User talk:Sunray/Archive11

Troll (Internet)

Hi

I would like you to re-consider your roll-back to the Troll (Internet) page.

Please see my arguments in the discussion.

I'm not going to enter into a undo-redo war with you, but I feel that Fark is relevant to the page.

Well, at least as relevant as Slashdot is.

Skrrp 02:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The links in this section are supposed to be examples of "trolling subcultures." How is Fark an example of a trolling subculture? Please explain on the talk page here. Sunray 15:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

hey...........

hey i just want to say that about shania twains albums sales is 75 million not 65 million because her self titled album has sold 100,000 copies then the woman in me- 12 million, come on over- 39 million, Up- 17 million, Greatest Hits- 7 million so add it all gives you 75 million copies i just want to make it clear ok thank you have a good day!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.64.6 (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the citation (her website) says 65 million. To change it, you will need a reliable source that says something different. Sunray 06:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Lead section

See WP:LEAD to see how this works. You are removing cited content which leaves the summarized content unsourced and subject to removal. —Viriditas | Talk 07:14, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you read WP:LEAD? The lead section is supposed to summarize the most important points. This is not a redundancy. And we don't need to use citations in the lead section since it is supposed to be a summary of material that appears in other secitons. —Viriditas | Talk 07:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

As a result of your edit, the overview section doesn't make any sense. You see, the statement is supposed to be expanded from the overview, spiraling out. We don't remove material from other sections because it appears in the lead; that's exactly what the lead is supposed to do. —Viriditas | Talk 07:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't misread anything. I've written leads for dozens of articles and I am familiar with the guidelines and structure. This is not a repetition but a summary of the overview section. As a result of your edit, the lead now states information that does not appear in the article and robs the overview of the appropriate context. This is not correct. What you should be doing, is expanding the overview section so that it spirals out into new sections, not moving cited material into the lead. That's the opposite of how the lead works. —Viriditas | Talk 07:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to work on improving the article, you can help remove the unnecessary detail from the history section on hippie, and help preserve it on History of the hippie movement. Nobody will upgrade this article to GA or FA-Class until that is done. —Viriditas | Talk 07:39, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Please familiarize yourself with how overview sections are used in the context of an article series (see Wikipedia:Article series). This article is branching out of and into a series that is part of the Counterculture of the 1960s and split into History of the hippie movement, which further splits into a series of related sub-articles. The overview section itself can be converted into an "origins and development" if needed, but it should not be robbed simply to reduce repetition. What you should be doing is rewriting material, not removing it. Your changes to the lead do not represent a summary. Expansion, not deletion is called for here. —Viriditas | Talk 07:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Spiraling out refers to WP:SS; you start with the main trunk of the topic, develop small, but sturdy branches of subtopics, and then focus and develop the most important elements. Each branch is self-contained, which means redundancy is not only allowed, but built-into the system. This is so that the reader does not have to read everything, but can obtain the most important aspects from any main section. See also WP:SS#Levels_of_desired_details. —Viriditas | Talk 08:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I am well aware of how summary sections are used. The one you have titled "Overview" is not such a section. You make the mistake of assuming I don't know these policies and quote me stuff that I am well aware of. I think I was unclear when I said that "Overview" sections are frowned on. I meant sections titled "Overview" are frowned on. As to expanding on it. Sure, no problem with that. Just don't repeat verbatim what you have already said. Got that? Sunray 08:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

