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:

a 30 days ban is a little excessive for (for eg) five edits.
in any case, with only five edits, a ban isn't really in tune with soft security.
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...

(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)

Wikipedia:Requests for mediation

Hi. Look what I did! Don't be mad, k? I figured it was better than nothing, and Ed told me to take my problems there, so... let me know what you think? JackLynch 12:34, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hello :-) please read this [1] if you are not registered to the ml. Thanks Anthere

Hello, could you tell me what your email adress is, or write to anthere8atyahoo.com ? thanks

Hi Dante, I'm not sure if you are aware but we are discussing a lot of the mediation issues at the new bulletin board ( http://boards.wikimedia.org/viewforum.php?f=1 ). I think we are just waiting for you to join us and the whole committee is joined up there. Sorry if you didn't get all the previous messages, there seemed to be problems in getting hold of you - but I think everything we've talked about so far is there. Regards -- sannse 18:49, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Dante. Unfortunately, I know little about russenorsk. I wasn't aware of it's existence before I read about it on Wikipedia ;-) Conserning Saami, I guess it could be listed as an official language in some way, as it is administrative language (with Norwegian) in some municipalities. It's official status is however only limited to those municipalities. Wolfram 22:59, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Plants and animals of Belize

Hi, I noticed that you identified some of the images from Plants and animals of Belize. I would also note the identification (or guess) on the image's description page that way it can be used correctly in other places. Dori | Talk 20:00, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

I also left a comment on that page so that others will hopefully do the same. As for the signature, it's sort of a trick, I set my nickname to ]] | [[User talk:Dori|Talk in preferences. See this for a small explanation. You still use 3 or 4 tildes. Dori | Talk 20:17, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

thank you for cleaning up my mispellings on Current Events, speeling[sic] is not my strongest ability. OneVoice 20:08, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikisource:Communist Manifesto

Everything is still at Wikisource:Manifesto of the Communist Party - Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. Sorry, I forgot to tell you that. >_< Think you can do the appropiate move? I had/have to do other things. --Maio 21:19, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

friendly reminder

When editing the main page, re-arrange the order of the links so that they all the rows line up as evenly as possible. Keep up the top-notch work, Kingturtle 18:49, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Advertising and the FAQ on the village pump

Actually, to be fair to the poster of the request for a link exchange, i should tell you that I added that issue to the FAQ after he posted asking for the exchange. --Sennheiser! 00:09, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes. :D. I love MediaWiki messages! My ideal wikipedia would be one where no regular text existed in articles. All edits would be done to MediaWiki pages and different messages would be placed in the articles. This would cause quite some confusion. --Sennheiser! 00:25, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What a strange thing to do. I assume it is assume Mythrandia. It seems to be the only edit he's made under that IP though. Maybe your warning worked? Angela . 00:43, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)

I must echo Angela....how bizarre. To this day, I think I can claim that Mythrandia is the only user I know of who actually got fully angry at me (over the nonsense article Tyranokatta or something like that). If he dropped back in to attempt exoneration, well....so weird. Thanks for letting me know. I have to assume you reverted? :) Jwrosenzweig 00:48, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! I dub thee Dante, Protector of the Archives. :) Jwrosenzweig 00:52, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the tip, I found the image on http://www.nationmaster.com . Cheers, AxelBoldt 23:13, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hey. Any word on what level of math the Mandelbrot book requires going in in order to understand it? Thanks! Kwertii 00:07, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC) (moved from User talk:DanteAlighieri by Dysprosia)

Sorry, but I removed Haiti from Main page. I share your interest in third world politics, and it would be good to have these happenings covered here, but the guidelines on Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main Page state that articles on current events should only be added if the article is updated with the relevant context (logical I think) -- and this is not (yet) the case with Haiti. -- Viajero 12:50, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Quite right, but mentionin of the uprising in any case wouldn't be on the main Haiti article -- that is basically just a skeleton with links to various offspring, like History of Haiti. Maybe I will put together something later this evening. -- Viajero 18:10, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

hah. 3 years old. I need to start pressing the refresh button. ;-) --Ed Senft! 00:14, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Your pictures of Tapirs is up now put up 3 for you to chose from sorry about the delay Belizian 23:15, 2004 Feb 13 (UTC)

