User talk:Michael Snow/Archive (Sep-Oct 2005)

Marayoor Picture Copyright

dear Michael, actually the picture was taken by me and I was intented to give the copyright to Wikipedia, but I misread the ...copyright...tag, sorry, I will change it. Thanks for mentioning it.

Political movement

It looks like you nominated political movement for collaboration of the week in mid-August, 2005, but it is no longer listed for voting and I can't find it in the "failed nominations" archive either. I'm removing the notice from the talk page, but if you'd like to renominate, please feel free... I may do so if I can't build any momentum on the article working informally. Mamawrites 11:52, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I was able to track down the original nominator by looking at the history for the encyclopedia page, so I'll contact that user. Mamawrites 11:20, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Copyvios and fair use

I've been trying to make a difference in some copyright-related areas. You may already be aware of Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use.

It is clear that we have a considerable number of copyvio images. Some unattributed, some purportedly fair use. These create a number of problems, including the fact that a case could be made that we don't qualify for the OCILLA safe harbor, and the potential adverse publicity, and the problems for reuse. I am particularly concerned about images gleaned from news sources, which are still making their way into current events articles. Often, by the time the image is actually deleted, the event to which it relates is no longer current, and the damage is done.

I believe that we should provide specific guidance on fair use and have made some edits to policy pages in this light already. It's tough though because many editors are not from the US or are unfamiliar with copyright. I'm not an expert myself. For example, one user insists upon degrading the resolution of audio files and photos based on the google image search case, which I don't think applies (we never degrade images as much as google does, we don't link to the image sources like they do, we're not an index, and we have a stronger fair use case on other grounds). I also don't buy some of the rationale bandied about for "historical" images being somehow more "fair use" than current ones.

I also believe that we should have some means to audit image use changes, particularly when a fair use image is utilized on another page where it may no longer be fair use due to context. And we should delete copyvio images and untagged ones quickly, rather than following the lengthy process we have now.

I don't think that this can get solved on the wiki and am debating what to do next. Thinking of the mailing list or a note to Jimbo, and thought I'd ask you first.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:32, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll try to look for you on IRC tonight. I won't be home until 7:30 at the earliest and may have to deal with some more pressing matters at that time, but we'll see. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

If you'll allow me to be an interloper here, you both might be interested in this discussion where people are considering language that might allow some of the worst copyvios to become candidates for speedy deletion. Dragons flight 20:06, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi there. Thanks for the support on my RfA; I was surprised at how widely supported it was. Please do keep an eye on me and my logs, especially while I learn my way around the new buttons. Thanks again. -Splash 16:40, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Harry Potter trolling

Michael, I just saw your note here. You might not be aware of it, but that article was sent to VfU after that AfD, undeleted, and sent again to AfD, where it is currently having its second run. As articles on AfD cannot be turned into redirects, I hope you don't mind my reverting your edit. Thanks—encephalonὲγκέφαλον 21:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

You're right, I saw it on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion and thought the AfD notice was leftover from the previous nomination, not a new listing. Unfortunately, I think this is a situation where adherence to process gets in the way of the best solution, as I thought my edit was a pretty good compromise. --Michael Snow 21:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it's not an unreasonable solution, Michael, you're right. But I do think we should be especially careful to let the process take its course for this particular article and AFD. It has been quite contentious, and sparked extensive discussions on related issues in VfU, the VfU talk page, the Undeletion policy page and Talk page, the second AfD's Talk page... it's really something that might be best to just let flow along, or the whole process might get repeated again in a second VfU and third AfD, and I don't think the community will be the better for that. Of course, I completely understand that you'd redirected without any knowledge of the second AfD.—encephalonὲγκέφαλον 22:27, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Pilgrim Fathers

There must be a mistake in the article pilgrims. If the "Mayflower" left Plymouth on September 6, 1620 and the trip took 65 days, the pilgrims would have arrived at Provincetown on November 11, 1620. If they really arrived November 21, they must have left Plymouth September 16. Or did the trip last 75 days?

