User talk:Curps/archive11

Solana

Might it be possible to put a permanent edit block on Solana to stop a repeat of the previous vandalism. There should be no need for anyone to edit this page. I have put the idea at Talk:Solana. --SqueakBox 01:16, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

I like the new Solana page. Is there any chance of retrieving the comment that was at Talk:Javier Solana/Solana vandalism and POV? --SqueakBox 01:50, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

One Salient Oversight wrote something this morning. But it doesn't matter. I am often getting edit conflicts when they don't happen, but I think this one was real. --SqueakBox 01:59, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at my conclusion on the special talk page. --SqueakBox 17:45, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

We are into an edit war, Cumbey and I. She just reverted the article to her inaccurate version, Ferdinand González, misplacing of the Barcelona Conference (now up for deletion) etc. I think because she has made no attempt to clear up her mistakes that this is vandalism.--SqueakBox 03:37, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Solana

I am very unhappy with User:Cumbey's latest contribution to the special page. I feel she is engaging in a personal attack. Is there any way to get mediation. I am actually going offline for a few days tomorrow, but she seems very angry at my edits, and is trying to take it out on me. While I feel I have accused her of breaking wiki rules, and I remain unsure about what is going on, I have not accused her of criminal acts. --SqueakBox 01:17, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

It was at the bottom and from last night, I only noticed the one's at the top this morning. --SqueakBox 01:21, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

I have edited the article to make it look like a normal political article. As I have included corrections, including that it is Felipe González not Ferdinand, and added bits like him negotiating the formal ending to the NATO-Russian hostilities, and put everything in chronological order that you will not let User:Cumbey just do a simple revert on it. Such a thing would be dishonest, especially for the corrections. --SqueakBox 01:45, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Cumby left a letter on her User talk:Cumbey page which I hope means she is going to go away. --SqueakBox 05:03, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

I have just found a good spanish site and am correcting a lot of inaccuracies in the article. --SqueakBox 02:27, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

User:Cumbey has made another personal attack against me at Talk:Javier Solana--SqueakBox 04:29, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Cheers. Cumbey is a woman! --SqueakBox 04:37, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

I got this I plan to make you (in)famous in my next book here in the USA, Richard Weiss, truth is an absolute defense from Cumbey in an email. Her next book is about Solana. She claims this is my name. What, if any, is wikipedia attitude to threats like this. I have written back saying she has no proof SqueakBox is Richard Weiss (she is guessing from my User page), and that if she libels me I will sue. --SqueakBox 00:15, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Template:Vfd

Thank you. Uncle G 01:44, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

User:Desertsky

hello CURPS, sorry to mess up this page; also my excuses to UNCLE. I get to old for this job; pls. advise me how send message to you (under CURPS) with- out disturbing other users contributions; I will have soon some news about Minor Planet Names and would like to ask you for editing, thanks DESERTSKY Hans-Emil Schuster

Star names

I wonder why you move proper name star articles to their Bayer designations. In my opinion, star articles should be primarily named after their proper names, and if one doesn't exist, then Bayer designation, and if the star doesn't have that, then Flamsteed designation. I understand that rare/unusual names are not good article names, but for example Kochab is quite popular name for β UMi. It is even recognized by SIMBAD which doesn't have many proper names. --Jyril 12:53, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Germany

Curps, since I know that you're keeping an eye on the Germany article - please do not protect that page again, even if I keep reverting Jiang now and again. I have spent the whole winter trying to make the History section there more balanced and informative. I've already complied to Jiang's wishes by removing all subsections and reducing the size of images. But now I think it's Jiang's turn to compromise. I won't allow him to undo all my efforts. The History section is rather long, (depending on what you mean by "long"). But the corresponding "Deutschland" article on the German Wikipedia has a history section - "Geschichte" - which is as much as long, and nobody is complaining there. - Heimdal 13:36, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Curps, I understand what you're saying - although, why should the German history section be no longer than France's ? Actually, things are getting pretty heated over there at Germany, and I've reverted for the 3rd time this day already. That's enough for today. I just hope that the page won't be bocked again. -Heimdal 15:02, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, it's not that I want to be proved right at all cost. May I therefore ask you for your personal opinion as a third party: Do you think that the history section is still within what is acceptable on the English Wikipedia, or is it too long already? Thanks. Heimdal 15:46, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Touching a Page to reset the Category

