TMC

About my name

Is this name really appropriate for the wikipedia? I'm no prude, but still... --Easterbradford

It depends from where he is. In my country there are a lot people with that name. See here. The first thing I think about when I see the word "cock" is a male chicken. Rooster? Cock is french for a male chicken. --Giskart

I have to agree, it would be nice if you found a new name. The joke wears old fast and it really is quite vulgar. user:Isis claims that the repeated appearance of the name is what led her to quit just recently. What do you say? --Larry Sanger

Welcome to Wikipedia! No one will delete your page, but as you can see, certain Wikipedians are going to be offended by it. You'll probably have to fight about it with someone every other week... --Stephen Gilbert

I can live with that. --Cock

Trust me, I do understand the cleverness of your choice of username. And perhaps I was being extreme to request that your page be deleted. If you are a reasonable, responsive person, perhaps you will come to that conclusion yourself.

Freedom is fine, but we should realize that small children will increasingly use Wikipedia.

Perhaps you don't have small children. I have no way to communicate the desire parents have to nourish and protect their kids.

I think a good criterion for page titles should be: anything that would be appropriate in a popular paper-based encyclopedia. By this criterion, your page, in spite of its clever double-entendre, is not appropriate.

Please respond to me at User talk:David spector. -- David

I'm always leery when someone implies that we suffer from too much freedom, when in fact we spend our labor in an atmosphere dreadfully short of that nourishing quality. Nonetheless, there can still be discussion regarding my chosen name.

David is willing to credit my name as being a ?clever double-entendre?, but that is likely crediting me too much. It isn?t particularly clever (as perhaps le coq géant might have been) and only an elaborate image can produce a different interpretation than springs to mind for most Anglo readers. Whether or not this is a punishable offense, I suppose, will lie in the hearts of fellow wikipedians.

I cannot see the plea that I should be removed to ?protect the children? as one that should be given serious credence. My name consists of three words, each of which would be perfectly acceptable in a children?s dictionary. Any supposed inappropriate meaning for those words comes only from the mind of the reader, and not from any inducement that I have placed on this site.

If wikipedia is intended to be a learning resource for ?small children?, as is proposed above, then I maintain there is already a critical need for the swift hand of the censor to strike fiercely. I ask you, which of the following pages would you least want to explain to your inquisitive eight-year-old:

--Cock

Good point, well made :-) --Tarquin

I think this is totally invalid. It's not rude or inappropriate for us to have factual, informative articles on human anatomy and sexuality or on obscenity. But to casually use lewdness is simply not the same. DanKeshet 16:40 Nov 14, 2002 (UTC)

Foo to the censors. We have articles on the words nigger, fuck and even on the hideous goatse.cx (not to mention penis, clitoris, and vagina). This is a Free as in Speech website -- moralists are more than welcome to copy our database and set-up a children-safe version. We do have a stong NPOV and "we are an encyclopedia" policies though but that doesn't extend to user pages. I do ask that you don't post an image of a male member on your user page unless it has some encyclopedic interest; like a closeup of Michelangelo's David for example (but I wouldn't classify that as a monster). BTW, I really like what you did to rainbow flag and flag of Germany. You might be interested in WikiProject US States and/or WikiProject Countries. --mav

Hmmm... that's an interesting user name you've got there, oh giant rooster :) --Karen Johnson

You might want to enter a nickname in your Preferences, like Maverick149 signs above with "mav". "tmc" for example. That should keep the censors quiet. -- Tarquin

I can live with that compromise. I'll start using "Cock" as my nickname --Cock (Oct 17)

Are you willing to change your username to Le coq géant or somesuch? Or do you feel that it's important enough to maintain a challenge to potential censorship in the future that it outweighs the consideration of the bother it causes to people? --The Cunctator

Or mayby "Throbbing Monster C***" and use "C***" for short. --giskart

btw Giskart, Cock is french for a male chicken is not true. Coq is. Cock is not a french word. Different spelling. The first thing I think when I read cock is balls, the second is cocaine. --Anthere

No, I am not willing to change my username. I am willing to consider a different nickname for use in my signature though. Since "TMC" seems to be popular when others refer to me, I'll switch to using that for now. --TMC (Nov 13)

Why not? Are you deliberately cruel to people? Why not log in most of the time as TMC, and only log in as Throbbing Monster Cock when you feel that some grand expression of free expression needs to be made? --The Cunctator

In answer your rhetorical question - "No I am not deliberately cruel". This is the username I have chosen to use. Unlike many other things on Wikipedia, usernames are not subject to editing by other users. --TMC

Why have you chosen that, then, if not to antagonize other users?

