User talk:Carcharoth

This is a Wikipedia user talk page. For the fictional wolf of the same name, see Carcharoth.

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CfD nomination of Category:Middle-earth calendars

I have nominated Category:Middle-earth calendars (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter Wall

I think the difference between your approach and jbmurray's is that he wrote the article on Wall as cultural phenomenon whereas you want to rewrite it as a biography. Apart from anything else, the second approach is made impossible anyway by the lack of biographical information. A person's name at the top of an article doesn't mean it has to be a biography in toto. I've fielded plenty of criticism at Anton Chekhov for writing it as an impressionistic piece, modelled on the style of his short stories, rather than as a biography (though people have ruined that effect now, and I have caved in): but I felt that his biography was boring, while his literary style is what makes him extraordinary. I think editors should be allowed this degree of independence rather than being forced into the lumpen mould of conveyor-belt biography. It's the only way we are going to keep gifted editors from being ground down and put off the project.

Do you remember all the trouble I had at James I of England trying to research the birth and death dates of his children? The reason was that the historians could not be bothered with such stuff, even in lengthy books. Biographical information is not necessarily notable, and in my opinion we should avoid becoming obsessed with it on Wikipedia. I think jb should be allowed to do it his way, and even fail at FA his way, if it comes to that. Idiosyncrasy makes the whole place more fun, I think, and, after all, is justifiable on the grounds of ignoring all rules. qp10qp (talk) 14:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

"I think the difference between your approach and jbmurray's is that he wrote the article on Wall as cultural phenomenon whereas you want to rewrite it as a biography." Yes, this is a nice and succinct way of putting things. I do also have an extended allegory up my sleeve, that takes in village fêtes, little old ladies, and the difference between chocolate cakes and fruitcakes. But I'll perhaps leave that for another day... --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

colon

Thanks for your advice. TONY (talk) 02:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

As an FYI...

[1] Sarcasticidealist (talk) 07:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem as far as I'm concerned. That edit reflects more on him than anyone else. Thanks for letting me know, though. If you see anything else happen (outside of his userspace), please remind people that he was warned. Carcharoth (talk) 07:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Sorry. I thought he was reverting my warning there. I see now he was reverting your warning. I should have checked. I'll apologise for giving him that second warning. Carcharoth (talk) 07:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I hand't noticed any of this, but, had noted the referred to edit. So warned [2]. SQL^{Query me!} 07:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Here's a {{WikiCookie}} to recharge your batteries after all the hard work you put in summarizing the MZMcBride situation. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 16:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Longish post

I avoid AN/I because I strongly believe that it is harmful to the project as a whole and should be abandoned with all due haste. But as it continues to be used (and defended), one begins to realize that you can't always get what you want. However, that doesn't mean I need to feed the beast. And so, I don't.

You mentioned to me several times that I should discuss deletions before making them. Well, I should point out that speedy deletions are supposed to be things that don't require any discussion. ; - ) But even if I wanted to post somewhere, I guess my real issue is where. Do we have an appropriate forum to announce such things. And, I suppose there's also a concern that making announcements will simply bring out vociferous users who do nothing but drama-monger. The general housekeeping work that I do is (supposed to be) uncontroversial. Though, it seems I can't even do CSD#R1 deletions anymore without someone getting angry. : - /

I think your discussion about the "watchlist effect" is spot-on. Not only do deletions show up in watchlists now, they also show up when attempting to re-create a page. And the detriment vs. benefit of these changes is unclear. One thing that is for certain is that my talk page is certainly busier than it used to be. There's also a "volume effect." For better or for worse, had I made the deletions that I recently made a lot more slowly, fewer people would have noticed / cared. The watchlist updates would have been spread out over days, and the talk page complains would have been spread out over weeks. Which I think explains how a lot of these deletions have been going on for years without any real notice given to them.

You've asked for a deletion analysis previously. I should be able to create something, though I'm not really sure what you're after. A lot of my earliest deletions were a wide variety of speedy deletions. I'll probably have to have a DB query run to get the full list and then it shouldn't be too difficult to parse. I'll get back to you on this.