User:Sam Spade/Mediation with Bryan

Here are my talking points and references. Sam Spade 11:14, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Mine are at the bottom of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bryan Derksen. They already address the issues Sam raises above, I've emailed specifics. Bryan 04:16, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hey, whats going on? I thought we were gonna mediate and stuff... ? Sam Spade 23:09, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dolphins

Hi Dante. I am back doing some more work on the river dolphins that you did originally. Basically because throughout the rest of the cetaceans we are following Rice (1998) for classification (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Cetaceans for more), I am going to do the same for the Indus and Ganges River Dolphins. The merged article is taking shape at Ganges and Indus River Dolphin - depending how quickly you get this message the article merge may still be in progress - with all appropriate redirects. Give me a shout if you spot anything I manage to screw up - but hopefully at the end of it all our river dolphin coverage will be signicantly improved. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:10, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The merge is now done. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 18:49, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I started on Boto. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:54, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Edwards has not dropped out yet. Expected to announce on Wednesday, US East coast time. So I've changed all mentions of this to expectations of announcing it on Wednesday. Thanks. Fuzheado 02:56, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Bees

thanks! :) O p t i m^·.· 08:12, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The expression Potato Chips is perfectly well understood in the UK (some brands of crisps even say "Potato Chips" on the packet), other than that I don't see any wording that favours American spelling. The article is not exclusively about an American subject and the subject of flavoured potato chips was introduced with British English spellings. The arguments favouring the insidious mutation from flavour to flavor could be applied to all articles that use British spellings, and I don't want to see British spellings gradually expunged from Wikipedia simply because once in a while an American comes along and thinks he's fixing an article, by changing it to American spellings. The general rule as I understand it is that the spellings of the person who contributed the text should be retained. Mintguy (T) 22:56, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Flavoured crisps were invented in Ireland (Although Golden Wonder say they invented them[2]) Either way Ireland or the UK, they were flavoured before they were flavored, not that that matters a toss (as does the fact the potato chips were invented in America). There are NOT two different variants in the article. The article contains no specific US spellings according to my Word spellchecker. So this arguement holds no water. You should have respected the original contribution (you may recall that I flagged this issue to JTD at the time). After you changed flavour to flavor (however long ago it was) "flavour" managed to find its way back into the article (nothing to do with me) and then User:Lefty then changed those references back to flavor and that is when I restored "flavour" again. It was his actions to which I was refering when I described it as insidious. Mintguy (T) 23:22, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

BTW - at the time you said "I have no objection to the article going the other way, however, I was just standardizing as I thought was most appropriate given the article as it stood." Mintguy (T) 23:28, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Do what you like. Mintguy (T) 23:45, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There are hundreds and hundreds of "hybrid" articles on Wikipedia, where subsequent authors have chosen to respect the spellings originally used. Please do likewise. Mintguy (T) 23:52, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am currently engaged in two arguments on Wikipedia and I have decided not to continue this one, which is why I said "do what you like". I certainly have no intenting on changing the article (after 3 reversions I usually call a halt). Mintguy (T) 00:05, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ah... I see what you were on about now. I had assumed that you restored the article with flavor after my last edit, and hence I wasn't planning to change it back again. I have no intention of changing it to read crisps throughout. I'm sorry if you find that this "hybrid" article is offensive, but I do not intend to force this issue and further. Whatever... we'll see how long it lasts as flavour. I have seen a number of articles which have lost British spellings (this was the point I was originally trying to make) and was only trying to push back the inevitable tide. Mintguy (T) 00:32, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

For sure. I wasn't reverting you, personally. I was reverting the other guy, it was only later that I remembered what had gone before. Mintguy (T) 01:27, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As you should know, there is a mediation message board. I have made numerous requests there. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Altering comments

Eh, I summarized all of the comments on Talk:Artifical consciousness, didn't get any ban warnings there... ugen64 22:33, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

---

Altering comments is vandalism??

If that be so Dante, than user:RickK is a vandal.--Plato 23:17, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

RickKs accused vandalism

This is what he delated he claimed it was unsigned (you decide) MY ANSWER RickK it has become evident to I that you dont like what I am doing I ask you why? Are you being resectful to wiki's? I'd say NO. This lack of respect leads me to believe that we must break the police state that wiki. That is why I am not asking but I am demanding series of reforms to our project thank you for you time.--Plato 02:55, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A user has the perfect right to delete things from their talk page. As I plan on doing right now. RickK | Talk 06:39, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I didnt know, the policies with talk page--Plato 06:51, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sup Dante

Hey Dante any relation to the real Dante???--Plato 04:34, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Blindly supporting the wiki-hierarchy in its sinister goal of destroying democracy and freedom across the net

Glad to oblige. I like admins to operate like a school of fish where trolls are concerned -- give them too many targets to drive anyone off successfully. :-) Keep up the excellent work, and enjoy this:

In honor of noble and polite service in defense against trolls.