Cock, for what it is worth: when I first saw your user name I thought it was childish ... but I read your own explanation, and thought about it, and realized that my initial feelings simply do not matter. It is your name, and it is up to me how I respond to it. In general, I dismiss arguments that people are being "cruel" when they are just being themselves. If you make fun of the way I dress, you are being cruel; if you dress in an unusual fashion, that is your business. If you call me a cock, you are bing cruel; if you call yourself a cock (or some varient) -- well, the way I see it, that is your business too. I simply do not see how you can be cruel to others when you are not doing anything to others. There are too many real forms of cruelty plaguing our world to make a fuss over your user name (and to those who do not believe cock refers to a male chicken -- what on earth did you imagine the Oklahoma ballot initiative against cock fighting was all about?) Good luck! Slrubenstein

Copyright of Hitler's Balls

You're mistaken on the Hitler has only got one ball issue, Performances and Sound recordings are only protected for 50 years under UK law. --Imran

That was true until January 1st, 1996. On that date new copyright laws came into effect in Britain retroactively extending copyright to the life of the author plus 70 years. --Cock

The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995 (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19953297_en_1.htm), which came into force on Jan 1st 96 states 50 years in sections 6 and 10 (for sound recording and performances respectively). --Imran

We aren't dealing with a "sound recordings" or "performances" here, we are dealing with lyrics which are considered by the statute to be "musical works". See section 5 of the aforementioned act where 70 years is specified. --Cock

That assumes a pre-existing work which is being made publically available, I suspect spontaneous performances would only be covered by the performances section. Additionally I haven't been able to track down a published reference to these lyrics predating 1972.

Also there are the following other grounds for considering it having expired copyright,

1.The lyric were based on a tune that was still in copyright, meaning that the new song was illegal thus unable to gain copyright.

2.The lyrics were probably produced by members of the British Army under contract to the government, possibly implying the lyrics fall under crown copyright.

3.As an extension to the previous pointing marching songs tend to have implied licencing.

--Imran

My Cockish replies to the above:

1. If a new work is created based upon a work that is "in copyright", then it is a derivitive work. It is not "illegal", but the copyright ownership is split between the owner of the new work and the owner of the original work. Key point, there is still a copyright.

I'm not sure thats true as permission hasn't been given to be make that derivative work, however I'm not certain, I'll look it up in a law library on Monday and get back to you on that point.

2. Items held under "Crown Copyright" cannot be used in wikipedia. See [1] for more on this.

Crown Copyright lasts 50 years after publication.

3. I don't follow your point.

Marching songs are commonly expected to be copied and modified, which creates an implied licence, much in the same way posting to usenet creates an implied licence for usenet servers to distribute articles.

There is no such implied license, at least not in the form you seem to think it exists. You can legally demand that any usenet server that is hosting an article you wrote remove it. That is why, for example, Google provides the ability to remove articles you have posted from their usenet servers [2].

Think about it like this. Everything you write, you own. You can control what is done with it for the life of your copyright. You can revoke any license you grant, unless the explicit terms of the license stated it was irrevokable.

Implied licences are on shaky grond most of the time, but to the best of my knowledge no one has successfully sued for a usenet message being replicated by a usenet server. In a number of cases cancel messages have been found not to cause a legal obligation to remove a message. An implicit licence can be irrevokable if it is commonly (commonly as decided by the courts) regarded as such.

Google is an archive service so that's a different matter, and there offer is more out of "good will" then legal obligation I suspect. Especially if it could be shown that a complainant was aware of X-No-Archive (or whatever it is) and chose not to use it.

You are exactly right in stating that this is an untested area of the law. There isn't any case history that exactly address this question. But the primary reason that google removes usenet postings isn't just one of "good will", but one of legal protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

IIRC Dejanews first offered to remove postings back in '95 long before the DMCA.

A key point you should consider is that wikipedia is attempting to operate under the GFDL, which an explicit license. Allowing wikipedia to rely on a network of "implied licenses" is a threat to the project.

I agree that we should be carefull about only including GNU FDL compatible material (I'm the person who argued on the mailing list that we couldn't use "fair use" material due to its incompatibility with the GNU FDL), but I think in this particullar case there is reasonable evidence that we can licence it under GNU FDL. I'm going to put the full arguement on the topics talk page.

One more thing I forgot to add. The courts have ruled on usenet and copyrights in a very limited sense. When a work is posted to usenet, there is a short-lived period where it is being distributed and propagated throughout the usenet system, afterwhich it is assumed that the work will be deleted. If copies of a work are made for "intermediate and transient storage" and not kept any longer than are necessary, than the system operators are not held to have violated the copyright. Just a clarification.

