User talk:Dante Alighieri/Archive 2

Archived talk: Clovis et al., AE/BE issues (french fries), Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5.


Okay, if the place decsribed by Milton is Pandæmonium (with ligature), and the film is Pandaemonium (without ligature), why can't Pandaemonium be about the film? I don't see the point of giving the page about the film a more complex title when the simpler title is free (i.e. is only a redirect). -- Oliver P. 23:28 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)


For a few reasons. First of all, people searching for the Pandæmonium of Milton are unlikely to use the ligature spelling in the search bar, so Pandaemonium should probably not be an article just on the film. Second of all, it seems to be common practice to append (movie) or (film) to a movie title when there exists an article at the same name (even if it's a variant "spelling). Lastly, I'm not sure it's a policy, but it seems to me to be a generally unwise idea to have two articles that differ only by "punctuation" (ligature, umlauts, accent marks, etc.) be about different things. --Dante Alighieri 00:39 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hmmm... I did think of that, but... well... Oh, all right, you've convinced me. -- Oliver P. 00:47 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dante,

Have you voted yet on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (years in titles)?. I am afraid that wiki is about to make a major captioning error. It seems to be voting to putting the year first when naming elections, sports events, etc. While people often do so in spoken english, in titles and captions it doesn't do so, because to do so makes the year the central fact, whereas in reality what the event is is central, the year the disambigulation point. For example, media outlets caption election coverage as Election 2000, General Election 2000, Presidential Election 2000 etc because the the fact that it is an election is the main fact to know, that it is a general/presidential/local/state/congressional election central. We have been following this rule for ages on wiki, so we have everything from UK general election, 1970 to U.S. presidential election, 1932 to Irish general election, 2002, etc. Moving to [[1932 US presidential election]] goes against standard media caption style and would involve the wholescale renaming of pages covering elections and all sorts of events from all over the globe. You are talking about hundreds if not thousands of pages having to be renamed and go against standard caption style, which is often called the where what, when rule. After all, people if they are searching for a page on an election will use the name of the election as their entry point for a list (particularly if they don't know the year). Typing in a search for U.S. presidential election throws up a clear orderly list of US presidential elections, with the disambigulation year at the end uniformly.

As you may guess, I do think wiki's proposed to system would amount to a pointless waste of energy in remaining vast numbers of pages, especially when it is to a format that is generally not used in titles and captions but only in speech. And this debate is all about titles. So I am canvassing support to vote down what I think is a flawed, ill thought through and pointless that originated initially with our mosrt infamous troll (in the Susan Mason persona) some months ago and survived as an idea after SM was banned. FearÉIREANN 01:53 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)


My pleasure, DA. Not a very good article, I don't know much about them - never seen one. But a whole lot better than none at all, I guess. Maybe I can find a picture on the web somewhere that we can use. Tannin 11:23 18

Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hallo Dante! we love your motto

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis."

we try to operate always according to these fine words

on of the upper sailor 13:40 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)


I agree that it would've been much better if PP had mentioned his concerns in a comment before removing the vote, and I agree that it would've been better if PP had said explicitly in his edit summary what he was doing, but if anybody disagrees with the removal, it's a simple matter to put it back (if he then removes it again, then that's a more serious matter). I do think there needs to be some sort of policy on who can and can't vote if voting is to work, but of course, that doesn't forgive PP's actions (assuming they need forgival). --Camembert

My actions are forgivable because they are not problematic. The edit history remains, and everything can be restored. It's a simple matter to put it back. If I were to unilaterally remove it again; then, there might be a problem. Pizza Puzzle

Thank you for volunteering a part of the information I requested on the photo posted by User:Jtdirl. However, I woasked for the FULL adress and the press officer name who gave User:Jtdirl the photo. Thank you. ChuckM 03:09 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Heh heh. DW is one prize prat! Next thing he'll want Ann's fingerprints! :-) What a nutcase. FearÉIREANN 03:18 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)


I like to think the best of people. It'll probably get me stabbed or raped one of these days. -- goatasaur 05:48 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)


Sorry - I just wanted to deprive him of the interaction with normal people he obviously thrives on, but I'll stop now. jimfbleak


You've blocked some IPs for a month or so...