Music of Nigeria

Hi, you commented previously on a nomination for featured article status for music of Nigeria. I've renominated it with various changes, and would appreciate any comments you might have. I wouldn't normally leave a message like this on peoples' talk pages, but it currently has three supports and no opposes (well, one comment that looks quite a bit like an oppose), and I wouldn't want the nom to fail simply for lack of participation -- I'd rather have vociferous opposition than no reaction. Thanks. Tuf-Kat 06:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

King levitation

Could explain your reasoning behind moving this article. From what I've seen King Rising is the most commonly used name for the effect. - Mgm|^(talk) 07:11, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Mark for Deletion?

There are two articles about obviously the same person Giovanni Morone and Giovanni Cardinal Moroni. It seems like they should be merged and one marked for deletion. N'est-ce pas?Ksnow 18:46, 19 September 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

A musicabal offering

I just wanted to mention my enjoyment at sharing such base forms of humor with someone I hold in such high regard; your sharp wit and insight is one of the highlights of this project. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 00:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Signpost.

Just wanted to say Hi again...I haven't talked to you directly in a while, so I thought I'd do so now.

You've noticed I had brought up a redesign of the Signpost main page. I wanted to make 100% sure that you liked the change before I did anything with it. You created the original page, so I don't want to replace it with something you feel is in any way inferior. Also, I want to let you know again that whenever you decide to return as editor, the job is yours. I'd hate to keep you out of the job because you don't want to "take it away" from me. I greatly enjoy the job, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm only keeping the seat warm until you wish to come back. Ral315 04:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

First of all, yes I do like the redesign overall. The focus of my original design was setting a clean, firm layout to discourage the disorganized clutter that often results when lots of people add ideas without a clear structure. I think the redesign still holds to that spirit, but finds a way to incorporate several good ideas I've been interested in adopting, but hadn't found a really good way to do so under the existing layout (specifically, brief story blurbs and the calendar).

I think we could still use a little time to work out exactly how we want to do the redesign, practice the execution, and get more feedback. To that end, I'd suggest that for the upcoming issue, we create it in both layouts and mention it in an editor's note as a "preview" of our new design, then probably convert fully the following week. That will advertise it a little more widely than the newsroom and hopefully generate a little excitement.

Regarding my own role, I hope to start having more time to meaningfully contribute again. I may not be able to reach my previous heights of pumping out 5-6 articles every weekend, so it will be nice to have people like you doing the same work. Overall, I've been impressed at how you've carried on in the same spirit in which I started; I think we both understand that between ourselves, who has the title of "editor" is not so important because there's more than enough potential work. The continued production has been a pleasant surprise, since to be honest, when you initially offered to take over I had never even heard of you (and normally I consider myself well-informed on most of our really active contributors). I'm very happy to see how you and others have helped to fill the space I left behind. --Michael Snow 16:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of offering a "preview" - that's a good idea. I'll make sure and do that. One other thing...was there anything else that really would be a good idea to add to the main stories? Because I don't want to mess with the layout of the stories that much, but if there's something that would be nice to add, I could incorporate that when we redesign. Ral315 16:57, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Another pair of duplicates

Here is another pair that needs to be combined: Juan de Castro and Joao de Castro. Ksnow 16:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Concurrance --> Concurrence

Fixed all those arising in my cases - thanks for the heads up! Cheers. -- BD2412 ^talk 01:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Tube top

Picture added 81.153.43.82 13:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Boring stuff

Hello Michael, the question has been asked probably a million times, but my "lawyer-English-Talk" is lacking here, and I need a very simple answer to a complicated question. I thought you might be able to help me. Question is: considering ART. 1, ART. 4 and ART. 7 of the GFDL, can one use a Wikipedia article, or an image under GFDL in a work that is copyrighted, providing they make clear that this part of the work (the wikipedia article or image) is under GFDL and released as such. e.g. A school textbook wants to use a verbatim copy of an article as a section of their book and illustrate it with an image, both under GFDL. They are willing to cite the authors, include a full copy of the licence, make sure it is clear that these parts are under GFDL but the rest of the textbook will fall under normal copyright laws. Is that possible, or is the GFDL viral, and contaminates any work that comes in contact with it? Thank you. notafish }<';> 13:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

easier to paste the link here as in an email ;-) here goes. notafish }<';> 13:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Nrpnaia Scostreloo

