User talk:Willmcw~enwiki

• User talk:Willmcw/archive1
• User talk:Willmcw/archive2

Gangs of New York

check out the updated biography of William Poole, and look at all the original material at Wikisource on him. I am now going through the New York Times archive online and getting more info

Wow! What a wild time. There must be lots of out-of-copyright material now, maybe some illustrations? Photos of neighborhoods, maps, drawings from that era? Those long citations should eventually be summarized (since the source material can be easily accessed), but they make a great read. Good project. Cheers,-Willmcw 08:14, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

LaRouche (Again-sorry)

Hi! I rearranged the headings in the "POV Warrior" section on the decision/talk page so that you, me, and possibly SlimVirgin can respond in a row. I also added a note praising you and Slim for diligent and balanced editing attempts. If you don't like the headings and subheadings as is, fix them any way you want.--Cberlet 14:47, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I took a sneak preview of the LaRouche movement article last night. It's excellent work, as is your evidence. Thank you for doing it all. SlimVirgin 00:29, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Fabulous work. You ask if NBC actually reported those weird things. My recollection is yes (God this NPOV thing is like a virus) but I will go check. Will take a few days. Buried in an archive.--Cberlet 00:57, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks both. There are two almost-empty sections that I'm hoping each of you can help fill: funding and cultishness. Otherwise the article is virtually ready to post, I think (after stripping out some jokes and notes). [And of course, feel free to edit any part of it. It's not mine.]

BTW, I think the question about the NBC material was SV's. Also, I've posted a list of articles edited by HK/WH/CC/48 at User:Willmcw/sandbox2. I've compiled all their edits into a list (it was quick), and had hoped to get a chrono list, but the dates are hard to parse. If anyone is looking for a particular edit or edit summary, let me know. It appears that virtually every edit has been to further the LaRouche worldview. Cheers, -Willmcw 01:07, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Brilliant. SlimVirgin 02:16, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it was me who wondered about NBC. The HH position was that NBC accused LaRouche of murdering Palme, plotting to murder Kissinger and, I believe, Carter (I'm writing from memory). I was wondering whether NBC accused him or whether they reported the accusations of others. My Dennis King book has arrived by the way: I had it in storage in a previous place I lived, so a friend sent it on to me. I'm now fully armed. SlimVirgin 02:07, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

"(move in the 185,000-word template. (have baggage, will travel))" Laughing out loud. That long list of articles is bound to put in an appearance shortly. Have you given any thought to the poor soul who checked that it was 185,000? SlimVirgin 11:18, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your recent point to Fred, David Gerard of the arbcom is a very good person to put points like these to; he's very well-organized and knows the rules and the previous rulings, just in case you have no luck. He can be contacted on his page or via email as you prefer. SlimVirgin 00:53, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

I've asked almost every member of the ArbCom about why there's been no response to my complaint, including Gerard on Feb 8. At least he responded to say that he'd mentioned it to the other ArbCom members. Also, did you delete some material from the LaRouche case talk page? Cheers, -Willmcw 01:01, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I wonder whether an e-mail would work better? Just a thought. If I did delete material, I didn't mean to. What's missing? SlimVirgin 01:17, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the extra notes you've posted around. The ArbCom process is a bit confusing, at least for me. Cheers, -Willmcw 04:42, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. It is confusing. I'm wondering whether any of the admins will step in, as the ruling said (from memory) "on demonstration to the arbitration committee," so the admins may well refer you back there. Worth a try though. SlimVirgin 04:55, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Loved One

I'm actually reading The Loved One at the moment and finding it quite wonderful. A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I took a trip to Forest Lawn after having read about it, it was simply amazing. So maudlin, yet so earnest. The Loved One gets it perfectly. By the way, in your quest for LaRouche documentation, if you need someone to look up anything in backissues of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or even New Solidarity, I can do that pretty easily where I'm at right now, and can easily scan documents. --Fastfission 00:22, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Styles

Hi. You commented on attempts by some people to use styles like Royal Highness and Holiness when referring to title holders. They are trying to do that again on Pope John Paul II. The naming conventions say to define what someone's style is in the text, not use it. But a handful of people, having unilaterally changed the policy and begun adding in styles, are trying to have them used in articles.

(I'd better declare an interest here. I was one of the people who put together the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles). We had a discussion on styles twice. Both times most people saw major problems in using them. I put together a change to the conventions page to represent what people agreed, having said I was going to do it. Our 'stylists' now keep deleting the stuff from the naming conventions page, then insisting that there is no rule against putting them in, then calling styles a somewhat different thing called honorifics which are allowed, and which they then say can be added in.)

