User talk:R. fiend/Archive3

this is an archive. see User talk: R. fiend for current discussion.

Lorna Nogueira

I thought you might like to know that I have re-nominated Lorna Nogueira at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Lorna Nogueira for deletion. Kevin Rector 04:47, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

"Little Hitler"

I read in a book of unusual laws once that a court ruling has made it a crime to call anyone either a skunk or Adolf Hitler. As for Constitutionality, one could argue that the Tenth Amendment grants innumerable powers to the states. Like the courts care. ;-) - Calmypal 19:57, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Jeopardy again

I passed the test. Thanks for all your help. It was seriously very helpful. I am not too confident that I did very well in the audition, but we'll see if they call sometime. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 22:42, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Brand name products

I've closed this discussion as it seems to have reached a consensual conclusion. Please take a look at the conclusion and note (on the talk page) if you agree with its consensuality. Yours, R adiant _* 10:49, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

FroggyMoore

If you want to start an RfC, I'll endorse it. Rick K 23:04, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Lorna Nogueira

Hello R., seems like a delete to me too. Regards, Wile E. Heresiarch 04:54, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

VfD on Brandenn Bremmer

R, it seems that your worst fears came true. It might be worth watching this VfD, if you're not already doing so. -- Hoary 03:14, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

More dicking around since, as the same fellow has moved the VfD. (I moved it back.) -- Hoary 04:53, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Your vote on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Water fluoridation quotes

Hi, R. fiend. I read your opinion for this submission recently. I am sorry we have very different opinion What Wikiquote is and not. I didn't know how you have been actively involved into English Wikiquote, but would you like to read once our policies including our deletion policy before voting for moving something unacceptable on another Wikimedia project to it? I hope you turn your opinion after reviewing our discusions on VfD. Thanks, --Aphaea * 10:13, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How high ...

is Bow Fiddle Rock? Just asking. :-) Noisy | Talk 16:37, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

On Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber

Hi R fiend. I read your comments on my talk page and thanks for the comments. I'm not sure what I can do to improve either articles. IMHO, articles like Xie Wuji and Ice and Fire Island are doomed for deletion, and Cheng Kun is well lost. That secondary character bears no great importance to the story other than being the major stock villain of the book, and what little you have done to the original title article, I sincerely can't improve it. What I do want to do is to nip this trend of adding minor, non-consequential characters from the book into Wikipedia, and the best we can do is to kill the minor articles one by one through VfD before some over-enthusiastic fan drools over. And there are hundreds of such minor characters in wuxia novels.

I've grown a few white hairs trying to make Jinyong articles encyclopedic, for the sake of Wikipedia. For Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber, frankly I'm not sure I can. If pressed, I'll end up deleting more than I'll add, and the article will probably revert as a stub, sub-stub -- or worse -- sub-sub-stub. That's because the major part of reading a wuxia novel is the plot (as in an Alexandre Dumas novel) and I don't think mere plot recitation worth its grain in an encyclopedia. If you view them all you'll see there's nothing much critical that one can put in.

However, I'll place the article on my watchlist and see what I can do to clean it up once the Cheng Kun gets re-merged in. Mandel 07:29, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

OK, on your advice, I've done some revisions. Please go to the article and see if you like it. It's the humble best I can do. Anyway I've excise a number of mere tell-tale recitations and liberally edit the article. I don't care what they say, I cannot bear to see a sub-standard article without changing it, and you may refer them to my comments here if anyone objects. It's ironic if this happens, because if I edit after the VfD results I believe no one would give a damn. Mandel 18:47, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I would like to put the article Ice and Fire Island up for deletion. I think there's no way to salvage it. Mandel 20:09, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

I applaud your extremely discreet addition of the two minor characters into the article. I hope at least people won't complain now. Mandel 05:02, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

I give up. We cannot stop this spawn of wuxia fanzines from growing. I am helpless. Mandel 12:36, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

VfD, Lorna Nogueira and "rough consensus"

Hi, on the third Lorna Nogueira VfD you said:

Speedy delete as it should have been deleted after the last vote. If people are going to keep raising the bar midgame as to what is required to delete an article we might as well shut down VfD right now.

I'd just like to set you right on that score. The deletion policy for Wikipedia says:

To request that a page (or image) be permanently deleted, the request made on VfD, and any votes or comments relating to a listed page must be made in good faith. At the end of five days, if a rough consensus (what a rough consensus is is not set in stone, some do consider a 2/3 majority a "rough consensus", while others believe consensus implies a higher ratio) has been reached to delete the page, the page will be removed. Otherwise the page remains.