I tried posting without making the change, but it wasn't resetting the category, so I put a space around the template tag. Thanks for the input though. Besides, that Bot run is finished now. Kevin Rector 05:19, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

It does work in the browser. Hmmm. I'll need to look into that to figure out why it didn't work for my bot if I am called upon to do a similar bot run. Kevin Rector 05:35, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Category sabotage

Thank you for informing me. I had noticed that JillandJack had burned up many categories, as well as all the other slanted info that user infiltrated across the encyclopedia. I planned on rebuilding them; I'll try to assist you on that task. I will also go defend the categories at the deletion pages as soon as possible. The rebuilding of vandalized categories and articles, as well as the question of which categories are appropriate for Quebec articles, shuld be a subject of friendly debate at the next Montreal meetup on March 14. Are you in Quebec or elsewhere? Could you attend? Salutations. --Liberlogos 11:56, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic protection listing

Thanks for the protection listing for this article on Wikipedia:Protected page. I had just protected it myself and added a protect notice (doesn't really work on a redirect :) ). I headed over to add it to the list and saw your notice. This was my first protect as an admin, so please check my work if you have time. I have made a notice about the protection on Nagorno-Karabakh pointing to a more detailed one on Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:51, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:47, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks. CryptoDerk 03:18, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Nulla

decided to delete WP:AN/3RR#User:Nulla

oh nevermind, someone put it back now.

Cumbey threats

These threats were received by email. User:Cumbey claims SqueakBox is hacking into the wiki database. She is going to demand the hard discs from Jimbo Wales so she can get me put down for a long time because of my alleged hacking. She accuses me of having a stash of janja (sic) she means ganja, in my possession, and that she is going to tell the Honduran police about it. She is going to write to Jimbo demanding he reinstate her version of Solana. She is very unhappy with the new contributors. She thinks they work for me and I work for Solana.--SqueakBox 14:47, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Cumbey has now made threats against me at User talk:Cumbey.--SqueakBox 16:51, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Gaston Lagaffe

Thanks for editing the page. It looks fabulous. Frenchgeek 17:27, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Reversion of characters ° and ×

Can you please explain your reversion of the characters someone (not me) had put ino the Europa (moon) article, with your editorial comment "rv edit which screws up non-ISO-8859-1 chars (wrecks interwiki links, for instance)"?

What in the world do you mean by that?

Why do you find those particular characters objectionable? I don't know all the confusing details of how this stuff works, so could you just give some specific example of how this could possibly get screwed up? Is it browser-specific or platform-specific, for example?

In particular:

• I just put this ° and this × in here by going to the list of characters in the insert box which opens up below the edit box every time I edit a page. That is a built-in Wikipedia feature, not something in my browser. To me, that is a very good indication that they are generally considered safe to use.
• How would using ° rather than ° (°) cause any more problems than using å rather than å (å)?
• in Meta:Help:Special characters it says "the most common special characters, such as é, are in the character set, so code like é, although allowed, is not needed."
• Is there any difference in using å å å &#x00E5 rather than å (å å å &#x00E5 rather than å)?
• Is there any difference between entering å from a Norwegian keyboard rather than any of the above?
• How would that be any different from using using ° rather than using any of ° ° &#0176: ° °?

Gene Nygaard 12:27, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fiona Apple

I'm a little bit peeved at your re-reversions in the Fiona Apple article and your consequent comments on the discussion page. I can't help but say that they are based in ignorance, offensive though that may sound. In particular you say that stating her video for Criminal flirted with child pornography is a "serious charge"; that's just ludicrous. If one were to state that the video *WAS* child pornography, or any form of it, then yes, that would be a serious allegation. However what the phrase "flirted with" means is that it pushed the boundaries of the subject. Evoking the imagery of something forbidden is not BAD, it is meant to make one think. There is absolutely NO question, based on comments by both Fiona Apple and the video's director, that the INTENT of the video was to EVOKE the stereotypical imagery of 1970's child pornography: the young, thin, hairless models writhing in bathtubs, on shag carpeting with wood and formica wall background. The television using a poloroid attachment to pop out instant photos of the "characters" mid coitus, etc... We all know that hard-core fans of an artist are very quick to defend them if something is said that might be offensive or damaging, which is why there was an editing war over this subject. But the FACT is, this is what the music video intended, and it was HIGHLY controversial and a major part of Apple's signifigance up until this point in time. Your removal of it shows a resolute lack of understanding of the topic and of Apple. Pacian 01:30, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Blocked me?