  • 20:13 21 May 2003, Dante Alighieri blocked 192.139.27.18 (contribs) (unblock) (User has made 5 edits since Feb 21 2003, all were vandalism)
  • 00:17 28 May 2003, Dante Alighieri blocked 200.168.118.100 (contribs) (unblock) (continually putting nonsense at Gyuricza)
  • 07:13 28 May 2003, Dante Alighieri blocked 66.81.139.91 (contribs) (unblock) (more random vandalism from this IP range)
  • 08:12 28 May 2003, Dante Alighieri blocked 65.219.41.104 (contribs) (unblock) (garden variety vandalism, more of the same)
  • 22:20 28 May 2003, Dante Alighieri blocked 217.33.151.148 (contribs) (unblock) (made junk article at Dates, twice)
  • 02:12 29 May 2003, Dante Alighieri blocked 24.45.148.244 (contribs) (unblock) (3 vandalizations of 1950)

You may consider that:

  1. a 30 days ban is a little excessive for (for eg) five edits.
  2. in any case, with only five edits, a ban isn't really in tune with soft security.
  3. they're probably dynamic IPs anyway (if you checked, and you know they're static IPs, say so in the ban comment so folks like me will know - thanks)

So I'm going to unblock them. :) Martin 20:13 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

By all means go ahead... I had assumed they would be unblocked in short order, I certainly didn't intend the blocks to last forever. I could have sworn that there was some conversation about someone unblocking them... but I guess we never did... Good catch on that, by the way. --Dante Alighieri 20:17 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Funny stuff. Michael's vandalized my page a few times, but nothing compared to what he does to Zoe's and Hephaestos' pages. Koyaanis Qatsi 05:25 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)


thanks alot. Anthere


Hi.

About Michael. If he wants to complain to Jimbo, then why not let him? I really can't see him e-mailing Jimbo about his long-running problems with the Wikipedia - yet he needs to communicate with Jimbo to have the hard ban lifted.

If he wants Jimbo to publicly respond (and perhaps confirm the hard ban) rather than privately, then that's Michael's choice. Also, you are kind of deciding what Jimbo gets to see on his user page, and I'm not sure if that is right.

Arno 07:28 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Michael has been hard-banned multiple times. Michael knows Jimbo's email address and HAS emailed him on occassion. As a banned user he has no right to edit the Wikipedia and all users have the full authority to see to it that any edits he makes do not remain. See also: this email from the mailing list archive --Dante Alighieri 22:14 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I didn't know about Michael e-mailing Jimbom, but Jimbo chose to reply to him anyway, in the manner that I predicted that he would.
BTW, is Weezer76 Michael or not? If not (and several users now seem to think so) , then weezer76 should not appear on the list of Michael's aliases. Arno 10:25 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Dear Dante- Really the World War II page is gruesome. Take a look at it. The writer(s) don't tell the story in sequence. It's (in the words of George Bush "bad, real bad").

July seems to be the centenial of the birth of Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). I recently was reviewing his guide to good writing. He was death on passive voice.

Anyway, no intent to be nasty. The WWII page needs some serious blue-pencil work and I hope that between us all we can get it squared away.

Now, with three tildies … PaulinSaudi


thanks for the help on my newspaper machine. Dmsar 09:26 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)



Hi, saw your email on the river dolphins. They look fine so far, although a bit short on, for example, behaviour. I might be able to help out on that, although I'm too busy at the moment. I'm not sure of the value of links from the genus names for these species, since they are monospecific or nearly so. Keep up the good work! jimfbleak 12:25 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the lookover. There's TONS of information on the external sites that are linked on the pages, but I don't have the time to go through it all. ;) As for the Family links, I was just following standard formatting over at the Cetacea article, and didn't bother to ditch them when I copied the data over to the river dolphin article. --Dante Alighieri 12:33 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dante, I've put forward some other ideas about how to make the VFD page more user-friendly and more decisive. They are on the Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion. I'd welcome your observations. lol FearÉIREANN 00:40 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Hi Dante, we are going to be starting development on the wikipedia API in Python soon. One of our members has already written a large amount of code, so I would like to send it to you. I need your e-mail address, so maybe you could use the e-mail this user feature to send it to me? Thanks. MB 13:40 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)