The section of the on deletion guidelines for administrators on rough consensus says:

An aspect of Wikipedia that confounds many people is the fact that there is essentially no formal voting, and informal votes or straw polls are rare. The general rule on disputed topics is that Wikipedia has to come to "rough consensus", though the meaning of this is disputed. The exact method of determining rough consensus varies from time to time, case to case, and person to person. The lack of voting has caused some long delays for some proposals, but most Wikipedians who have witnessed rough consensus after acrimonious debates feel that the delays often result in better results. (If you think about it, how could you have "voting" in a group you can't count the participants of, and which anyone can join?)

This accurately describes the situation on Wikipedia. If you examine other listings that I have closed, you will find that I am fairly consistent and did not in any way engage in "raising the bar midgame as to what is required to delete an article." I genuinely believe that no consensus was reached in the second deletion listing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Warriors

RE: Gang Violence - The film actually did cause mild gang violence in some theaters it was shown at, much like the great Boys In The Hood did some years later. I saw this film when it came out, when I was 13, and I remember that although the movie is set in New York City, it reflects an American suburban milieu, as far as the tone of the movie is concerned. As far as its rank in filmdom, Walter Hill is more or less a serious director. Judge Roy Bean is his best known work, and has a like it or love it ending. He is very well regarded academically, though. And as far as the comparison to Anabasis is concerned, that is unbelievably good work. It is just the sort of book that Hill would read at age 12 and make into a movie 50 years later.--McDogm 20:22, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sticking my nose in: It's a wonderful movie (basically, it's Odyssey with gangs), and there was some very mild scuffling in the lobbies where it was shown. This, however, led to a massive campaign against it as a "dangerous" movie. Hill is an extremely serious and very well respected director. His movies since that time haven't been substantial, as he has been forced to lesser and lesser projects, but he is regarded as an auteur of the 1970's all the same. Geogre 18:23, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your support

Thank you for voting on my RFA. Have some pie! I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of supporters (including several people that usually disagree with my opinion). I shall do my best with the proverbial mop. Yours, R adiant _>|< 08:18, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Cricket (without Buddy Holly)

I've been almost wilfully ignoring the phenomenon. Absolutely, though, we ought not be devolving into the granularity of every incidence of a recurrent event. We wouldn't have "fifth performance of 'The Fantasticks'" or "Second game of the ALCS 1991". Instead, we have the American League Championship Series 1991 (probably). Individual articles for individual games is pretty foolish, but it's somewhat our own fault for allowing single trading cards and iterations of the general "school" to become life and death preservation struggles. :-( Geogre 18:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See, that's the problem. The next step is the u-g-l-y one. There are two ways to go. One is to create a policy proposal in Wikipedia space (e.g. Wikipedia:Sporting event standards), where a thing is written up as a proposal. Then you'd drop a note on the Village Pump that a policy discussion is underway. Set a vote for some point in the future, and make sure that people know about the proposal before the vote (and good luck). Then have a vote, and try to get people not to debate in their votes (good luck). The other way, and this will get interest from the start but also shoot the whole thing down in flames before it gets going, is to put it in the Deletion policy talk page as a new section. If you go to VfD and hit the talk tab, you'll see that there are schemers and dreamers at work all the time, with the same hateful, baleful battles going on 24 hr a day. You'd be noticed instantly and get lots of input ("Deletionist TROLL" is input, isn't it?), but, well, the other way is better/worse. Whichever way you want to go, let me know, and I'll help draft the policy proposal or a statement of the case, if you'd like. Geogre 21:30, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gallagher

Hi, what's so terrible about that list of people named Gallagher that it has been removed twice? A few months ago someone even had the whole page deleted and redirected to Leo Gallagher, as if he were the only Gallagher in the world. Now the list is gone again.

I think you're wrong in believing that it will be updated more frequently if it can be found among all the other names at List of people by name. If you had a look at any other disambiguation page of that sort—Blair, Browning, Coolidge, Johnson, Manning, Monroe, Roberts, Robinson, Swift (disambiguation), Thornton, etc.etc.—you might notice that the Gallagher list is nothing out of the ordinary. Other lists of this kind, for example Myers, will still have to be created. (There isn't much there at List of people by name: Mv-Mz, is there?)