You blocked me for editing the sandbox. I don't think it's fair. Just to let you know I'll be complaining.--212.100.250.207 16:37, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I blocked you for the hoax Template:Page closed you created. -- Curps 16:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Willard Gibbs

(physical chemist is much better known than his father)

Agree, but we should at least put a note at the beginning of the page.

Thanks Curps

Thanks for speedily reverting the vandalism by User:Oxag on my talk page! I wasn't sure what had happened and when I suspected it was vandalism I did not know how to revert because I could not even get to my talk page. Paradiso 04:30, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks from me too. Not as bad as getting one of the Pain series, but, uh...caught me off guard. ~~ Shiri 04:33, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks from me as well. Talk about getting a shock. Much appreciated. Dblevins2 04:45, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism on other Wiki with your username

Hello, Curps. Someone is using your username and also copied the content of your user and talk page on Memory Alpha. This user is vandalizing articles and adding content that is not acceptable for us. Please let me know if this is an imposter. Should it be you, please stop... :) You can reach me on Memory Alpha, I'm User:Cid Highwind there. -- 217.225.27.203 12:27, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The account "Curps" on Memory Alpha is not me. I would appreciate it if that account was blocked and the user page edited to reflect that it is an impostor. -- Curps 15:37, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Done, thanks for your fast response. -- 217.225.27.203 16:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Trumpets

This probably could have been phrased better, I concur. It's just that this thing has been going on forever, and it's easy to lose patience. — Itai (f&t) 13:57, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Spirit Rover

Hi! I'd be grateful if you could change the article back; if you check you'll find that there are quite a few articles concerning the various rovers, all but one (Opportunity rover, which somehow I missed) I switched, as well as changing links, etc. The text of most if not all the articles uses the capitalised 'Rover' for the name, and the lower-case 'rover' for the description, which is why I changed the article titles — to make articles and titles consistent. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:55, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I went to three of the pages with one or other of the 'rovers' in the title, and none of them had any discussion of capitalisation (in fact everyone was using the capitalised form). Which of the Talk pages do you mean? (Note, by the way, that it isn't just two pages — there are at least ten, I think, such as Spirit Rover timeline for 2004 February, Opportunity Rover timeline for 2004 January, etc.) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:30, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I saw, that, but it seemd, as you said, to be about an earlier naming issue, not this one. Having made a large number of changes, including removing double redirects and other redirects (with an enormous number left because of other name changes), I'm a bit reluctant to get involved if it's going to be one of those interminable Wikipedia squabbles. I made the changes because I thought (obviously completely wrongly) thatthey'd be uncontroversial; I really should know by now. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:40, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wraybm1

Hello Curps, I am relatively new to editing and such but... I was just on the Popes page and saw that someone did some vandalsim to it. I was in the process of fixing it when you did it before me. First off... good job. Secondly, how did you do it? Is there a way to just revert to an older edit. I was trying to copy and past the text out of older edits. I'd like to be able to do this, as vandalism usually is rampant throughout every section of an article and it is impossible to select a single column in the comparable versions history view. I hope my question makes sense.

Wanted to say thanks

Thanks for adding me (Jeff Alu) and Eleanor Helin's name also. Do we know you??

Jeff

--AnimAlu 23:47, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Abdullah Öcalan to merge with PKK

Can you please reconsider your desicion. The mans life mostly revolved around the organisation. His life basicaly is a very short summary of PKK Activity. His pre organisation life is not significant from any average person. These two articles are also subject to vandalism every here and there it would simplify my workload enforcing a non vandal world if these articles were merged. Thanks --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 17:05, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re: the Categories Star and Stars

I'm so sorry - Here's my problem:

A star is a giant ball of gas in space. However, Stars is a well-known band from Montreal

I'd like to create an entry for this band, but currently the Stars entry redirects to Star. A bunch of other entries link to Stars, and I am in the process of changing those links so that they go to star instead.

Additionally, I found the Stars category. The main article of this category should be Star, since Stars is just a redirect page. But with the catmore tag, I didn't see a way to do this, unless I disregard the catmore tag and instead just enter it manually. Is that ok to do?

Do you have any more suggestions? I'm kind of new to this (as you can most likely tell!)

Zdeněk Miler

Why did you move Zdeněk Miler to Zdenek Miler? --Rammer 08:56, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC) Thanks for the quick response? --Rammer 09:09, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Curps, don't forget to add the titlelacksdiacritics template when doing these kinds of moves.

