User talk:Jerzy/Maddox page

(This approach to Wiki-talk (using two templates) is an experiment; i've so far imposed upon a number of colleagues with it, who have responded thru it (even without this 'graph) well enough that i can describe it as "working" (though an otherwise angry one nevertheless described it as "ridiculous"). My hope is that it will slow the growth of my talk page, make my archiving simpler and more timely, and thus make leaving talk for me less burdensome (especially for slow-pipe colleagues) than it has been for too many months. I cordially invite discussion of it (or one-shot comments, from those who prefer).)

If you add to this discussion, most other participant(s) won't be nearly as quickly aware of that as they would, if you had also edited their respective talk page(s). (A link to the corresponding section of each is at their corresponding "*" below, and your updating the edit count and editing-time-stamp range there also gives that participant further information. But no one other than i has done so yet.) For my own notification, i've started a list that i can check via "Related changes" more often than i am willing to check my Watchlist or "My contributions", tho of course that is still less often than "You have new messages."

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• 4 msgs, 06:02, 23 thru 03:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
  1. 06:02, 23 May 2005 (UTC) G
  2. 06:11, 23 May 2005 (UTC) J
  3. 20:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC) G
  4. 05:59, 25 May 2005 (UTC) J
  5. 06:45, 26 May 2005 (UTC) G
  6. 03:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC) J
• 2 participants: Jerzy·t·c·*; FatherGuidoSarducci·t·c·*.
• general topic(s): His quirky & busy Web site
• relevant reference(s): The Best Page in the Universe, WP:CU sec'n ref, orig WP:CU entry, What lks there

I cleaned up the Maddox page, is it ok now?
-- FatherGuidoSarducci 06:02, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Since you haven't edited Maddox, remind me what page i commented about & i'll read it in the AM.

--Jerzy~t 06:11, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

The Best Page in the Universe
--FatherGuidoSarducci 20:08, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Tnx. IMO, you've made substantial improvement in the quality of many sentences, but w/o addressing my concern.

My view is primarily that the article has far too many facts:

• Too many compared to the extent of the very limited structure holding them together, and
• Probably covering the subject far too broadly (and with no depth i've noticed), probably no matter how well the facts were organized into some kind of relationship.

(It may be the best disposition would be merging a 'graph or two drawn from it into an article like Unfocused blog or Rant blog, and converting this title into a redirect.)

The following exhaustive list of WP lks to it in the article name-space may hint at the problems; to me, it is a sign of this article having almost nothing to say:

• "Articles" probably efficiently mergible into it, or redirectable to it:
  • Friends of Maddox
• Presumed list "articles":
  • Maddox (a dab)
  • April 1, 2004
  • April 1, 2005
  • List of Armenians
  • List of people by name: Ot-Oz
  • List of websites
  • List of shock sites
• Articles mentioning only via a list:
  • Etisalat
  • Internet phenomenon
  • People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• Articles mentioning it only as a shorthand substitute for describing something else:
  • Ubersite
• Articles mentioning only that it made comments (unspecified or a short phrase) on their subject
  • Contra III: The Alien Wars
  • Aron Ralston
• Articles mentioning possible real relevance
  • Orbitz

Bottom line: you haven't reduced the article's excessive interest in minutia, nor diluted the impression of its authors' uncritical acceptance of the siteowner's inexplicable sense of his own significance. So far, fancruft, as i said.

--Jerzy~t 05:59, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

ummmmmmmmmm...ok. I took out a bunch of useless stuff. FatherGuidoSarducci 06:45, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid i've forgotten some specific change or two that made me reconsider, and feel that i owed you a smidge more credit than my last May 25 'graph gave you. And (tho i'd rather you'd reported progress on Cleanup before removing the notice) i'm pleased that your attitude seems pretty responsible.

That said, my work there is done; the only interest i have in the topic is that there's a WP article, and there must be at least 25K articles that noticeably exceed that criterion. I added to the entry at Wikipedia:Cleanup#May 16, 2005, w/ a lk to this subpage. You may be able to get further feedback via there, especially if you briefly summarize your cleaning (which at least used to be explicitly requested in the instructions). Thanks for a pleasant collaboration.

--Jerzy·t 03:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)