Jwrosenzweig 00:53, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Michael3 is Michael?

Are you sure that Michael3 is Michael? I don't know if the "research group" story is credible (see Michael3's user page), but I don't think you can infer from the username that it is definitely Michael and thus worthy of auto-reversion regardless of worthiness. Has this account made any other edits which decided the matter for you? (Also see note on User talk:Meelar#WikiExperiment.) -- V V 01:38, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sure? No. But the subsequent actions of User:Michael33 don't give me much faith. It is my assertion that there is sufficient evidence to support my actions. Of course, people are free to disagree with me, that's what makes this world such a wonderful place. :) Seriously though, the Michael3 account is either Michael or else it is intentionally using his modus operandi to make others believe that it is Michael. Either way I consider the edits to be vandalism. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 01:43, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

The discussion was never about whether Michael or Michael3 was a banned user or not. That's why I considered that edit of yours to be both condescending and a misrepresentation of my position. -- Dissident 02:03, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The reason I took a combative attitude as you put it was because I saw somebody doing something unproductive just on the principle of it with no regard of anything else. Now if you deal with these things all the time and were just in some kind of automatic mode, then I can understand and I'll apologize. But if there is one thing I can't take, it's seeing someone "following orders" with no regard of anything else. The fact that you admitted that the edits were benign (and even verified it yourself) boggles the mind. -- Dissident 02:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ok, instead of an anti-barnstar accept this (additional) originale instead for bringing a heated discussion to a peaceful end, demonstrating you're definitely fit to be an administrator:

Dissident (who has probably made too many enemies with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles to "win" a sysop vote)

Dante, can you tell me what was with the Michael3, Michael33 affair, it seems to me like an "Sockpuppet"/Apr. Fool's joke?--Plato 04:43, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Hyacinth 20:46, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello Dante,

It seems you have blocked me. (ip: 213.224.83.136) Can I ask why? -- Jan Hidders 23:21, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC) (now posting from another IP)

PS. I just saw the vandalism that was done from this ip number. PPS. And apparently I can now edit again. Thanks. -- Jan Hidders 14:31, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

taxoboxes

You're welcome! The edits I made bring Pollack into alignment with the standards in Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. Unfortunately there are far fewer taxoboxes in alignment than there are out. Now that you know, please use a "good" taxobox as a template. *grins* - UtherSRG 17:48, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Polish

I won't standardise the various German/Polish debates... but I will slowly, oh so slowly, try to get consensus in each chat for them on the overall ikipedia naming convention. Hopefully that will leave us with less fights to try to break up... well, I can hope, anyway.:) Jamesday 17:26, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Comments on The Trolls of Navarone's userpage

Sincere appologies for any mischaracterisation Dante, but I'm at a loss about what you thought was unfair in my summary. Perhaps you can help me out, and clear up my confusion. Yours, The Trolls of Navarone 19:43, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nickname

Thanks for deleting my user page & thanks for the tip! Mdchachi | Talk 20:42, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New skin

I agree. I really miss the links at the bottom. Gwicke is the person to tell this to though. It's beyond my ability to change it. Angela . 21:38, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

cryoto project

Thanks for your great work on WMDs. I think it is a very important topic. Get-back-world-respect 22:46, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

your crypto land edits

Dante, I keep stumbling over your edits in the crypto articles and have finally decided to drop you a note.

You're obviously interested in the subject, so can I invite to join the Wikiproject:Cryptography? No required participation or effort. You obviously like to write, and no matter what your knowledge of technical crypto, the crypto corner garden needs weeding.