Urhixidur 12:34, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. -- Curps 16:35, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Autoblocks

Thanks, that explains a lot! I was wondering why, having cleared an autoblock that was obviously of me, I was able to continue editing even after blocking him for another hour.

It seems this is much better than I feared. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:48, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's no good, I hit a new autoblock every few minutes. I even hit an autoblock *twice* trying to post this edit! It takes several minutes to locate and clear each autoblock because the database is flogged to death.

This guy has only vandalized a few pages, but we must be blocking thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of potential editors who happen to use NTL. I'll lift the block and check back in an hour or two to clean up any mess that needs it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:31, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

please stop

It is a petition. Trying to shut it down is inappropriate in that context. -- Netoholic @ 00:59, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

"02:49, 2005 Mar 25 Curps (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Requests for de-adminship/Snowspinner moved to Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship/Votes for deletion/Requests for de-adminship/Snowspinner)

This action is incredibly disruptive. Whatever point you're trying to make is getting lost due to your odd behavior. -- Netoholic @ 02:52, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

It's not really a Vfd at all, it's a petition. So I moved it to the petition namespace, which seems to be under Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship/ -- Curps 02:53, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that wasn't funny the first time. All I did was make a petition (location is debateable), but you are truly disrupting the VfD process to make a point. Get a grip. -- Netoholic @ 02:58, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

Okay; you fix it, please

You don't like me to impose a solution? Please, you impose a solution. If you think you have more authority than I do, you probably do. If you have the power to unilaterally bypass social mechanisms and throttle me, then you have the power to impose a unilateral solution on these political fanatics.

Every existing method of conflict resolution has failed. This endless, pointless debate is wrecking everything with which it comes in contact. It's not even limited to China-related pages; it spills into the Pump, a half-a-dozen policy talk pages and, I swear, I think I come across it while I'm trying to edit Graph theory. The debate is a cancer eating away at the fabric of WP society.

I have not violated 3RR. My plan (such as it was) is to move this debate, wherever I find it, to the designated area on a daily basis. I expect some folks will move it back where they feel their pissing contest will draw a larger audience. I plan to move it, decently, out of sight, again, once a day.

Jiang complained, as you do, that there is no page at: PRC vs ROC, hence no Talk page is appropriate. I agreed, and asked his suggestion for a better name for the venue. He wanted the whole thing dumped back into Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). I asked again for some distinct name; he has not answered. Now, I ask you. Go ahead, pick a name -- any name, any namespace -- just so long as it doesn't overlap with real discussion. Believe me, I don't have a dog in this fight. I simply have no opinion on the "Taiwan question", the "Mainland China" question, or any of the other thousand forms of the debate.

My actions are only disruptive to those with a dog in the fight. Before I started moving comments in this debate to a designated area, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) had grown to a whopping 150K; I could barely get it to load in my browser, let alone edit it or make any comment on any other issue -- one upon which some consensus might be reached, one having nothing to do with PRC, ROC, or any of that.

What I have done is to archive portions of a verbose discussion in a central location. I'll admit I have done so with a great deal of huffing and puffing, and you're welcome to censure me for that. But I contest any censure of my actions or characterization of them as disruption or vandalism. Archival of discussion is a normal function on WP. Would you be happier if I arbitrarily archived any entire Talk page I found with this debate simmering on it? I have contrived a method of archiving this -- foolishness -- while preserving not only the foolishness itself for those who care to indulge, but also the legitimate business of the forums so polluted.

Kindly restore the templates you moved to template namespace. Template namespace is there to use the template mechanism; it is not a comment on content. Many users set up templates for special purposes; it is a utility namespace, and that's what I've used it for. I'm prepared to defend each and every template and, for that matter, each and every use thereof.

Please do not tell me everything is going to be okay. Don't ask me to wait around for consensus to pull out of this furball; it will not. Human beings have been executed by their leaders for expressing opinions on this subject; there are plenty of warriors on both sides who will not lay down their arms. You will not get these folks to the bargaining table, let alone get them to agree on anything. The debate itself is pointless. It has gone on for years; if a solution by consensus or any other existing method were possible, it would have taken place. No new information is going in; a great smoke and noise is coming out.