Thanks for the heads-up regarding AGK's talk page. I read what you wrote there. I don't understand how you have the stamina to write as much as you do... : - ) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Sorry I haven't had time to answer yet, but it is good to understand things a bit better. I see AGK has a nifty "backlog of talk page posts to answer" system. I should try that some time! Carcharoth (talk) 07:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I had one of the Toolserver folks pull all of my deletions from the database. There wasn't much I could do too easily to analyze them properly. However, I did remember that I've been writing a user subpage for a few months that you might find interesting. It's sort of technical, but it breaks down a lot of the maintenance work I do. It still needs quite a bit of updating, but it's a start. It's /CSD in my user space. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group (3rd nomination)

There are better ways of resolving problems with the BAG, such as WP:CENT. The current looks of the MFD is a 9-0 tally (excluding the nominators), and I would just speedy keep this one per WP:BOLD and WP:SNOW, but there are multiple requests on the page to let it run longer. Please let me know if you still object to it being closed early. Useight (talk) 06:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that CENT is one of the other options, but really, a 5-day discussion is not going to harm things. My view is that having the tag on WP:BAG for 5 days (drawing attention to the problem in a way that CENT would not - or do cent discussion tags get high profile visibility on a page?) is better than closing the discussion early and people edit warring again (it has been going on for months). People might say block or topic ban the edit warriors, but I've not convinced that would be the right course of action here because (a) Locke Cole does have a valid point; and (b) those reverting are BAG members, so it is difficult to judge neutrality. This is, again, partly why I didn't want to accept a BAG membership nomination. If the current tag were replaced by one to a discussion, then a close might be a good option. Finally, part of the problem is that Miscellany for Deletions are really sometimes just centralised discussions by another name. MfD came before CENT, and I'm not convinced that CENT solved all the problems or gets people's attention as much as it should. A visible tag on the BAG page itself and other location is the only way to get enough input, I think. Certainly, Locke Cole should have explored other options, but once the discussion is open, moving venue can sometimes be counterproductive. I'd still favour waiting to see what happens. Carcharoth (talk) 08:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Arghh, I got into some lengthy discussion with another Wpedian on other things whilst looking at the MFD. I was going to !vote "whatever Carch says" (with the option to say whatever I thought), but now it's closed. Dang! Sweeping under the table doesn't seem a good approach here, but I guess I'll wait 'til the next inevitable go-round. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 08:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of page move redirects that were a year old

Hi there. Could I ask you to look in on the discussion at the bottom of the section here? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 07:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've replied but I can't see why this is an issue. --Kleinzach 08:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Appreciate

Thank you little Carchzilla. bishzilla _ROARR!! 12:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC).

Monthly updates

Thanks, that's kind of you to say so! TONY (talk) 13:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Your question...

.. has a reply - thanks! FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

. . . BTW, your note at the bottom of the page

You wrote: " . . . BTW, your note at the bottom of the page . . . . There are ways to do this cleanly, probably involving transcluding from a subpage, but it can get complicated. Just letting you know there is a solution if you want to avoid moving it down to the bottom all the time." . Thanks indeed. How can I do this? --Kleinzach 23:10, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Library of Congress (loc.gov) Image Titles

The following Discussion/Talk about Image:Project Paperclip Team at Fort Bliss.jpg was posted elsewhere instead of at that image's Talk page:

I've come across a Library of Congress (actually, Historic American Engineering Record) picture similar to Image:Project Paperclip Team at Fort Bliss.jpg, which seems to have been taken at around the same time, but where the provided information contradicts what is said at Image:Project Paperclip Team at Fort Bliss.jpg. The image is here, and it says: "34. HISTORIC VIEW OF GROUP PHOTO OF THE GERMAN ROCKET DESIGN TEAM SHORTLY AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL AT THE REDSTONE ARSENAL IN 1950." The image is number 34 on the list here (click on the "53 B&W images" link at the top to get back to the pictures). ... User:Carcharoth (Commons) 20:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

However, the hyperlink identified as 53 B&W images" displays a page of thumbnails with captions -- captions that are themselves hyperlinks to the images. Please note that the hyperlink caption is what generates the inaccurate title for the image and that the actual image in question does not have a title. To illustrate, here is a link that has a different title for the image in question

Also, please note that the file Image:Project Paperclip Team at Fort Bliss.jpg has an Other Versions section, which is where an Edit is appropriate (instead of Discussion/Talk). Likewise, the Image page also identifies that there are differing captions for the Image. Mugs2109 (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Follow up on topic ban

Hi Carcharoth, I've tried to reach you by email but haven't heard back from you. I am curious to hear what conclusions, if any, you reached about my topic ban. (I've asked John about this too.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 12:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I think the pages are currently imperfect in the ordinary way. That is, I think they need to be improved by ordinary, civil editing. On the current interpretation of the ArbCom ruling, however, the pages are likely to become biased in a different way. A particular POV has been identified and is now being actively marginalized. I don't even hold that POV, and I've been banned just for proposing to treat its proponents with a modicum of respect.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Comets

Yes, I think that probabably means old style/new style, since January would still have been in 1664. These were later comets than the one James saw in 1618, but, reading around this, it seems that Robert Hooke thought one of the comets was the 1618 one returning. Although he actually turned out to be wrong, he was on the right lines in believing that comets were a returning phenomenon, as Halley proved much later. Interestingly, it seems that the scientific community in 1664-65 did not consider the idea of the comet as a portent, which was still a big deal in 1618—shows how far scientific thought had advanced in the interim. One gets the impression from Pepys of a scientific age in full swing by then.

