User talk:Wrye/2007-01

Deleting pages out of process

Keep in mind that our deletion policy has changed. Uncontroversial pages, like the one you just deleted, should go through the seven day proposed deletion process. Please do not delete pages that have not gone through this process or the deletion review, unless of course when dealing with simple vandalism or other speedy deletion criteria. --Aristeo | Talk 22:50, 20 November 2006 (EST)

Okay, but that needs to be on the editorial help pages. Also, there needs to be some guidance on using templates too. Knowing that I was going to doing some editing tonight, I looked around the help pages a little bit, but didn't find anything on either subject. It would be useful if all the editing help pages were linked in that tabbing structure that Wikipedia uses.

Hmmm... Also, the actual deletion process is not given in the "Deletion process" section of the deletion page. (Okay, there are different levels of process, and higher levels are doc'ed, but lowest level (e.g., "add the {{proposeddeletion}} template at the top of the page") is not doc'ed.) --Wrye 23:10, 20 November 2006 (EST)

The editorial help pages unfortunately focus more on newcomers and the mechanics of editing than towards the intelligent editors and the process of editing. This should definitely be fixed, and wouldn't be too difficult to do since all it would require is that we link to what we've already made. I also feel that we should increase on what we've already done, which may take a little more effort but still wouldn't be too difficult. If you would like to contribute to this, you're more than welcome. I'm also open to any suggestions that you have. --Aristeo | Talk 22:29, 23 November 2006 (EST)

Civility

Moved from User_talk:64.150.0.1

I have no problems with Lurlocks reply. 1) Spammers don't deserve civility, and 2) Lurlock's reply was civil. He's not rude, just direct and accurate. Gotta say this guy is almost amusing... Spamming the site with an "I am not spamming message." Pretty ridiculous. Then claiming a shared ip for an ip where reverse IP won't even resolve to an address, and posting a bogus "I'm not him message." Right. Pull the other one. --Wrye 14:20, 30 November 2006 (EST)

All users, even vandals, have the right to demand civility. I can't stress this enough. If you felt like Lurlock's comments needed defending, that's perfectly understandable. It is not acceptable to leave negative messages that cause an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress, especially when a situation has already been resolved. All this accomplishes is it adds more fuel to the fire, which results in less ability to resolve the current conflict, or the next one. --Aristeo | Talk 15:52, 30 November 2006 (EST)

I'm glad to see that you removed your own criticisms of Lurlock's post. It's hard to too see how your reponse to Lurlock would be consistent with the arguments above.

As for rights to civility, obviously, you and I differ on this matter. Spammers in being uncivil, abandon any claim to receiving civility. Same basic principle as in law - people have basic rights to freedom, but when they abridge someone else's rights in this matter, they likewise surrender their own -- i.e., society can imprison them.

Now, pragmatically I agree that it's usually best for us to not respond in kind (especially when we have a very efficient mute button). But that brings me back to my second point, which was that Lurlock's reply was not uncivil.

Nor was mine for that matter. Since you're withdrawing your objection to Lurlock, I'll agree to the withdrawal of that part of my post which was in reply to your reply. But the rest is going back.--Wrye 18:57, 30 November 2006 (EST)

I would like to point out that even criminals have some civil rights, such as the 8th ammendment (at least, in the US: Creul and Unusual Punishment). In addition, it may not be a lie that he is behind a shared IP address. Really not much we can tell. As far as I am concerned, he/she deserves civility, even if they have done the worst. Just beause a man is a murderer, does it make it right to kill him? Just because a man is rude, does it make it right to be rude to him? (or her, for all situations) -- Dylnuge(talk · edits) 23:43, 4 December 2006 (EST)

As for the question about a shared ip address, I think that the likelihood was beyond a reasonable doubt -- for the reasons that I stated in my argument. Not beyond all doubt, but beyond a reasonable one. Untraceable ip (unlikely for a shared ip). No valid contributions from that user. The objection message came in immediately enough to obviously be a fake (and right after the spammer fessed up from being caught in his previous lie). Untraceable ip further suggested a spammer. And besides, if there is a valid user at the ip, there are plenty of ways still for them to demonstrate it. (E.g., active and constructive presence at another Elder Scrolls site.) The main consideration left is if the spammer moves to a different ip and some innocent person gets it and inherits the block. For such reason, my inclination was to go for a 6 month block. But again, any new innocent user would still be able to read the site, and if attempting to edit would receive a ban message which could be easily responded to in a credible way.

As for rudeness, I think that's pretty much the same as civility? Which is what I discussed above. And as for capital punishment, hmmm... Let's not go there. I think we've probably got enough controversy already, eh? --Wrye 00:47, 5 December 2006 (EST)

Okay then, how about this example? People have some basic human rights, one of which is liberty. They cannot sacrifice or lose these rights (although they can be killed or imprisoned for infringing on others rights). Therefore, even criminals deserve some civility. Spamming has only been made illegal for e-mail and regular mail (even telemarketing, essentialy phone spam, is legal, although in the US you can register your phone number on a list called the Do Not Call list, and it is illegal for anyone to telemarket to the numbers on that list). Therefore, spamming a wiki is not enough of a crime to give someone 1 second of commnity service with. Physical vandalism is a crime, but vandalism in metaphysical realms has not yet been made one (probably because of the relitivly little cost and effort it takes to fix vandalism and stop vandalism online). So far, I have established:

1. Even criminals, the lowest of all humanity, desevre some civility.
2. Metaphysical vandalism is not considered a crime, so the person preforming it is not a criminal.