I took action. You don't like it? You take action. Be bold. If you think this needs to be decided at the Highest Levels, get together with the other bigwigs and thrash it out. There is not much point trying to do serious work on one corner of this project while holy wars rage everywhere. This debate is merely one egregious offender.

Please prove me wrong. Please prove me an insolent fool, a rude buffoon, a maniac on wheels. Prove my actions unwarranted, extreme, overreaction. You will earn my most sincere apologies. Show me. Bring the combatants together, or for that matter, allow them to continue their war, somewhere away from the general business of this project. Let your solution serve as a model for the other holy wars raging here, which are all too numerous and visible.

Let us disagree, but let us do so with some fragment of civility. — Xiong (talk) 12:03, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

Please see my comments at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), in reply to your comments there.

Disputes at Wikipedia are settled according to mechanisms described at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, not by unilateral "settlement" of the kind you attempted to impose. Over the years Wikipedia has seen far worse disputes than the one over China/PRC/ROC/Taiwan and the dispute resolution mechanisms have worked so far.

You are right, I don't believe you violated the 3RR, but as a relatively new user I thought you might not be aware of it, so I just wanted to point out its existence to you. Sorry if you were already aware of it, but your other actions suggested that perhaps you weren't familiar with Wikipedia policies (on dispute resolution, etc).

If Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) grows too big the usual solution is to create archive subpages. For instance, something similar to the archive links I have at the top of this talk page... this is a standard practice on Wikipedia.

The dispute over China/PRC/ROC/Taiwan naming is not an emergency as you describe; there are not raging edit wars going on and everyone is quite civil. Right now the best course of action is patience. At some point, we may have to appeal to the broader Wikipedia community and conduct a wide-ranging survey to try to gather consensus. -- Curps 18:26, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User templates

Never mind what I said about moving my templates. I didn't understand that they would still work in their new location -- which I agree is more appropriate. I'm still learning. In future, I'll consider creating templates in that space. Sorry. — Xiong (talk) 13:02, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

Sticky template trouble

I don't know how you feel about helping me with this, but I'm trying to straighten up nicely after the move and be as helpful as possible, rather than otherwise -- and I seem to have run into a technical problem. One of my templates is stuck.

I have my settlement (diatribe, call it what you will) now at: User:Xiong/Template:Xiongxiong. When it appears at the top of the very bulky debate pages, User:Xiong/Chinatalk and User talk:Xiong/Chinatalk (renamed for consistency and, perhaps, greater neutrality), I wish "xiongxiong" to appear with an "Add new section/edit" link at the very top of the page. This way, somebody who cannot load the whole thing can still add his bit. So, I have another template: User:Xiong/Template:Xiongxiongadd, which consists of nothing but the edit link and the main "xiongxiong" template, by reference.

Now, this seems to work just fine when I preview it; but when it appears on the new Chinatalk pages, the Add link points to an old page. The last thing I want to do is confuse matters and annoy you by inviting the public to re-create the old page via new section edit.

Would you please fix this sticky template? — Xiong (talk) 02:59, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

Yes, adding the NAMESPACE variable fixed it. I should have thought of that myself. I didn't read the description of PAGENAME closely enough; I was fixated on the difference between PAGENAME and PAGENAMEE. Thank You! — Xiong (talk) 18:26, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

Polish and German names (just noticed)

Only just noticed your comment against one of my votes on Talk:Gdansk/Vote back last month. Not wanting to start a protracted discussion, just wanted to clarify my comment, as it looks like you didn't quite follow what I meant.

On the "Cross-Naming General" vote:

The naming of many places in the region that share a history between Germany and Poland are also a source of edit wars. For these places, the first reference of one name should also include a reference to other commonly used names, e.g. Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) or Szczecin (Stettin). An English language reference that primarily uses this name should be provided on the talk page if a dispute arises.

I agreed and commented "(and no objection to post-War use of Stettin (now Szczecin) in articles other than its own)", to which you mentioned "List of cities in Poland needs a complete makeover then, and a whole lot of other pages too. -- Curps 08:06, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)"

I know what you were trying to say (notably because you said so rather more verbosely elsewhere in the page), but you're answering something I didn't quite say. By "no objection", I was trying to say that I don't object to seeing "Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland)" in an article. I wasn't suggesting that we should mandatorily change references thus, merely that I didn't think we should mandatorily remove such references. As it is, I'm happy to sit with the consensus of the votes.

Just thought I'd make sure you didn't think I was any more mad than I am ;o) — OwenBlacker 15:27, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)