Fair enough as the implied licence may be assumed to mean just that.

The lyrics are frequently cited in newspapers etc. If there was ever a case to answer it would have been brought years ago against an outfit with some money. This is a dead letter. user:sjc

Just because they got away with it doesn't mean the material is appropriate for wikipedia. The GFDL is very clear on what can be added. --Cock

Yes, it does actually. Supposing for a second that owners of the song exist, their past inaction implies their intention, under British law. -- Tarquin

Tarq, I think you are thinking of trademark law, not copyright law. Abandonment is a different concept under these two branches of the law. I'll grant you that there may be some twist of British law here that I don't know about, since I've primarily only studied American law. Even so, note that if the work in question somehow lapsed into the public domain in Britain, it could very well retain American protection (where, I believe, these servers are hosted).

I don't know about US law but British law has sections which basically say "if the work isn't copyright in the originating country then it's not copyright here". --Imran

The basic concept here in US law is that a foreign work recieves copyright protection at the moment it is created, as long as the US is in treaty with the foreign country. Once that US protection is granted, it remains regardless of what happens to the copyright status in the foreign country. The copyright comes from the creation of a work, not from what happens to it after creation. --Cock

This isn't to do with abandonment. It's a matter of delay. If I buy faulty goods from a shop and don't get round to complaining for a year, then I no longer have a case -- my inaction points to the fact that I accepted their condition. (there's no cut-off point, the laws say "reasonable time") That principle holds in most branches of UK law. -- Tarquin

Tarq, there is no "statute of limitations" for copyrights. All works have copyrights, even if the creators are anonymous and unknown. Go take a look at the statute referenced at [3] and read the part about works with unknown authors. --Cock

<sarcasm mode: on>By the way do you have any objection to my using fragments from Beowulf? I'd hate to find the descendants of some Anglo-Saxon scop turning up and asserting copyright. <sarcasm mode: off> user:sjc

Things I haven't sorted yet

Hi, nice work on the German flag article, it looks pretty good now. If you have any questions about Wikipedia, try Help or the Village pump to ask a question. Regards, Jeronimo

I look forward to reading your essays. If you want to generate more discussion about those issues, it might be better to post them at http://meta.wikipedia.org which exists for such material. If you post it on your homepage, many people will take that as a declaration of ownership and may not contribute to them. It all depends on what your goal is. --Stephen Gilbert 15:59 Oct 16, 2002 (UTC)

I am declaring ownership of them, at least until the ideas have solidified from their nebulous state in my mind and have taken a more concrete form. -- Cock

If you believe Wikipedia is doomed, why bother writing on it? Unless you think there is hope to avert such doom? "Seduction of Triviality" -- I call it the "Eternal Fight with Crap" ;-) -- Tarquin 10:39 Oct 16, 2002 (UTC)

Why bother? First, I'd prefer to see it succeed, even if I think it is destined to fail. Second, if I am correct, then I'd like to watch the failure unfurl. There might be a lesson there for future efforts.

So you're pessimistic, yet battling on against the odds? I think that's a fairly healthy attitude for a Wikipedian. ;-) -- Tarquin

Still, contributing to Wikipedia gives you more knowledge: you clarify the things you already know when you write them out, and you learn things others know when you read, research and copyedit their work. I don't think it's doomed, though. (I think it'll inspire the masses and start an NPOV revolution, dooming the Earth to this Tyranny of Neutrality! Well, no I don't.)

I only noticed you after you uploaded your image -- Sam

But the goal of Wikipedia is to produce a useful encyclopedia, is it not? If the value comes only from contributing, then Wikipedia has failed to meet the stated goal. -- Cock

I didn't say the value comes only from contributing! That's just a nice side effect. I, for one, find this site a useful source of information. -- Sam

Hello there Throbbing Monster Cock (kewl nic), welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need pointers on how we title articles visit Wikipedia:Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

I dont really appreciate being called a Moron, I dont think you were intending to: [4] - but please understand about me, I know an awful lot, but I am not always that good at putting it down and explaining things well. - fonzy

Of course. I apologize.

Hi there TMC. That's some nice 'shit' you added to the Flag of Germany! Could you tell us whether you made them yourself or if you got them from a copyright-free source? I've noticed they are nearly identical to the ones at Flags of the World, which could just mean you used them as an example (as I have done), but if you simply copied their flags, then we should follow their wishes. The compulsory quoting is kind of what led us to add our own national flags, see Talk:List of flags. Anyway, a great addition, though we should probably colour-coordinate the flags at some point ;) Scipius 14:58 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

That site is, of course, a good reference. My flag images are not copied from there though.