We'd be glad to have you formally. Not that it matters really... this _is_ the WP....

ww 16:12, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Dante, I'm not sure removing the "were all atheists" sentence on Mother Teresa is appropriate. It was of course added by one of the many MT apologists, but I think it's a good thing it is there -- I have tolerated similar sentences on other articles as they seem to keep the apologists at bay. It seems that if someone is an atheist their arguments can be immediately discounted so they do not need to be censored. Aside from that, I think declarations of bias / background are generally helpful on contentious subjects such as this, although I'm pretty sure that if I added the same declarations for all the Catholic writers, it would immediately be reverted ("Are you implying a Catholic is biased?!").--Eloquence * 03:59, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Request regarding Mediation Committee

More than two weeks ago, on April 25, the Arbitration Committee referred a case to us which it had considered regarding Anthony DiPierro and a number of other user to us here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#Issue_of_Anthony's_reverts_and_alleged_trolling.

While Anthony has agreed to mediation, so far, there has been no response from another party in order to begin working on the Anthony mediation. We have drafted a statement at User:Bcorr/mediation statement draft that we would like to post on the Requests for mediation to the Arbitration Committee and all other interested parties, but before we do so, we want to check with the rest of the Mediation Committee. Please review the statement and let me know if you approve, wish to make/suggest changes, or have another way you'd like to suggest that we proceed.

Also, in that statement we refer to ourselves as co-chairs of the committee. There was discussion at the mediation bulletin board on the bottom half of the page, but we wanted to confirm that there was agreement on our being co-chairs for the period noted there before we post the statement. Also, if people are amenable to our serving as co-chairs, I will add that information to the Mediation Committee page.

Please take a moment to comment on these issues at User:Bcorr/mediation statement draft.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 01:46, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

I've made a change to the statement to add in llywrch's comment. Please let me know if you object. Unless anyone dislikes this change I will pass on the statement tomorrow evening. Regards -- sannse (talk) 19:58, 15 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

About the moral crisis quote

Hi, I have noted the quote on your front page, which you attribute to Dante. Are you really certain that Dante said this? In Divine Comedy the people and angels in question have been placed outside Hell, in the Vestibule, I believe. Whether or not this was the darkest place, I think that this quote is trying to give a false impression that Dante thought such people to be the worst possible sinners. And I would guess that Dante would have no such beliefs. Indeed, the quote itself feels more like something invented by modern days activists to give them another rhetorical device for their dubious battles. Anyway, I maybe wrong, and maybe you have good evidence that Dante really said this. Watcher 07:25, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

spellyng, or spelling ???

DA, You may have noticed (or not) that the WPProjCrypto now has a discussion page for cypher v cipher. I added a summary list of the views of those I was even partially informed of, but could not recall yours. Assuming you wish to jump into a TT, you might consider looking over the discussion, or even adding your position to current standings.

It's fascinating to watch. Reminds me a bit of what I imagine the Times (London) letter page might be like. Odd phrase that, no? Anyway, see or hear from you there, I hope. ww 18:24, 26 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Decapitation

Re your post: I think you may have gone a little overboard on decapitation. It seems to be common policy to not link EVERY SINGLE potentially linkable word/phrase, but only ones that are relevant. For example, I question your linking of chemical, face, and lips in the article, to name a few. :)

You may be right. I maintain it's better to have too many links than too few. But that aside, "chemical" may not be the most useful link, but I don't see a problem with linking "face" and "lips" when discussing signs of life in a decapitated head... --Lukobe 18:57, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Salting the earth

Sorry for the tardy reply. The reference in the article is rather common these days, for instance [3]. The references to them actually doing this didn't show up in print until the middle ages, and it seems it was an offhand comment even in that case. It would appear that simple physics would make the task difficult anyway, if one needed 10g per square meter (a low number I'd say), salting the earth for 50 miles around Carthage would require tens of millions of kilograms of salt. While I wouldn't put it past the Romans, I doubt even they would find this one worth doing.

Maury 12:18, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Request for mediator in the case of User:AndyL and User:WHEELER

A few days ago, AndyL listed a request on the Wikipedia:Requests for mediation page between User:WHEELER and himself:

see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User:WHEELER and associated TALK page. Specific complaint about his anti-Semitic comment on Talk:Early_National_Socialism but also about his general conduct around POV editing and unencyclopedic behaviour. AndyL 05:31, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

After discussing the matter with sannse, it seems that the first step is to identify one or more members of the committee who are willing to mediate in this case, although before proceeding it will be necessary to clarify the goals of the mediation.

And just FYI, there has also been quite a bit of chatter on the WikiEN mailing list about similar issues.