Awadewit and I have put Mary Shelley up for Peer Review, if you can find the time to have a look. Not really my period, but I've immersed myself in the books and tried my best to keep pace with Awadewit. I'd be very interested in your thoughts on the "Naples charge" (see "Italy" section): this is a true mystery, with several equal possibilities: I hope to do an article on it sometime. I cannot solve it, but I wouldn't put that past your intrepid self. I've become obsessed with cracking it. qp10qp (talk) 16:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, it looks like an insoluble mystery. Particularly as the child died young. In fact, it is rather depressing reading about all those children dying young. And then I got to the bit where her husband dies in that boating accident: Percy Bysshe Shelley#Drowning. That is a really fascinating mystery! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't find that one so much of a mystery; I don't really believe any conspiracy theories about it. But what happened in Naples is extraordinary because clearly you had four people sworn to secrecy about what was going on. It's Elise who breaks ranks two years later. Basically, she says that Claire had Shelley's baby in Naples, and this is by far and away the biggest clue and the biggest likelihood, it seems to me, yet it seems none of the commentators go for it. My first principle is "never neglect the obvious", but that's exactly what everyone seems to be doing. The reason one has to be on top of one's game with Claire and the Shelleys is that in my opinion the threesome's journals are totally rigged. I don't think most scholars can quite grasp the fact that they are being blatantly duped by people who knew full well the power of diaries and the likely scrutiny of posterity. qp10qp (talk) 01:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Putting threat looming overhead behind me

It's not possible to put the threat behind me, because one of the biggest problems on Wikipedia, outside of the missing articles on major topics in tropical agriculture and its pests, is the amount of misinformation or poorly sourced information. This needs tagged. I'm not allowed to tag content as needing sourced on Wikipedia or I'll be banned. Looming threats lie overhead, not in front. I do hope you don't get whatever information you do have on tropical plant diseases from Wikipedia, though. ANd I'm sorry when I see so much bad information returned via google searches that find these Wikipedia wrongs. But, thanks for the note. --Blechnic (talk) 22:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll just get banned if I point things out, so there's no benefit in it. Right now I edit crap, and it passes the time.

I shoot micrographs and have issues with false colorization for electron micrographs, except when the colors are for light micrograph sized critters and the colors are correlated with the LM, which is what I do: EM (SEM and TEM) and LM, as usual, then colorize my SEMs only according to my light micrographs. On Wikipedia it's done poorly by amateurs who know nothing about micrographs. For example, there's a featured picture where the carbon sticky tape has been elaborately colorized along with the bug. I was going to post some of my micrographs, but the quality of micrographs on Wikipedia is so poor and the editors so entrenched in keeping the poor ones that it seems pointless. There are excellent sources on-line about tropical agricultural pests, although in my area, tropical West Africa, most are in French--copyright laws in western Africa are diverse and complex. The limits are in the sources that describe the morphology of the pests and the ecology of the ecosystems. Still, there's good on-line material, particularly viruses. --Blechnic (talk) 23:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Priory of Sion Peer Review

Hello. You would be interested in participating in the peer review of the Priory of Sion article? --Loremaster (talk) 11:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Image work

FYI, since, in retrospect, I didn't make this really clear on my talk page - I'd like to wait until Redvers retracts his block threats before resuming image work. From what I've seen, admins never get sanctioned for bad blocks until they do very many of them (I saw this once I started looking into Ryulong's background after my block). They can even block anyone at will and not give any explanations at all, and it's not a problem! (I saw this with the Can't sleep clown thing that's going on now.) I would prefer not to get my block log sullied any further unnecessarily. Kelly ^hi! 01:25, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Arbcom proposal

I'd be very interesting in your take on this current proposed ArbCom decision. Until a few hours ago, the only place this was being discussed on-wiki appears to have been the related proposed decision page and its talk page. Notices have now been posted on WP:VPP and WP:BLP talk page. Risker (talk) 03:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Marked as resolved

Well, I sure wasn't expecting anything better. Save your wind from posting on my talk page in the future. Don't worry, I'll do the same for you. --Blechnic (talk) 06:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)