How dare you delete the Nrpnaia Scostreloo article? She is a real person who deserves a lenghthier article than you, you sad man. As for the name not sounding remotely Italian, it's a stage name! Her real name is Serena del Brocini. Sporcen Maninger is not Italian and her full name is Isobella Sporcentia la Maningero. So eat your words! Please I beg of you, please return the articles to Wikipedia. Nrpnaia means evrything to me. (placed on your user page by 212.135.1.184 (talk · contribs) and 212.135.1.186 (talk · contribs). Func( t, c, @, ) 20:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC))

Another duplicate

I think Conradus Mutianus Rufus can be deleted. He is obviously the same person as Konrad Mutian. Ksnow 15:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Thank you for your support

Thank you for your kind support of my recent nomination on RfA. I have nothing to add to Mindspillage's assertion that there is no musicabal. ;-) Best regards, RobertG ♬ talk 09:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Felix Hernandez Piece

Michael:

I liked your contributions to the Felix Hernandez piece. We did one on him earlier this year, when we made him our number one pick in the minors for a mid-season ranking. You write well. We set up a sub-wiki that focuses on minor league athletes called the Open Source Sports Directory. If you would like to contribute to that, we would really appreciate a writer of your calibre contributing. The OSSD just opened about four weeks ago, so it's still very new, but if you have knowledge of any other players that you'd like to contribute/comment upon, please do so. It's a big project, with 14,000 new players and more than 100,000 historic figures.

Open Source Sports Directory

Sincerely,

Brian Ross Sr. Editor Minor League News (MLN)

Ic thonkes gif

Thanks for the Peterborough Chronicle edits. They made the section much better. In this case, I have no real pride of authorship -- just a real desire to get more medieval literature up to FA status. We have to have something to go between the videogame and Belarus FA's. :-) Geogre 00:58, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Another duplicate

Johannes Ockeghem and Jean d'Ockeghem. Ksnow 20:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

what's a supbage?

It's a small dog with five or more legs. But you're probably right, subpage is more appropriate here. --fvw* 04:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Kudos for solving this problem before it was too late to do anything. Ambi 04:47, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I endorse your action as well. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks indeed. Filiocht | The kettle's on 07:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Arb subpage

Thanks for moving it. Luigi30 (Ταλκ) 12:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Mark Felt Redux

In June you voted on the featured article candidacy of W. Mark Felt, which failed. It has now been resubmitted. In the event you would like to vote on the new candidacy, it is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/W. Mark Felt/archive1. PedanticallySpeaking 18:55, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Vote strikeout

If you had read the discussion page that you would have known that the only reason that there is a disballace in the vote strikeout is that there are so blody many of them that one can not process them all on one day.

And reversing the work allready done is not very helpfull in that respect.

As you are a supporter of NO: I believe that once all invalid yes votes are sticked out yes will actualy fail the 2/3 super mayority. There is a higher % of invalid yes votes. This also is the reason why all no votes are stuck out but not all yes votes: there are more of them and that takes more time to process them. But give me time and I do them all - after all I am a NO supporter.

My personal unprooven believe is that yes voters are more likely not to have read the full proposal - including the voting rules - and therefor more likely to make an invalid vote. Note that the last invalid no vote was 7 October 2005 while there are 4 new invalid yes votes from today alone!