If you are willing to act as the mediator in this case, please leave a brief note stating so at Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#User:AndyL_and_User:WHEELER. The more people who are willing to mediate, the better, as this will provide more options for the two users to try to agree on.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 18:34, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mediation

Hi Dante, please could you vote on the potential new members of the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee. Thanks. Angela . 00:05, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Cryptography mailshot

Hi, quick note to let you know about what's happening with the WikiReader in Cryptography. There's now a provisional Table of Contents to work with, and for the next 68 days or so there'll be an "Article of the Day" scheme: each day there'll be a particular article highlighted for reviewing and fixing. There's two templates for this purpose: Template:WikiReaderCryptographyAOTD and Template:WikiReaderCryptographyAOTD-Verbose. The smaller one looks like this:

WikiReader Cryptography — article of the day edit

MRR

Sunday, 24 July

Playfair cipher

(Talk)

(History)

Monday, 25 July

Message authentication code

Tuesday, 26 July

Wednesday, 27 July

Block cipher modes of operation

(Talk)

(History)

Thursday, 28 July

Export of cryptography

(Talk)

(History)

Notes: If you find problems that you can't fix (or it's too much effort), it would be very helpful if you could place a note on the Talk: page. Articles need to be checked for 1) Accuracy (Factchecking: Are there any mistakes? Is the writing precise? Are sources cited?), 2) Completeness (Any obvious omissions? Does it need illustration?) 3) Quality of writing (Copyedits: Grammar and spelling, phrasing, structure) 4) Neutrality (Is it written from the NPOV? Do we document all relevant points of view?) — Thanks!

— To-do list for Digital signature edit

Describe cryptanalysis of digital signatures -- what are the various notions

(See all to-do lists for this WikiReader)

These articles are likely to be some of the earliest English Wikipedia content to get turned into a print version, and any help in making them as good as possible would be much appreciated. Thanks! — Matt 01:49, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Caravaggio

Hi Dante, I tried to move the page Michelangelo Merisi to Caravaggio. Apparantly someone has done the reverse in the past. I got the message to contact an administrator. I'm an absolute newbie so I just picked one admin from the list: you. A lot of people have heard about the painter Caravaggio, almost nobody about Merisi. So what is the procedure to get the requested move? Thanks Pethan 07:30, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Mediation Committee application

Hi Dante, just a note to say that Grunt has applied to join the mediation committee. There is a vote at Wikipedia:Mediation_Committee#Grunt if you want to participate. Regards -- sannse (talk) 22:14, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mediation request

Hi Dante -- Kevin Baas has asked here for a mediator, and he has listed his preferences in descending order, and you're next on the list (see Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#VeryVerily_and_Gzornenplatz.2C_Kevin_Baas).

If you can't do it, that's fine and I can ask llyrwch or moink.

Would you mind letting them know whether or not that is a possibility?

I hope all is well with you.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 19:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick action Dante! Also, in case this is helpful to you, you can view the framework I've used in the past for mediations here and the mediation bulletin board and a very similar one at User:Bcorr/new articles#Mediation Proposal between GrazingshipIV and Kingturtle.

Thanks again, BCorr|Брайен 21:21, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that if you ever need help to move things along, just let me know and I'll do my best to help. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 01:33, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi Dante. Just for info, if it's useful for your mediation I can set up a separate area on the bboard for you. This can be set to private or public and I can also set criteria such as who can delete posts (except that Erik and I will always be able to delete, but Erik won't do so and I will only do so on request). Let me know if this is of use to you any time. Regards -- sannse (talk) 17:03, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Star Trek the series

Hi Dante -- you reverted my edit to split infinitive without, as far as I can see, noting your reasons on the talk page. From your edit summary, "Star Trek the series", I gather that your objection was that in the article "the television series Star Trek" refers to the original series and not to The Next Generation? Would it be OK with you if I replace this with "the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation"? Or I could add a sentence after what's there now mentioning that this was changed to "no-one" in The Next Generation. I don't want to leave it as it is, as Star Trek changed it for good reason, and I don't think we should let it stand with sexist language, either. Fpahl 19:46, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't aware that this version is better known; in that case, we should perhaps leave it as it is. I thought about ways to explain that it was changed, but since this is the introductory paragraph that would put too much weight on Star Trek instead of split infinitives. I guess historical sexist language can go uncommented once in a while :-) Fpahl 14:56, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Terrorism" straw poll

Dante, there is a straw poll going on at Straw poll on use of the term "terrorist" on whether or not to use the term "terrorist" to describe the 9/11 attacks. I'd be interested in hearing your view on the subject. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 23:11, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