It is an overview section per article series guidelines, including: Counterculture of the 1960s, Hippie (etymology), History of the hippie movement, History of LSD, Hippie trail, Neo-hippies, and many others. It's also an appropriate way of dealing with long articles, but not the only way, as the use of an "origins and development" section can serve the same purpose. Sections titled "overview" are not frowned upon if the overview is part of an article series. I already gave you the link above. A lead and an overview series are two different things, even though a lead section may sometimes be referred to as an overivew outside of an article series. —Viriditas | Talk 08:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea whether you have understood what I am saying. Could you indicate whether you understand that it is poor writing to repeat the same information twice in an article? Just a sentence indicating your agreement or disagreement with that will be fine. Sunray 15:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, the lead section is a summary of information that already appears in subsequent sections. It is not poor writing to state the most important points of the article in the lead summary - the lead is supposed to stand alone. However it is easy to rewrite material so that it is not repetitive; But, one does not remove information from other sections simply because it also appears in the lead - in fact the most important parts of the article are supposed to appear in the lead section. You are welcome to browse Wikipedia:Featured articles to see many examples: take the unsourced lead for Hippopotamus, which states that "their closest living relatives are cetaceans—whales, porpoises and the like," while the sourced classification section reads "their closest living relatives are cetaceans—whales, porpoises and the like." The lead stands alone as a summary of the most important parts of the article, while other sections may be read in depth for more information. We do not remove the sourced information from the classification section and move it to the lead. This style can be found in every featured article, whether it is poor writing style or not. I'm sure that it is always possible to improve the writing so that the prose is fresh no matter where it appears, but repeating the same information twice in the article is expected in some form or another, as the lead is supposed to summarize the main points of the article. Everything in the lead section should be found in the rest of the article. If it isn't, then it should be added to the relevant sections and sourced, or removed from the lead, not the other way around as you have done. —Viriditas | Talk 16:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Please consider this compromise: restore the material you removed from the overview section, but rewrite the lead section in your own words, adding or removing material as you see fit. This will eliminate any repetition, and give you the ability to improve the lead section. By restoring the content to the overview, the origin and development material will remain grouped and intact. —Viriditas | Talk 16:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There remains a problem if we go that way. As I said before, "Overview" sections (so titled) are generally not used in Featured Articles (just look at a few if you doubt this). The reason for this is that a good lead is itself an overview. My whole problem is one of not repeating ourselves. Sunray 17:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I already explained the difference between a lead and an overview. See the featured article Cricket for one use of an overview; DNA for another; Jazz for an A-Class overview. On another note, the USA PATRIOT Act article, which is headed to FA in the future, currently uses an overview section but calls it a "Background" instead. This is synonymous with the proposed alternate text, "origin and development". It doesn't matter what you call it. —Viriditas | Talk 17:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

"I already explained... Sheesh, that is condescending. But, since you spent the time finding those articles, I shall respond. "Cricket," and "Jazz" were featured articles in 2004 and would likely have difficulty making the grade now without fairly extensive editing (note, for example the "citations needed" tags on each). DNA does not have an "Overview" section. There is a section titled, "Overview of biological functions," but that is a different matter.

I am going to give you some feedback: You insist on your point and seem unwilling to consider mine. I feel less and less like working with you because you seem set on being right and defending your piece of turf. Apparently other editors are driven off too. "Tepid people skills," says one. Others express their frustration on the talk page. Thus "Hippie" is going to be hard to bring to FA status, because it usually takes a collaborative effort from several committed editors. STOP. THINK. How can you modify your approach so that other editors with needed skills will join in the effort? Please consider this. Sunray 06:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything condescending about pointing out that I previously discussed a point you've brought up again. Please don't read things into what I'm writing. I didn't spend any time finding those articles, as I'm quite familiar with them. Cricket would not have trouble becoming a FA today, and the citation needed tag was added a month ago even though the article has references. It would probably need to have inline citations, but this has nothing to do with an overview section. DNA's overview section concerns biological functions, and is appropriately titled due to the series of subarticles listed beneath, per article series. The Jazz article overivew is also appropriate per article series, although it needs a new lead. I find your attempt to "give me some feedback" quite bizarre, when it is you who has made the controversial edit, and that is what I am responding to on your talk page. I have not insisted on any point, other than to challenge your edit which removed sourced material and placed it in a citation-free lead section, removing the original context of the overview with the claim that it was duplicating content. I pointed out to you that the lead section is supposed to summarize the article. I am unclear on what I am supposed to be insisting on or unwilling to consider on your end. I have considered your edit and I have asked you to defend it. You haven't been able to, instead you keep moving the goalposts. I will ignore the rest of your comments which again detract from your inability to justify your edits. I am curious as to what you are supposed to be "working with me" to do, as it doesn't seem to involve improving the article. You are the one who insists on your edits, is unable to consider other opinions, and refuses to compromise. I just wanted to set the record straight before you try and change the subject again. Nobody has been driven off from the article. Apostle12 has declared himself the owner of the article, and has been fighting every single change to it for years, engaging in personal attacks, incivility, and even the use of multiple accounts. I have, for the most part, ignored his behavior, and will continue to focus on improving the article. I am sorry that Apostle12 and other editors are "frustrated" by the removal of original research, the insistence on citations, and the need to keep article length in check, but there's nothing I can do about that. My approach will remain the same as it has always been - a clear, and consistent focus on improving the article and addressing the topic while ignoring personal attacks from all sides. —Viriditas | Talk 09:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Your view of your own actions is certainly charitable. My point was very simple: In a well-written article one does not repeat the same statement. You ignored this and have tried to advance your POV on an "Overview" section. I explained why I did not agree with you. You continued to attempt to advance your point. I tried to suggest (as others have) that your approach, which I regard as both patronizing and disputatious, leads nowhere. That remains my view. I'm done. Best of luck with it. Sunray 09:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