--Krischik 18:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Tracenoizer

Tracenoizer is a tool to make a fake website about yourself. It uses google to search for websites containing information about you and then mixes them all random to some text. It can be used to get some more anonymity in the web as it generates some noize. helohe 12:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Wolters and copyright

Michael thanks for pointing this out to me. If I get Wolters's permission to do this would it be OK? Or do I nedd to rewrite the lot? Cheers, SteveBish 06:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Michael - I posted the above message before looking at the article. I now see it has been rewritten anyway. (By 'rewrite the lot - I mean the whole article) Cheers, SteveBish 19:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Records for Images of Sexually Explicit Conduct

I started a discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Criteria for speedy deletion pertaining to the inclusion of images on Wikipedia which may require the compilation of certain records under current federal law. Specifically, the publication of certain images explicitly depicting real people engaged in certain sexual conduct may require that we keep records of the subjects' names and ages and verifiable identification. Please go take a look at the discussion and bring the issue to the attention of jurywiki-l. We would like to hear from the experts on this one. Mm35173 18:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikimania 2006

I'm curious - do you plan to attend Wikimania 2006? →Raul654 05:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

BIG issue

Heh...thanks for adding the Wikimania link to all the pages. I can't believe I missed that story... Ral315 (talk) 06:55, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Elections

I read through the well-reasoned comments you have made about the AC selection process and want to share a few words.

I think that it's vitally important to realize that we are in the midst of a pattern that is common among online communities, and indeed among real-world communities. In fact, it would be no more than a slight exaggeration to say that every community that grows goes through this. Including businesses. The pattern is that, as growth takes place, the small-group decisionmaking process begins to fail. Large groups can't work by consensus and are less willing to accept authority than small groups. We are well along in that process at Wikipedia, with at least 100 admins highly involved in policy matters. Yet, there is no constitution, no foundation means of making decisions. We don't even really have a mechanism in place for deciding how to decide. That is a common pattern. I believe there is power in recognizing that our situation is not unique, and that we can learn from what other groups have done in this situation.

Now, you've made the point that we need to move decisionmaking into the community. I agree. However, I do not believe that the AC membership is the place to start. Wikipedia at present has no functional policymaking mechanism, no legislative branch if you will. This has produced a vacuum, and we've seen some very small decisions (like the recent CSD expansion) being made more or less by acclaimation, and we've seen a good deal of policymaking from the AC -- legislating from the bench, if you will. I think that's much of the attraction of the AC to many candidates. In the absence of any other meaningful way to be involved in policy or leadership, people are seeking to join the AC because they want to influence the project. I believe that forming some sort of policymaking body would be a better place to start, and I think it would be a more suitable place for elections and politically driven community involvement. We could form a task force on deletion, or dealing with sock puppets, or some other ongoing thorny area, as a start.

Finally, even if the AC membership would ideally be elected, I don't believe it is important for it to be elected today. I think that at present we lack the ground rules necessary to conduct a fair and effective election, and I think that the AC itself has structural problems that have to be resolved before we can have a meaningful discussion of who the best people are to staff it. Your comments have touched on this, and I agree with much of your analysis and some of your conclusions, among them that it is unwise to have the entire AC hear every case.

Best wishes

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 12:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I too found David Gerard's comparison to the feminist movement perceptive.

With regard to a way forward, one idea I have had for some time is to form some sort of committee on policy. It would be a group of no more than 7 or 9 people with a range of interests, who would take on the task of making policy recommendations to the community. I agree with you that it is important to first attack readily solvable problems rather than those that, like deletion, have no clear solution. Suitable starting points might be:

• What to do about checkuser
• A review of RFA policy with an eye towards simplifying it and removing instruction creep
• Further revisions to the CSD, with an eye toward those changes that were nearly approved before but where wording was a problem
• Cleanup of the blocking policy, which has suffered instruction creep and remains contradictory
• Fair use

The idea would be that the group would work together on wording, structure, and details, and present carefully thought-out policy proposals to the community for ratification. I would anticipate that there might still be some ongoing wording adjustments by the community, and I would expect that a few policy proposals would fail.

I would suggest starting such a group with a mixture of appointees chosen by Jimbo and elected people. With time the mix could change.

