Infrogmation

This is the talk & discussion page for user Infrogmation

Older discussion moved to User talk:Infrogmation/Archive1

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Let's please not start referring to all Americans as "USA". That's not even a nationality. -- Zoe

Yep...it should be Usian :)

Hm. Since an encyclopedia should value precision, I like using "USA" when practical instead of "America" or "American" as it is short, clear, and unambiguous. Do you think that this is wrong or inappropriate? Perhaps there is somewhere in Meta or such where this should be discussed? Cheers, -- Infrogmation 20:52 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

Discussion of when to best use terms like "American", "USA", etc moved to Talk:List of United States people (see).

BTW, I've wondered from some reactions I've seen: Does anyone consider the abreviation "USA" to be somehow insulting or deragatory? -- Infrogmation 23:37 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

The below section moved here from Talk:List of United States people

below posted by a non-logged-in user posting from 128.193.88.80

Finally, I want to cast light on how I perceive Infrogmations behavior in all this.

To begin with, review the history log for Edward_Everett_Horton and in particular the edits that took place on February 18th. You will see that Infrogmation's stated position is that "USA" should be as an adjective, as in "Edward Everett Horton was an USA actor". I corrected that edit and we had a polite little discussion in Talk:Edward Everett Horton.
The discussion continued, with User:Zoe and User:Koyaanis Qatsi joining in, over in User_talk:Infrogmation. That discussion has since been relocated, but can be found in the history logs. It appeared that all involved agreed that further discussion (if any) would take place in the Wikipedia: domain, or the mailing list, or in meta.
On February 24th, despite knowing that this was an issue that other users were concerned with, Infrogmation used his sysop powers to move List_of_Americans to List_of_United_States_People. Prior to this move, the content in question had been long been located at List_of_Americans.
Within minutes, I attempted to revert his changes. I grant that it takes two people for there to be an edit war, and we went back and forth as to where the content should reside. Infrogmation responded by using his sysop powers to protect the page in question and to ban the IP address I was currently using.
In defending his actions, Infrogmation lied to the community, saying I wouldn't call it "least favorite choice" as it's been under that name for months. I reverted some edits from the unlogged in person who was making multiple changes without discussion. I'd be happy with several options, I prefer them to minimize ambiguity. - In fact, he had moved the content that very day and he had done so without discussion or consensus.

In short, I believe that "USA" vs "American" is a pet issue of his, that he knew others differed with him before this change, and that he has been abusive of his sysop powers while attempting to enforce this change.

Infrogmation responds:

128.193.88.80, you have repeatedly misrepresented my positions (sometimes I suspect deliberately). I will refrain from bogging this discussion here with the details. (I'll only mention that the talk moved from my own user page was, as I state there, moved here, and can be seen at Talk:List of United States people/archive without having to hunt through history.) As I said simply and plainly in our early encounter, "I certainly am aware that people from the USA commonly refer to their nationality as "American". I am not calling that "wrong". I just think that the term "USA" is clearer and more specific-- and not "wrong" either.". I don't want this to be a fight between us. In intrest of increasing signal to noise ratio, I'd even be willing to withdraw from this discussion if you promise to do the same. Shall we? -- Infrogmation

below paragraph by 128.193.88.80:

I have primarily represented your position by using your own words. Your offer to have me withdraw from this discussion seems to be nothing more than an attempt to stifle the only critic who had the patience to look through the logs and document the behaviors you have exhibited which have led us to this place. I maintain that you have abused the powers of being a sysop, and you have attepted to force this change knowing that it was contriversial, and knowing that other users wanted further discussion.

Infrogmation responds:

I think you overestimate the powers I have on wikipedia (which I suspect is an honest mistake), and that you are seriously misrepresenting my positions and actions (which I suspect is deliberate). If any logged on users are interested in my version of anything 128.193.88.80 talks about I'm glad to share, but I have little interest in arguing with 128.193.88.80. -- Infrogmation 22:12 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

I am a new user of Wikipedia. I tried to adapt some material that I wrote about Dan Dennett's book Elbow Room for Wikipedia. I had previosly posted my work at my GeoCities website. Can you tell me what the correct method is for doing this? JWSchmidt 20:39 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

Hi. Wikipedia has to beware of people trying to put copyrighted material without permission. When an unlogged in user places a large block of text that duplicates websites elsewhere it raises flags. It looks like in Talk:Elbow Room you explained the situation fine. Your text is now back in the article.

For future reference of others in similar situations, it might be a good idea to put a short explanation on the discussion page when adding a prexisting chunk of text to Wikipedia, as I did on Talk:Sidney Bechet. Other info at: Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers and Wikipedia:Copyrights.

Welcome to Wikipedia -- Infrogmation 20:59 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your editing at FletcherHenderson. I appreciate the improvements and, just as important, the demonstation of correct Wikipedia-style --User:SeanO (how does one add the time??)

Thanks. To put your user name in a comment, use three tildes (~) in a row. For time as well, make it 4 tildes. -- Infrogmation 22:48 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

Directing your attention to Champion Jack Dupree and Lester Melrose. When Champion Jack sings about "Rampart and Dumaine", what is the spelling of the second street and what is the significance of the intersection? Ortolan88

Rampart Street on both sides of Canal Street was heavily given over to entertainment establishments for African Americans. Dumaine is on the downtown side, on the edge of the French Quarter. I'd have to do some research to know what clubs/bars/etc were at that intersection when Dupree made that record. -- Infrogmation

Rampart and Dumaine, address of J&M Records and J&M Studio of Cosimo Matassa. Ortolan88

Aha, of course! The uptown river corner of the intersection, IIRC. --Infrogmation

&#34521&#36039 (frog+data) -&#35918&#30505

(re: how to view characterson User_talk:Stevertigo)

Glad you asked... What system/browser are you using...? -&#35918&#30505

Usually Win98/Opera. Opera has several encoding options which include Chinese, Big 5, but switching to that and reloading didn't help; maybe I need to have fonts loaded somewhere? I had no beter luck with IE. --Infrogmation

Hmm. Maybe Unicode UTF-8 encoding is the issue... and try explorer again, but just do the winupdate - and select Chin and Jap options... let it do its thing and restart... I use 98 /IE6 and it works fine... Im running it in western ISO mode as well, so no need to change encoding... The big5 GB and Jis codes can be overkill... JIS x gets into 68,000 characters! useless... ---&#35918&#30505

Hm. I tried IE changing to ISO and UTF-8 and other "Encoding" options. I was sorta hoping for a link to something where I could figure out what to switch/upload myself. Ah well. --Infrogmation 22:08 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)