What POV am I trying to advance? Do you even know what a POV is? There is no POV in the above discussion. I even offered two different headings as alternatives, but received no efforts towards compromise or a response from you on this point. I could care less what the section is titled: Overview, Background, Origin and development - as I previously said - it doesn't matter. That's about as far from a "POV" as you can get. As for repeating the same statement, the lead is supposed to summarize the most important points of the article. If it can be rewritten, great, but you don't remove duplicate information from other sections merely because it appears in the lead; it's supposed to be there. I gave you an example of one FA, I can provide dozens more. I get the feeling you don't like the response you are getting to your edits, so you keep ignoring my points. You need to actually put forward a good faith effort to compromise; you haven't done that. —Viriditas | Talk 09:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

What has compromise got to do with anything? From Wikipedia:About: "Wikipedia is written collaboratively..." Sunray 15:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Please read the link you added above. You may be looking at compromise from outside the context of writing an encyclopedia, in which case your point would be valid. Since we are talking about collaboration on Wikipedia involving group writing, compromise in this context is an essential element, and necessarily entails good communication, agreeing to disagree, letting go of minor conflicts in favor of achieving the ultimate goal, resolving deadlocks, sharing information, working side by side, tolerating different viewpoints, and dividing and delegating tasks to avoid dominance issues. Collaborative writing is a form of compromise at every level. —Viriditas | Talk 04:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with renaming the overview section, but keep in mind, any GA or FA review will remove any occurrence of the article name (Hippie) from all sections, so you will be more successful finding an alternate name that does not repeat the title of the article in the section. The general rule is, "section headings are not supposed to repeat the article title". I've given several recommendations above. —Viriditas | Talk 01:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your support.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November? Thank you to everyone who participated in my Request for adminship, which was successful at 50/5/0 on November 5th, 2007. It became, as you may know, rather contentious toward the end (though fortunately no gunpowder was involved), and I appreciate the work of other Wikipedians to keep it focused. --Thespian 02:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

In Remembrance...

--nat ^{Alo! Salut! Sunt eu, un haiduc?!?!} 02:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Tropical rainforest conservation

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Tropical rainforest conservation, and it appears to be very similar to another wikipedia page: Tropical Rainforest Conservation. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot 18:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Page move of Tropical Rainforest Conservation

I have undone your redirection of Tropical Rainforest Conservation. The reason is that the way you did it, the page's edit history is not preserved at its new location. To correct the situation, I have requested the speedy deletion of Tropical rainforest conservation, the new location, to make room for a clean page move that will transfer the article's edit history along with the article itself. If I have a chance, I will perform the page move myself, otherwise you might want to look at Help:Moving a page to learn how to do it. Please note that anonymous users and accounts registered less than 4 days ago cannot perform this task.

Thanks for your help. --Blanchardb-Me^MyEars_MyMouth-timed 19:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Fine. I was so focussed on getting the article appropriately titled that I completely neglected that detail about the page history. I'm not clear on why you have to delete the new page. Could not the page history simply be moved to the new page? Let me know if you are unable to complete the page move and I will do it. Sunray 19:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

By the time you posted that, the page move was already done. What was done was actually the simplest way to do what you intended to do. --Blanchardb-Me^MyEars_MyMouth-timed 21:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

AIT

Just wanted to drop by to let you know it was great actually collaborating with someone over at the AIT article instead of bickering :-) Also thanks for the link to that medialens page. It's very interesting and I think I will enjoy checking it out. Elhector (talk) 05:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP CIV

[My responses cross-posted to Eaglestorm's talk page]