Your contribution on the Pope John Paul II and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) pages would be more than welcome. You, unlike them, see the practical problems, POV problems and complexities that arise if styles are used as opposed simply to being explained. FearÉIREANN 12:17, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Userfy

I saw your question on a VfD, asking what "userfy" means. That means to move the content of an article from article space to a user's personal userspace as a subpage. We sometimes do that if the article is a vanity bio of a registered user, or if it was created as an editing experiment that some impressive amount of work has gone into. Joyous 00:44, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your response. I'd finally posted a message on the other editor's talk page, where he responded. There's a very active editor who has a very long autobiography, which, if true, makes the guy appear to be the leading physician in Brazil. I believe the benefit that he is giving Wiki in other articles exceeds the 'cost' of his self-promotion, but I'm glad to know there is a way of handling it should a question ever arise. Cheers, -Willmcw 03:45, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Galton, Darwin, and Lincoln!

I'm glad you thought the same thing when you saw the recent edits to eugenics. If he keeps it up I'm going to refer him to the recently-concluded Darwin-Lincoln birthday dispute arbitration. On the one hand, I can't believe how much time is wasted on this sort of nonsense. On the other hand, I guess that's part of what one has to expect with a project like this. Sigh... --Fastfission 00:55, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

SNL

Well, I think it should have a brief mention of illness, doesn't need to specify. I agree that it should be kept short and simple. Everyking 23:23, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Black codes

Hey *waving*. Thanks for the note and the suggestion that I stop by Black Codes. Don't have any time today; I'm crunching deadlines. But I'll try to stop by later -- by which time the controversy likely will have been resolved. I will say that my recollection is that the draconean Black Codes first came into being in the Caribbean sometime in the early to mid 17th century and then were adopted by U.S. slaveowners as the numbers of enslaved Africans in proportion to the white population grew dramatically. In many locales, enslaved blacks outnumbered whites -- a dangerous situation for whites. deeceevoice 14:56, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee ruling

As a ruling has been made on the case involving you, the temporary injunction against you has expired. Please see the final decision for details. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 01:23, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thank you!  ;-) SlimVirgin 05:38, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words which are very much appreciated. I also have to say how impressed I was by your evidence, which was absolutely compelling, and was composed with great clarity, which I know is not an easy thing to do. Your finding the plagiarism was very important — in fact, pivotal — and I can only imagine how time-consuming that was. The difficulty of making people see how extensive the duplicity was, is that they had to go through all his edits for themselves to see it. You did that, and I'm very pleased and very grateful that you did. You're right about the Weed post being a classic. And now that the case is over, I hope I'll have more time to devote to my defense of Her Majesty. SlimVirgin 08:12, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

FYI, I just posted the following on David Gerard's talk page:

David, this may be nothing, but just to gave you the heads up. A new user User:Eggplantwizard (see User talk:EggplantWizard) has made a contribution to Talk:LaRouche Movement, a new article just posted by Willmcw, saying the content is a bit one-sided. I'm wondering whether this is Herschelkrustofsky's latest incarnation. S/he signed up today, Feb 17, and has made a number of seemingly random edits. Contribs here [1] S/he already knows how to revert, has managed to find VfD, Vandalism in progress, wrote in an edit summary "rephrased for NPOV", which was a favorite Herschel edit summary, and added the cleanup tag to an article, which displays a lot of knowledge for a new user. I'll keep an eye on it, but wanted to let you know of the possibility. SlimVirgin 00:05, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Consulting my database of HK edit summaries, I don't see that he ever said "rephrased for NPOV", but he did use similar phrases. Frequently used phrases were: "adjust for NPOV",(3) "correct for NPOV", (6) and "NPOVish" (2). Why is that when editors add summaries that say "NPOV" they have almost always have inserted their own POV? I view it as a "red flag," though I suspect they believe it is the opposite. Anyway, if it's HK he'll reveal himself in some fashion. -Willmcw 00:18, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

PS I'd have to spend more time to get accurate counts of what he said, which interests me not at all. ;) But it's easy to find what he didn't or did say on individual occasions. Anyway, let's hope we have a short respite. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:19, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

What I find very interesting is that no matter how hard sockpuppets try to disguise their language, choice phrases end up being used time and again, and people who have dealt with the previous incarnation invariably recognize them. The best one I know of was Alberuni, who created, I believe, 10-20 sockpuppets, all with different personalities and many of them active at the same time, who made anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic edits (depending on your point of view), some of them insulting (e.g. reference to "kike"), some of them more reasoned. His best sockpuppet was User:ThinkPink, who gave the impression she was a woman campaigner against breast cancer. See here for her old user page [2], which David Gerard has now replaced with a picture of a sock. Even though she sounded quite different from Alberuni, the editors who had long dealt with him recognized ThinkPink instantly from certain linguistic turns. I've long thought it would make a good PhD thesis. SlimVirgin 00:32, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