I have no idea what to make of your comment. Many wikipedians are friendly and supportive, of the few that arent -- jtdirl tops the list. He is abusive, rude, and deceitful, on a daily basis he attacks me and other users. Pizza Puzzle


When RK comes back I want to nominate him for sysop (again) I dont ask for much, but I ask that you support his nomination. Sincerely-戴&#30505sv 23:23, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)


I believe another admin deleted that photo already for being a copyvio. --Jiang 02:53, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Your edit on Patchouli is much better than mine. :) RickK 03:28, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Just wondering - what's the extra heading you've added to the bottom of Wikipedia:Votes for deletion for? -- Oliver P. 00:29, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Dante. There is a reason for the use of as of 2003 etc.. It allows pages which contain information that may be out of date in the future to be easily checked, by searching for as of 2003 on Jan 1 2004. Mintguy 21:54, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Please voice your opinion on deletion.

21st Century Transcendentalism is not a religion and does not advocate (request belief, membership or anything else) anything; it stands for religious rationality in the 21st Century. If Wikipedia can describe what atheists, Christianity, Islam, Bokononism thinks then why can not I as a 21st Century Transcendentalist describe what I think? Bias, maybe?

?Transcendentalism Today Org.? with Kurt Kawohl as its founder has been accepted by and is a member of: IONS - Institute of Noetic Sciences, World Interfaith Congress, United Communities of Spirit, Alliance for Spiritual Community, Interfaith Voices for Peace And Justice, user:kkawohl


Did I really acidentally vote for you? I hope you have corrected my silly mistake! { MB | マイカル } 02:12, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

As I'm sure you have noticed, I already fixed it. Did I miss any? { MB | マイカル } 13:52, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)
:-( now the only vote for my logo has gone Matthewmayer 17:41, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Somehow I missed your comment the other day about the Cochise photo. It's possible that's not him; I'd never heard anything about his being photographed one way or the other. I originally got it from http://digilander.libero.it/magaangela/capiInd.htm; the picture of Geronimo is legit, but I can't 100% vouch for the rest. - Hephaestos 03:59, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Hi, I listed the Möller's law page on VfD. Sorry, but it doesn't seem to be appropriate as it is so little known. Bcorr has suggested moving it to meta which I think is a good idea. Angela 21:44, Oct 2, 2003 (UTC)


Thanks for the quick action on User:64.12.96.199 -- however, it's an AOL dialup and it's aready changed once, so be prepared. I must go to sleep now...so it's up to you to defend the realm ;) -- BCorr ? Брайен 05:01, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

HI Dante, I was trying to put a detailed explanation for the changes on the talk page, but it is rather hard to do so when Eric within seconds of seeing an article he doesn't like, blanks it, lists it on the VfD page and blanket reverts everything I do. This isn't the first time that Eric highjacked a religious topic and tried to turn it into a polemic, often with comically incompetent results. On Mother Teresa, for example, he claimed that MT's conviction that abortion was wrong in the case of rape and incest was extreme even by RC standards. Actually that is the RC stance on abortion, that even in the cases of rape and incest, abortion is wrong. Anyone with a high school grasp of Roman Catholicism and abortion knows that. The anglican communion has a marginally different stance, that abortion is wrong but that in the case of rape and incest, abortion may be the 'lesser of two evils', not morally right but less morally wrong than not terminating the pregnancy. But Eric's knowledge of catholicism (and most things to do with religion) is so poor it is almost funny. He has a lot of opinions based on minimal knowledge. And writers on wikipedia who do know facts, whether they themselves are religious (like Harris) or non-religious (like me) are driven to distraction by his POV polemics (eg, his determination to quote a doctor about medical procedures in a biographical article - not once does the doctor in the long quote even mention MT, whom the article is supposedly about!) - and to stop that text being moved to a place where it might have some relevance), his hilarious lack of knowledge, and most bizarre of all, his conviction that he knows what he is talking about and that everything he writes on religion is based on knowledge, not prejudice. And of course that everyone else is biased and engaged in cover ups to 'protect' religion when they engage in professional editing and NPOVing.