User:10101

Please talk to me next time before you block me. If someone had been able to talk to me (other than with insults), I may have been able to do something productive. I urge you to try to talk before you block. (By the way, I was blocked, not banned.) ← 10101 19:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is a highly disingenuous complaint. I assume that this behaviour is some sort of experiment; someone trying to make a point about wiki procedures; a student writing a paper about online communities, etc. I suggest, with all due respect to 10101, that you continue to block them every time they do something stupid as I do not believe wikipedia has enough spare time and labour to deal with stuff like this, an obvious and possibly deliberate distraction from the work in hand. 82.35.17.203 11:32, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

He/she knew precisely what they were doing. I will always block that kind of nonsense. "Disingenous" is perhaps even a bit charitable. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 23:50, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Yup. well done and thanks - block, and block again and again as required please! :) 82.35.17.203 00:07, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Dog breeds

Halló Dante, I posted some questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dog breeds#is: List of dog breeds and would be happy to know your opinion too. What languages do you understand / contribute? Have you seen Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds/Templates/InterWiki (main)? Regards Gangleri 04:19, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer. Success at the show! Regards Gangleri 08:56, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

this Friday?

I'll be in Palo Alto Friday, and hoping to meet up with nohat before chilling at the SAP compound; any chance you'd be free for an early dinner? +sj + 21:45, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Cool. I'll be coming from Oakland at ~3, and am free until 9... +sj +

Ah well, looks like this was too hard to arrange on short notice. Next time! +sj +

Macaw

Hi from Adrian. I can't see why you deleted my public domain photo of two macaws. WP particularly values PD pics (as all my pics on WP are) and there is plenty of space for three pics. Finally, I believe my pic to be of very good quality. Best Wishes, Adrian - Adrian Pingstone 09:47, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From Chris Mahan

Thanks. Christopher Mahan 00:33, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ArbCom

Dante - I informed everybody who signed their name to the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily and its evidence page (and this case was accepted while I was on a leave of absence). I still don't see where your name is mentioned. The two comments you did make were on the talk page for the main requests page. If you want to get noticed in the future then leave your post closest to where it is most relevant (at the time of your talk page comments, that would have been in original request on the Request for arbitration page). I'm sorry you were not informed but the case has been open for some time now in a very public place. Of course, we still welcome anything you may have to offer (esp since we are not in the voting stage yet). --mav 19:05, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The E-mail you just tried to send me

I'm so sorry, Dante. I don't remember you sending me an e-mail of what you told me about. Was it sent to the right e-mail address? Mike_garcia222003@yahoo.com. As I said on my own talk page. -- Mike Garcia 22:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mediation/Arbitration overlap

I just discovered on mav's talk page that apparently having concurrent mediation and arbitration seems to have turned into somewhat of a fiasco here. I apologize for any action (or rather, omission) on my part that contributed to the problem. I did know of the request for mediation, but when I last glanced at it shortly before requesting arbitration, it seemed to be somewhat stale and making no progress (not surprising as the initial request didn't seem sincere and looked like a pro forma attempt to satisfy the Arbitration Committee's "prerequisites"). I did not realize you had managed to get an active mediation going - quite an accomplishment, by the way - until you posted your message to Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration.

At that point, naturally, notifying you of the arbitration case was no longer necessary, and I figured it wasn't my position to tell you what to do or not to do with the mediation. And if the mediation had succeeded, that would have been wonderful and perhaps the scope of the arbitration case might have been reduced. So I focused my energy on organizing the evidence for the arbitration case, which seemed the appropriate task given my role in bringing the case. At the same time, given the nature of mediation, it's my impression that what goes on there would generally be inappropriate to bring into the evidentiary portion of an arbitration case, so I assumed that any coordination and consultation needed to be between yourself and the arbitrators directly. Also, since I have no authority over arbitration I thought that stepping outside my role of merely presenting the case might be seen as inappopriate.

Anyway, I'm not looking to blame anyone, and least of all you (in fact, on reviewing the mediation dialogue I'm quite impressed with your patience and effort to hear both sides out). I think the underlying disputes have caused a great deal of frustration for everyone, and unfortunately we seem to have gotten our wires crossed a little bit. If there's anything you think I still should do here, please let me know and I will try to fix what I can, as I would rather solve problems than create more of them. --Michael Snow 07:38, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)