I also think it's not really nice to delete the list again without commenting on it on the corresponding talk page, where I tried to make my point only yesterday or so. However, as always, I'm not going to insist on reverting the page because I believe it's not worth the effort. All the best, <KF> 14:04, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Geogre's Law

It's a parody of the various X's Laws that get bandied about on the Internet, as this one applies solely to Wikipedia's VfD. It states: "Any article on a person who has a lower case last name is in deep, deep trouble." :-) Geogre 03:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mountain Dew Code Red

What happened to the Mountain Dew Code Red article? Now it is just a redirect to Mountain Dew. I know the article wasn't the best, but it was needed in my opinion. Many other Wikipedia articles have been written on soft drink varieties, like Pepsi Free,Pepsi Holiday Spice, Tab, etc. And I had seen an article linking to the then-nonexistent Mountain Dew Code Red article. I know it was short, but I categorized it as a stub, and I asked for for help, including asking anyone if they could get a picutre of a bottle or can of Mountain Dew Code Red. I don't know if you are the person I should be talking to to complain, its just that you are the last person I see on my watcthlist who changed teh article, and I assume the watchlist would keep track of deletions. Mred64 13:37, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

OK. I also looked at wikipedia's policy on undeleting articles. They said unless you could make it bigger than a stub, you probably shouldn't undelete it. And you are right, some of the articles are odd. Pepsi Free and Diet Pepsi Free are two different articles I think. Thanks for responding so fast. Mred64 16:41, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

You have some work to do, it would seem. Vanilla Coke and Diet Vanilla Coke are separate articles. Are you an admin? Just curious. I'd help with redirects, but I don't understand how to make those, and I daren't anger those who insist on there being separate articles on every variation of soda. Mred64 19:56, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Also for some reason, Diet Coke with Lime doesn't redirect to Coke with LIme, but Diet Coke. Mred64 20:01, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Songs

I don't agree with a lot ow what you said in your note to me, but I hope we can keep the disagreement civil, unlike some of the arguments I've gotten into recently.

First of all, I've only a limited amount of time for computer access, and the way I'm doing this is intended to maximize my productivity.
Second, I disagree that a lot of red links are bad. When I started on Wikipedia, the links weren't marked in red, but by question marks, but it was my understanding that these unfilled links were to be taken as invitations to write an article if one desires. So many of these links have eventually been filled, which is why Wikipedia is now well above a half million articles.
Third, I think an article that gives the authors, performers, and year(s) associated with a song is very useful; I've often wanted to look that sort of info up and needed to do a Google search on the whole Web to find it. Putting this info on Wikipedia gives a central location. (In fact, much of this info is available on Wikipedia on the "<year> in music" pages, but if you don't know the right year, that's not too helpful.)
Fourth, when I place my links, often I get a blue link that surprises me, and I need to check whether this is a proper link (rare in the case of song names, but it's happened!) or a misdirect (which sends me to making up a disambiguation page and a lot of other alterations on pages that I don't really have an interest in). (And recently just that caused an argument with Kiand, who refused to believe his "Blue Monday" wasn't the only one anyone might be interested in!)
Fifth, with the vast number of different people using Wikipedia, it's very hard to decide when a song (or a person, or anything else) is notable enough to get an article. So by leaving red links on ones I have no interest in (of course, many of the red links are just articles I haven't gotten around to writing!) I'm inviting anyone who does want to write something to do so.

-- BRG 14:26, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Because of the limited time I have for computer access, I really don't want to spend a lot of it answering your messages, but I do want you to realize I'm not ignoring you. You don't like the templates, but they save me a lot of time. Before I made them up, it took me twice as long to create a basic article (of course, some songs' data don't fit the templates, and need to be custom-done even now). And it isn't true that changing an article is hard when I've templated the data. The songwriters and publication year are the only thing covered by the template; anything else one can just write normally. (Just take a look at Blue Tango, and note that already someone else has added to my little stub article!)

There may be millions of songs that have been written, but the number of songs that are referenced in Wikipedia articles is, I'm certain, many orders of magnitude smaller. And that makes quite a difference.

And the question of what is important enough to merit a Wikipedia article is one that nobody agrees on. I've seen articles (at least one of which is a stub with less information than any of my song stubs) on individual episodes of TV series! (See That Old Black Magic (Guinevere Jones episode)) which, before I worked on the disambiguation, was the occupant of the "That Old Black Magic" namespace!) -- BRG 13:16, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

CSD expansion

Hi there! Based on the discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load, I've put together a proposal to expand CSD, here: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal. Before it is put to a general vote I would like your advise on the wording and intent; could you please take a look? Thanks, R adiant _>|< 13:32, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

lots of edits, not an admin

Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list, although there is certainly no guarantee anyone will ever look at it. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:24, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Interested in an L.A.-area Wiki meetup?

It appears as though L.A. has never had a Wiki meetup. Would you be interested in attending such an event? If so, checkout User:Eric Shalov/Wikimeetup.

- Eric 29 June 2005 01:22 (UTC)