There are, obviously, lots of variations on this, but the point is to put groups of people together that are small enough that some mutual trust develops and coherent policy can emerge.

With regard to the AC particularly, I think that the community would be much happier if they would skip the principles and findings of fact in 50% or more of the cases and simply decide whether or not users are net contributors to the project or not. A routine 3 month suspension for first offenses with a fairly low evidentiary standard might work. I susect that much of the AC burnout stems from a feeling that it's way too much work to get things done. Six people spend 2 months deciding to ban someone for 30 days, and the math is pretty obviously in favor of pthe perp. I also think they spend far too much time on "creative" remedies, and that they should either ban people or not. It might actually help them if they had a limited menu of remedies from which to choose. And again they should take turns on the simpler cases and assign a single member, or a group of 3, to deal with them. They could do that informally now, but as far as I know they don't, part of the problem being that the present group has widely divergent ideas about how to handle cases.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

True. The threshold would have to be less than the 75% or 80% we sometimes use or it wouldn't work, in part because there would no benefit over the existing process that I would expect we would retain. There would have to be a vote rather than an open discussion, and the threshold would have to be ~65%, and there would have to be some well-defined qualifications for voters. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Cognition

As you already know, I don't agree with the removal of Cognition's RFA. I won't put it back again, but I'd appreciate it you could comment on the talk page where I explained my reasoning. In short, I don't think his nomination statement contains personal attacks, exactly. I also suspect that removal of it will cause more trouble than letting it run its course. Friday (talk) 19:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Adminship

That was unexpected.

Yes, I think I would, all things considered; may as well make myself a bit more useful. I have a bit more time free now than I've had in the last few weeks, and as I said I've been meaning to get around to it for a while. What precisely do I need to do? Thanks. Shimgray | talk | 19:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's sorted now... thanks again. Shimgray | talk | 22:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Friendly Chat

Hi Michael, how are you? I really need your help. I once had a minor dispute with User:Iago Dali which ended in a friendly and cordial way. Now there is a dispute between Dali and at least four other Users (Viriditas, Don Diego and Red Darwin) in my talk page. Dali asked me to serve as a referee however, I see that the issues involved are more than I can handle and that's why I'm asking you to interfere and have the arguement between the parties sent to the proper forum. The arguments started on Report of Hacking on my User Talk Page. These people really need some help to settle their diferences. Thank you Tony the Marine 20:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

See also: User talk:Don Diego [1] --Viriditas | Talk 09:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

What a mess!

That was a brilliant summary you made here [2], and is the only thing that has stopped me walking out on this project tonight. Thanks. Giano | talk 22:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

RfA

Hi Michael And you're not helping either. Heck, you guys know how to drive out a valuable contributor. Having been held up to ridicule publicly, I couldn't possibly stay. I've never ever experienced anything like it. And it's all so personal, too. I don't work that hard for nothing to then have shit thrown at me from every angle. So I guess Wikipedia will lose me, and I'm so angry about it that I'm more likely to bag it long and hard on the net from the outside. That would be to return a fraction of the vindictiveness I've endured over the last four days.

In particular, I've lost confidence in the FA procedure: I was struck by the slackness of the procedure, which is why I've laboured to improve the guidelines and the way in which they're implemented. The fact that my execution is based on my objection to the promotion of a seriously substandard article is just more salt in the wound. Why would I stay after that?

The pity is that had Redwolf not (kindly) nominated me, I'd still be here, beavering away to make WP a better thing, probably in the long term. Now, the opposite will happen. I'm extremely upset and bitter about it. You didn't need to add to it.

Tony 03:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Sylvanus Morley

Hi Michael. Following on from your comments posted at FAC for Sylvanus Morley, I have further expanded the Sylvanus Morleyarticle to detail his work on the Chichen Itza site, and also the archaeological/historical contexts in which it was conducted. Hopefully these additions will "plug the gap" in the coverage which you commented on. Would you be able to review these changes, and if appropriate reconsider your FAC vote? Thanks, and cheers.--cjllw | TALK 05:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)