Well, existence is rather subjective. Lir 04:06 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Hey Cock -- I would like to discuss your raison d'être: In particular your criteria for success:

It must have a hierarchy of information topics.
It must have a hierarchy of information importance.
It must have a useful point of view.

For #1, I have never yet seen an encyclopedia that has such a heirarchy: Usually alphabetical order suffices. Furthermore in my experiences as a librarian and database designer and unix programmer, heirarchies, even if they can be agreed upon (unlikely here), are more likely to confuse than to enlighten.

For example, the best known and probably best implemented such heirarchy is Yahoo or Google. But where, off the top of your head, in that heirarchy would you find "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", or your favorite, "handballing"? What is lacking in a simple alphabetic search?

More importantly, why does imposing a heirarchy on everything make it better organized? Damned if I can remember where I left most of the files on my heirarchical file system, even though it was pretty well organized at the time...

Number 2: I'd partially agree -- Google's success shows the need for an importance ranking. But again why a heirarchy? A ranking of number of incoming links or number of hits should suffice, no? And who is to judge the importance, other than the collective?

Number 3: Okay, sure, but what's wrong with "Neutral"? And if you choose another one, don't you just reduce your audience size and increase conflict levels? Encyclopedias seem to me to be a collection of information, not a collection of opinions. There's no shortage elsewhere of opinions...

So anyway, nice start, love your confrontational attitude, but I think your 3 criteria are ill-considered.

Best, Steve Rapaport

I concur with the 3 criteria. Lir 17:35 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Cock, I have no objection to a gun rights article. The only reason it doesn't exist yet, is that no one has bothered to write it. Gun politics is the main article, and gun control is mostly (if I recall) about efforts to limit gun ownership; so, gun rights would mostly be about efforts to expand or facilitate gun ownership. This is not a case of censorship but of sheer laziness (at least on my part). --Ed Poor

yes I really don't know what their problem is. They seem very elitist, snobbish, and petty. Whenever they see something I have put in an article that they view is incorrect, they do not simply correct the error, but rather they revert everything that I have done. Then when I ask them about this they refuse to discuss or compromise and began to make personal attacks against me. Lir 21:25 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

I am hereby announcing my intention to delete this userid. If you have data you wish to save, you should do so within the next 24 hours. This name is nothing more nor less than simple vandalism. If you persist, I will ban you.

--Jimbo

Apparently what this means is that your contributions are welcome, but your user name is not. If you wish, Brion can run a script to change your user name to "TMC". This will affect the logs of all your contributions in Recent Changes and article histories, but will not remove the text "Throbbing..." from any talk page.

If you have any troubly logging in, or other comments, well, keep in touch, okay? --Ed Poor

At the moment I'm not having any troubles logging in, so I guess I'll just keep on keeping on and see what happens. --TMC

I say, if the name "Throbbing Monster Cock" is too controversial and offensive for Wikipedia, then by gum, we'd better delete those articles describing disgusting sex acts like felching and silly crap like handkerchief codes too. Otherwise, all the good, clean American folks using this encyclopedia might be shocked. Shocked, I say, shocked!

Geez, let the guy have his silly name. Tempest in a teakettle, folks. Stormwriter

My wife's name is Jane. What if someone's name, in homage to the Ackroyd thing on Saturday Night Live, was "Jane..."? (see talk:Bushims for full text)

Would you still support it then? That would make me very angry. --Ed Poor

If it said "Jane Poor...!" (forgive me, Ms. Poor!) then yes, I would have a problem with it. But if my name was Ezra (which it isn't), I wouldn't have a problem with someone called "Better than Ezra", no more than I would have with someone called "Floyd is an idiot!" if my name were Floyd (which, in fact, it is; after all, they're talking about Floyd the Barber, right?). But then, I'm a laid-back dude.

By the way, did anyone notice that we've all just assumed that Jimbo left the above message? In fact, it came from an anonymous IP address, 24.170.145.10, and I somehow doubt that Jimbo would post from such an address (though of course he could). That, combined with the fact that TMC retains his posting and log-on privileges, indicates to me that that Jimbo was a fake.

Though, of course, I reserve the right to be wrong. ;P Stormwriter

Don't be silly, the same message is on the mailing lists. And anyway, I confirm it, and you trust me, don't you? :-) --Ed Poor

But of course. Mea culpa. (Sorry, I don't usually read the lists). Stormwriter

...moved from Wikipedia_Village_Pump...