A thesis in what field? Abnormal psychology? ;) -Willmcw 08:21, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of which, Prometheism, which you blanked because it was plagiarized from Dnagod's website, has been rewritten and I've nominated it for deletion. More details at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Prometheism. SlimVirgin 08:57, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

FYI, I didn't blank it- my only involvement was conversing with Dnagod about it. Thanks for organizing the VfD. -Willmcw 09:31, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Gone but not forgotten

End of an era. [3] SlimVirgin 06:46, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

Me and Weed worked out that bit of text ("theorist of conspiracies") between us as a compromise. I'll admit, I have a sentimental attachment to it. Though a trifle odd, it is factually correct and NPOV. I stand by our compromise and am nominally defending it. However, I have no objection to linking it to Conspiracy theory as a compromise. I'm sure eventually some editor will come through and do a re-write or something and it'll disappear. But I think there are more urgent issues in editing these articles. ;) Cheers, -Willmcw 07:00, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

I admire your steadfastness. I was a little sad to see it go myself.  ;-) SlimVirgin 07:27, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

Mediation in Pitts. Trib-Review

I am sorry not to have responded to you earlier, but frankly trying to research this dispute makes my head spin.

I suppose mediation would be a decent next step. However, your assertion that the user has made legal threats against you and the Wiki itself would almost require Arbitration, to enforce a ban for the duration of potential legal action. I'd almost say the case should be split, with the Pittsburgh issue going to Mediation and the legal threat issue going to Arbitration -- except that a successful Arbitration would make the Mediation theoretically irrelevant. But maybe we could ignore the legal threat issue for the time being. If we can reliably contact the anon, we can at least alert him to the fact that making legal threats is a bannable offense.

Another next step here might be to attempt Negotiation, which is something I'm trying to push and to my knowledge has not been done in a formal capacity. This would be like Mediation without a mediator. I think this would help mainly because I personally find attempting to follow things on the PT-R talk page impossible. Another alternative would be informal mediation, a form of mediation which would bypass the RFM process (which has been notoriously lacking) and use a disinterested third party as mediator.

If we can reliably contact the anon, I think either negotiation or informal mediation would be a fair next step. If that rapidly falls apart we can move on.

I could use a few things -- One is a link or links to any legal threats the anon has made. And I could also use an explanation of your view of this dispute(s) between you and the anon re PT-R.

- Keith D. Tyler ¶ [AMA] 00:32, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

With all having been said, I'm a bit pessimistic about the ability to resolve a dispute with this user unless s/he is at least willing to follow WP communication norms. I'd like to try to appeal to the user to meet us on this level and hope for a committed response. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ [AMA] 01:01, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, thanks for the slew of material. Can you provide foundation/evidence/something to back up the items the anon contends with? Keith D. Tyler ¶ [AMA] 01:04, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

The situation is that some previous editor added a line that the P T-R had printed gossip alleging Heinz Kerry was a lesbian. The Anon kept removing it and Gamaliel kept restoring it. I asked Gamaliel for a source, found it, and after some editing got the article to match the facts, which were that the P T-R had hinted (elliptically) that her husband, Kerry, had fooled around with another woman, not that that Heinz Kerry herself had fooled around with another woman. So the Anon is correct that the earlier information was inaccurate. You can see for yourself how far back in the history the dispute went, but we got it fixed fairly quickly once he actually explained why he was deleting it. That didn't stop him from referring to it for weeks afterwards.

Best of luck. Cheers, -Willmcw 01:16, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Our friend User:155.84.57.253

Hi Willmcw, care to contribute to Heather Has Two Mommies? It seems out friend wants to spread his POV. —Christiaan 00:13, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. A real renaissance man, Comic Books, Star Trek, Ethnic and Racial slurs and stereotypes. --Paraphelion 04:58, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Background

Charming. IP resolves to Auckland, NZ, so yes, it would seem so. Sad. SlimVirgin 08:37, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

Jokes

I was laughing as I deleted it. :) DanKeshet 19:09, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