Therefore, this valdal deserves some civility. Admitably, they are not the nicest people in the world.

PS: My local library and my high school both have untracable IP addresses/Ping Blocking servers. Its not that uncommon. Although I do believe the spammer is lying about having a Shared IP, its not impossible or even unlikely. In fact, I don't entirely doubt that the spammer even is lying. What I do doubt is that anyone else on his shared server (if it exists) uses, has uesd, or will ever use the UESP. -- Dylnuge(talk · edits) 17:30, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Hmm... You say that liberty is a right which cannot be sacrificed or lost. But if that were so, then we wouldn't be be able to imprison criminals. One of the most basic aspects of liberty is freedom of movement -- i.e., of being able to walk, drive where I want, when I want (within the restrictions of not violating another persons's property rights, etc.). So, the legal theory of imprisonment is that the person has (temporarily at least) lost much of their right to liberty.--Wrye 21:15, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Come to IRC?

I would like to invite you to come to the IRC channel at your earliest convenience. We obviously have a couple unresolved issues that need to be discussed, and the real time discussion enviroment can help resolve these issues quickly. Thanks! --Aristeo | Talk 18:52, 1 December 2006 (EST)

I agree. It's easier to see what the issue is if its in real time conversation. Long essays are boring. (this was my idea, not Aristeo's.) --Timmeh 23:01, 3 December 2006 (EST)

Timmeh, thanks for your comment, but irc is a particularly poor choice for this sort of discussion. As I argue on the page, irc is already limited because of its lack openness and recording (e.g., afterwords, you don't know who said what/when). Aside from that, long discussions on ideas simply require more time, and the written word is more efficient for that. E.g., while writing I have time to go research something that was written elsewhere (e.g., wikipedia guidelines), or reconsider the phrasing of something.

Putting it another way, boring as it is to read, think of how much less exciting it is for us to sit down for hours on end to research/write/re-write the stuff! Not the way I had hoped to spend a chunk of my weekend, I'm telling ya! But it's important, and hopefully worth it in the long run. Cheers, --Wrye 23:18, 3 December 2006 (EST)

Actually, its fairly easy to know who said what. Maybe all the IRC clients you have seen are bad. But, for the argument for IRC, it is much easier to know what people actually think when you can compromise on the spot. It helps save long discussion pages over small issues. Plus, a large amount of good editors go there (me). — Unsigned comment by Timmeh (talk • contribs)

Well, always glad to see a healthy level of self-appreciation! :) Generally, I agree it's good for small issues. E.g., I want way A, you want way B, but it's not that big a deal either way. That's easy to sort out in irc. And it's quick for some real time stuff -- Rick and I used it while sorting out some mod/save file format stuff.

But again, it's really not well suited for large issues like this. As for recording... Yes, you can record stuff, but 1) it's not well formatted, which makes for lousy reading later, 2) it's not well thought out, which again makes for lousy reading later, and 3) the recordings aren't available here. Open discussion means that they should be available at this site just by navigating to a page. --Wrye 00:37, 4 December 2006 (EST)

I didn't want to discuss any of the issues brought up on the Community Portal in IRC. I meant we have a couple issues between us that need to be settled before we can work together on deciding things for the wiki. :) --Aristeo | Talk 21:21, 4 December 2006 (EST)

Well, there's a lot of water under the bridge at this point, but if you're still interested, than please email me. If you do that, then mention something here as well since I don't check that account very often. I know email is a bit old fashioned, but it works well, and doesn't require me to install an irc'some client on my machine. Besides, sync contact is just too much like work. --Wrye 21:51, 4 December 2006 (EST)

Sorry to interrupt here, but have you heard of this latest cool invention? It's some sort of real-time, always on, voice chat system, I think they're calling it the telephone or something like that? ;-) — Endareth^Talk–Edits 00:44, 5 December 2006 (EST)

You could use a java client.. :) --Aristeo | Talk 02:12, 5 December 2006 (EST)

The zoo keeers let us have phones for a little while, but then took them back after some monkey (*cough*, not me of course) ran up a huge bill calling the "All Lara, All the Time" 900 hotline. Actually, the only reason that we have even computers is because some of some research grant. We weren't sure what to do with them at first, so we started knocking out some goofy melodramas. The researchers got pretty excited about the one with dueling families, where two stupid kids end up whacking themselves at the end. We were knocking out quite a bit of stuff like that when Morrowind came out, and we switched to making mods. The researchers were kind of unhappy about that, but one of the other monkeys started working on a mod about this prince in Mournhold (his uncle kills his father, then the prince acts crazy, and in end just about everyone dies). Anyway that seemed to mollify the researcher. :shrug: BTW, did you know that "Oscuro" is actually the codename for a team of Monkeys in the Bronx Zoo? I mean you didn't really think that any single human could do that amount of work, did you?

As for java, we'd love to use it, but the research team is funded by Microsoft and they won't let us install it on our computers. Horatio (the Monkey doing the Mournhold prince mod) suggested that we invite the Microfties to visit the pythons, but in the end, the rest of us nixed the idea. Afraid they might mate.

So, email it is. ;) --Wrye 19:07, 5 December 2006 (EST)