TMC, have you considered the database-level name-change to alter your full name in history lists? I'd like to invite Isis back to the 'pedia at some point. Brion and Jimbo have indicated they could go ahead and do it, but I imagine they would rather the request came from you than impose it. -- Tarquin 17:06 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

I neither request nor consent to a database driven name change. If this is done done without my request or consent, it is analagous to the use of force against me. --TMC

I disagree.

Why do you insist on clinging to this username when it's causing so many problems? Enough already! -- Tarquin 17:24 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

TMC, since you know that your username seriously annoys and offends people, why do you insist on it? Do you have any purpose in this other to seriously annoy & offend? Do you think you're making some sort of point? If so, what? -- Wondering simply, Infrogmation

Ok, if you're determined to stick with this username, and you're also moticated to help the project (as you claim on your page), how about YOU email Isis (see her userpage) and invite her back? She was, IMO, a valuable contributor. Can you can convince her to return? -- Tarquin 17:32 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

I sure got a good chuckle out of Recent Changes this morning reading

Rape; 20:04 . . Throbbing Monster Cock

Yeah, that sure was funny, oh boy, such an ironic juxtaposition, I just thought, that tongue-in-cheek fellow is so amusing, I have to laugh and laugh. Isis would like that one. Jerk. Ortolan88

LOL, saying the word "jerk" around a guy called "Throbbing Cock". You are just too funny for words, Tom. Yuk, yuk, yuk! --Ed Poor

If this is done done without my request or consent, it is analagous to the use of force against me. -- TMC I disagree, TMC. Consider your username to be a windshield. Consider the changing of it to be a baseball bat, and Brion to be the wielder. In Brion's world-view, the breaking of windshields is healthy and natural! Would you deny him the right to express himself? -- Tarquin 18:57 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

No more gallows humor is needed. See older versions of "rape". --Ed Poor

Your username has been changed to TMC as per Jimbo's request. Login as TMC, or as some other happy name, or contribute anonymously, great, but continued attempts to use "Throbbing Monster Cock" or similar will not be accepted. That's the way it is; if you don't like it, go hang out at your own doomed wiki. --Brion 21:16 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

I agree - trying to subvert the process is a banable offense. The name change has been decided for you TMC. --mav

And please remember, it was not for any opinions expressed but only because of the user name. Jimbo spoke well of your contributions. --Ed Poor

I concur. A decision has been made. Even if it is by means I do not agree with (top down), here on Wikipedia we respect decisions or leave. Expect to be banned if you continue to use your old name or any variant thereof. --Eloquence 21:28 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

I don't remember a vote being called on this subject. Lir 21:33 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't use voting. The current process is consensus finding, which, I agree, doesn't work well with large groups. If you want this to change, present your arguments here. --Eloquence 21:35 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, it's clear that most of us agree that totalitarian representative republicanism doesn't work. I for one never hated the rooster man's radioactive cock and I think those that did should run off to their elitist little nupedia project. Lir 21:38 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

It's been my experience that this so-called "consensus format" simply involves a few petty control freaks checking with each other and dismissing all dissenters as cranks, babies, idiots, trolls, or whatnot. Lir 21:42 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

Can we delete the entries for felching and handballing now? Stormwriter

Absolutely not! Wikipedia is a collection of all human knowledge. TMC's user name served no purpose - these articles do. I want to find information about all human sex practices in Wikipedia. --Eloquence 21:57 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)~

Don't read them if you don't wanna know. I didn't wanna know, but your advertising led me to read them. Otherwise I would never have known. :< Now that I know I figure it's better to leave them there then eventually censor out the anarchism page for it's being associated with the terrorist sympathizers. Lir 21:45 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

It wasn't an ad. My point is that if we can delete TMC's original name (not mentioned here to protect the faint of heart), then we can get rid of those disgusting entries. Of course, just because I find them disgusting doesn't mean everyone does; everyone has entries they don't like, I'm sure. If we weed them all out, it would be a very thin encyclopedia indeed. I know that at least one of the sysops is disgusted by homosexuality, but they haven't called for a deletion of all the articles related to homosexuality, because that person knows theirs isn't the only POV on the matter. On the other hand, they didn't bother to apply their NPOV to TMC's old name. It offended a few people, so it was deleted, period.

BTW, for those who want to argue with me, don't bother. I understand your viewpoint; I just don't agree with it, and I don't want to hear it all again. Nor do I want to be flamed or belittled as stupid, or inconsiderate, or uninformed. I am none of these. I have a right to my opinion, and it is this: If you're going to apply the rules, please do so consistently. Stormwriter