I've responded to your request for help on the WP:CIV talk page. Sunray (talk) 08:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I have read your response. Sorry about Item 1 and part of Item 5 (it was the James Bond talk page), but I will figure out the diff guide and where to submit it. I might just let the guy huff and puff away. Thanks for the help. Eaglestorm (talk) 09:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I've looked at the exchange between you and Myles325a on the James Bond talk page. Here are my thoughts: His initial post was rambling and unclear. It seemed unrelated to the article. You called him on this, quoting policy (WP:NOT). He then got pretty specific about what he was actually proposing, but also responded to your checking him up by making some pointed suggestions of a personal nature to you. You responded, not that you were hurt, but rather by calling him "hollier-than-thou" and projecting his taunt back to him (saying "how low can you go?").

Clearly he was close to the line of breaching WP:NPA with his comments. But your response was not a model of civility either. I think that the cooling off period may have worked well in this case (as there have been no further flare ups to date). In your message to me you said: "I might just let the guy huff and puff away." If, by that you mean "let it go," I think that would be a very wise strategy. If you would like some suggestions on how you might have avoided getting the kind of reaction you did from him, I will be happy to share that with you.

For now I will leave you with this thought: "Sometimes, a disagreement is a shortcut between two minds." Sunray (talk) 19:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for support. I appreciate it, like I really needed to get that off my chest. The guy just replied on my UTP, but as per letting it go, I'm not reading it anytime soon-I'll erase it so I don't have to hear any more of his diatribes. For a guy who has been reprimanded twice for personal attacks, I think he really took a hit this time. Eaglestorm (talk) 04:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Aleck, Alec and Alexander Bell and Alexander Graham Bell

Hey Sun

Nice touching base with you, but before you charge off into the sunset in changes to the names in the Alexander Graham Bell article, please read the entire article to get an appreciation that the names he acquired throughout his lifetime frame part of his life story. Bzuk 20:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC).

In the Skin of a Lion

Apologies for taking so long to respond to your post concerning In the Skin of a Lion. I thought your changes were very good. What's more, they were respectful to the other users who had worked so hard at improving what I thought was an extremely flawed entry. The summary may seem longer than the average, but the length is in no way unique. Good work! Victoriagirl (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

David Suzuki

No problem. It seems like whoever it is has an agenda and is refusing to discuss the matter. I agree that if the problem recurs from a new IP, that page protection is in order. —C.Fred (talk) 04:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Civility

[cross-posted to Julia Rossi's talk page]

Hi Julia: I've responded to your note on the WP:CIV talk page here. I agree with you that his rant about psychics didn't belong on the Reference desk page. However, some folks get touchy when you tell them something like that. There are ways to approach such things. One is to respond to something he has said that you agree with and then say "but I don't think that this discussion belongs here..." Sunray (talk) 02:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for yr advice

Appreciate the care you took to inform me better about the uncivility thing and how to respond to an editor like that. What I quoted to him was from the use box at the top of the page which people took exception to, so I take the point about the more indirect approach you suggested. The person was dominating the ref desk questions days before and after, so I should have known to just cut away. By the way, if something doesn't belong on the ref desk, can it be removed, and if so, who by? Thanks for giving it your time. (PS I see you offer tips on handling conflicts so I will probably ask you more if I get stumped again if that's okay.)Julia Rossi (talk) 07:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your question about removing material from a page. My view is that it is generally not a good idea. There are exceptions: For example personal attacks can be removed and there is even a template for that: (Personal attack removed) I've used it a couple of times and it can have a good effect, but it can also make the other editor even madder. The important thing, I think, is to have a consensus of other editors for anything of that nature. BTW, there is a standing consensus that one may remove offensive material from their own talk pages (though, here again, I would do this sparingly). There is also a broad consensus that one can remove material from talk pages that has nothing to do with the article at hand. With respect to the reference desk, I would tend not to remove material. It is automatically archived regularly, so it's no big deal. So there's my (perhaps overlong) answer to your question. As to my giving advice on conflict issues. I have considerable conflict resolution experience in the real world and am interested in its adaptation to the virtual world. WP:CIV and WP:AGF are very interesting policies in that regard. Sunray (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again

Thanks Sunray - and for your patience – it's much appreciated. I'm learning all the time because I really want to keep going with editing and not get rattled. : ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Julia Rossi (talk • contribs) 22:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC)