a given subject is writeable which meets the standards you can do so, place a copy in your userspace and get it reviewed. If it is suitable it can then be moved to the main space. (That doesn't stop it being deleted later or even very shortly) through the deletion processes. --pgk 19:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you feel ranting about censorship, or trying to label me as an "evil censor" (my interpretation of your message) is going to impress me or somehow change my mind on the issue. The policy of protecting pages in such circumstances is well established as per WP:SALT. As I've already invited you (and indeed anyone else) if you want to write an article in line with wikipedia's policies you are more than welcome and if it meets them there would be no issue putting it in place. If the page hadn't been salted any recreations of the original material would have been deleted in line with wikipedia's policies. If you think preventing continued recreation of material which fails to meet wikipedia's basic goals or deletion of that material is "wrong", then I suggest you visit the village pump and try and get the slew of policies such as WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV etc. etc. removed.

If you merely want the deletion of this specific page reviewed, then you can take it to deletion review, though be careful of the scope of deletion review, you are likely to be told exactly what I've already told you, write a suitable article and it'll be put in place.

If you want to ask more about the page in question and the circumstances leading to it I'm more than happy to do that. Take a look at the logs for that page you can see that an original article was deleted through wikipedia's deletion process. You can also see a recreation was further deleted via the prod mechanism, you can then see that the day before I deleted it a different admin deleted it for the same reason, the deletion reason there gives a sentence from the article "Over the past eight years, I have taught QT to well over 4000 people. Without exception, professional practitioners of the various modalities have told me that this work can be seamlessly combined with what they know, and in most cases it has ". The version I deleted was an exact recreation of this. That sentence pretty much sums up the quality of the article in question, and do I believe I am depriving the world from a great article by maintaining some perverse censorship of such wonderful material, No. As I've already said a few times if you or anyone else wants to right a real article, meeting WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR etc. etc. then they are more than welcome to and if it meets those standards then there would be no reason to put such an article in place. --pgk 16:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well we'll have to agree to differ with regard what does or doesn't form censorship. Failure to publish something on this or any other site is not censorship, it is the right of the publisher to decide what to publish. If I submit an article to the New York Times and they decline to publish it, that is not censorship. If the original author wants to print their original content anywhere else, or their own website etc. I certainly won't be trying to stop them, nor would I believe any other wikipedia admin or the wikimedia foundation. As I've already stated we have policies describing what is and isn't appropriate on the site and we have other policies determining deletion processes. If you don't like these or believe that wikipedia attempting to maintain standards for it's content is somehow an insult to your intelligence then you have a few options, you have your basic rights here (the right to fork and the right to leave), or you can discuss your concerns and attempt to get those policies changed, however diving in accusing people of censorship is in my experience unlikely to have anybody take you very seriously.

I have already said I do not believe the content of the article which has now been deleted multiple times to be of any worth in terms of writing an article, so I can see no point in restoring such content onto wikipedia. If you email is set I will however email you a copy, a result which you could have achieved a lot quicker and a lot simpler with a polite request. Similarly you are always free to use deletion review to get other admins and users to review the deletions and are also free to apply to WP:RFA to gain administrator rights yourself. --pgk 19:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)