JT, keep in mind that you're making a lot of assumptions and stating them as fact... the fact that most of them are negative and about Erik isn't really becoming. Eloquence isn't some crazed vandal, he's an intelligent person who seems to be trying to make Wikipedia a better place. Antaganozing such a person isn't helpful. Right or wrong, perhaps you should avoid saying things that are so very inflammatory?

And yes, a sysop unprotecting a page that was protected to stop an edit war he was a participant of, within a couple of hours, not even days, of the protection, is blatently breaking elementary sysop rules. Others have had their powers removed for doing something like that. And threatening bans is something no developer engaged in an edit war should ever ever ever do. So yes, Eric broke elementary rules left, right and centre. NPOV rules in the article, sysop powers in unprotecting the page, developer and sysop powers in threatening bans.

I certainly agree that a sysop unprotecting a page that was protected due to an edit war that he/she is involved in is unacceptable. The problem is, the only evidence I can find that Eloquence is the one who unprotected it is Angela's blurb to that effect on the Wikipedia:Protected page page. Since it's otherwise unsourced, I'll give Erik the benefit of the doubt on this one until he confirms or denies his role in the unprotection. Also, to be fair, he didn't really threaten a ban, no more than Ed did last week or so... I don't think anyone took him seriously that he was going to ban you...
  1. (cur) (last) . . 04:50, 20 Oct 2003 . . Eloquence (removing protection for now (I was involved so I won't edit for another few hours if Jtdirl won't, but others should be able to))

My edits simply were a response to criticism by others on the talk page who complained that what he was adding in was not NPOV, too long and in places largely irrelevant. He ignored them and hinted that they too (surprise, surprise) were engaged in trying to silence the truth, or what Eric and his agenda perceives as the truth. You yourself had the experience of Eric's tone and attitude when you tried to mediate. I am fed up having to try to correct ludicrous statements, simplistic claims and patiently wrong information from religious articles Eric POVs. And then putting up with attacks for a supposed 'pro-catholic bias', or censoring the truth from Eric, who then plays the 'martyr' to religious fanaticism when his polemics are turned into proper NPOV texts. lol FearÉIREANN 19:54, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Frankly, JT, I don't think EITHER of you have behaved as paragons of Wikiquette in this situation. :) That being said, how about you agree to "let him win" for the time being whether he's right or not. If he is willing to do the same thing then we can all go back to worrying about important things, like whether or not the fact that I have clitoris on my watchlist is about to be made public. ;) Seriously, both of you need to calm down. Neither of you is coming up roses in this situation. --Dante Alighieri 20:50, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I am simply trying to get an NPOV article, one which must include information on the criticism made of MT. But any attempt to shorten and tighten the segment on criticism which covers 70% of the text (and most of the headlines, and all bar one of the pictures, and most of the 'additional reading'), or to move the full unedited text to a page where it can be read en masse without editing, is greeted with screams of censorship. Merely trimming a quote that has the exact same point made in two sentences by removing one and replacing it with ' . . . ' leads to reverts. Correcting the grammar leads to revertions. Gareth Owen was verbally abused by Eloquence on the wiki-L for pointing out the shambles that is the current article. And cutting needless captions that simply repeat claims in the article, rather than simply let the readers reach their own conclusions on the image of MT with Baby Doc's wife, leads to revertions. Spelling corrections are lost in Eric's revertions. I have fixed the center command in the captions three or four times, only to find Eric reverting and producing versions that, not merely are POV with their captions, but also don't follow wiki layout guidelines. And because Eric can't get his way on his captions, his text, his context, his layout he is now calling on Jimbo to ban me, this time for real. This is not the first time Eric has done this in articles on religious themes, but not to the same extreme extent, and his behaviour at this stage is tiresome. FearÉIREANN 21:22, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I've called a vote on Talk:Mother Teresa to clarify once and for all what people think about the current article and what we should do about it. Please express your opinion. lol FearÉIREANN 23:05, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)