List of purported hate groups

I wish you hadn't done that... yet. ^^; A large reason for the creation of the page is so that we could move certain ill-founded allegations out of the main Hate group article and into List of purported hate groups. We've had enough trouble with people who really like those allegations and think (or purport to think) "if this NRM insists that the ex-members who criticize it are a hate group, well, gosh-darn it, not only is that incredibly credible (despite no other source considering them a hate group) but it has to go in the hate group article itself!" These people liked their accusation so much that they were resistant to the notion that the specific accusation "X says Y is a hate group" maybe didn't belong in the article about what a hate group in general is. Can you imagine what kind of complaining they're going to make about censorship if they're told "Well, we were going to move your allegations since they don't belong here, but we're not going to move them because the place they were getting moved to has higher standards now?" -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:50, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I understand that type of issue. It seems like the hate groups should all be in the list of purported hate groups, rather than the hate groups article itself. As it was, I only dropped one - the empty category of anti-cult groups. If it's important to have that or other unsourced hate groups then we could create a subsection for alleged hate groups that do not appear on any source list. Let me take another look at it after dinner and see if there's a way to bridge the gap. Cheers, -Willmcw 02:16, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Please let me know if you have any plans for getting the unsourced and unilluminating allegations out of Hate group. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:19, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't have plans to do so, but if it needs work, I can take a look. -Willmcw 21:45, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

You could save me some time by pointing out the unsourced and unilluminating allegations that you are already aware of. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:52, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Good edit

Good edit on the cheese-monkey thing. Guess I shoulda thought to do that. —Christiaan 22:10, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

spelling

You're quite welcome! Accurate "spelling" is essential to our project. Best, Antandrus 21:15, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Southern Manifesto

I have no obejection to Southern Manifessto being moved to Wikisource provided 1 of 2 alternatives is made:

(1) 'Note: Senators Lyndon Johnson of Texas and Estes Kefauver and Albert Gore of Tennessee were the only Southern senators who refused to sign' which does not occur in original source document is removed as extraneous, or

(2) the above is placed at the end as a 'Note' with the inclusion that no Republicans Senators signed the document

Minor edits

You recently left a comment on my talk page saying that I had inappropriately labelled some of my edits as 'minor'. Could you point out a few examples? I can't find any where I made a substantive change and marked it as minor. El Duderino 20:15, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"call a spade a spade"

You know, I have a suspicion there might be something in that. —Christiaan 22:39, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re: Editing trick

Thanks for pointing that trick out. It really makes editing that article easier. :-) /sɪzlæk˺/ 01:32, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

PURPA

Sorry about that, i really should have been more careful about plagiarism and also read the instructions before i edited it a second time. Bonus Onus 04:32, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Reversion

Sorry man, there must have been an edit conflict or a misunderstanding. My comments were aimed at Earl Turner. I completely support your reverting him and I'm trying to help. I do think that even Nazis should get their views into Wikipedia (although I in no way sympathise with them) but not by trying to break our rules or by subterfuge. He has to go the proper route: battle it out in discussion on the talk page. Dr Zen 09:07, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personal water craft

thanks for your additions to the above article re pollution. Pedant 08:43, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

Ann Coulter

I noticed that over at Talk:Ann Coulter that you were involved in a previous attempt to remove this anomaly whereby the Ann Coulter article duplicates Wikiquote's role. I'm pushing for replacing the entire quotes section with a paragraph describing her career of making very 'notable' statements and mentioning a few of her most famous quotes in passing. It looks like it may be an uphill battle as the replacement paragraph has not been enthusiastically received. Perhaps you might have some input? --Bletch

Categories on User:FACTS commented out

Hey gang - This looks like a worthwhile project. One request- in your talk-page versions of articles, can you please format the categories so they are not "live"? You can do so by just dropping a bracket. Otherwise the talk pages appear in the category listings. When the drafts are brought into the main article space, it'll be a snap to re-activate the categories. Thanks, -Willmcw 23:46, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

• Done ---Rednblu | Talk 00:18, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Another way to do that is put a colon after the two opening brackets but before the "Category". This has the additional advantage that what would be the category tag becomes instead a link to the category page: [[:Category:Linux]] becomes Category:Linux. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:29, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, even better. Good suggestion. -Willmcw 01:30, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Cult

Thanks for the nice words. I appreciate your work too. Tom Haws 06:52, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Order of Canada

Hi, its my brother who is going thru the bio pages and adding the OC letters. I have told him to stop doing it but he wont :)

sorry.

What is the deal?

Your accussations are unfounded and unwarranted, and your comments about wasting time can be applied to you as well. You are wasting everybody's time by going against consensus made on that article. See my arguments at Talk:list of purported cults. --Zappaz 01:55, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Funny, but I just stopped by to thank you for the time you are putting in trying to improve the article. I guess it depends on how you look at it. In any case, thanks. Tom Haws 05:34, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks just the same. -Willmcw 05:36, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks mate

I always told people what I thought and tried to be honest :-) Good to see I wasn't making a total goose out of myself! Keep on going strong with Wikipedia and I'll be watching the site and what happens with interest. I might even keep updating WP:Media. Anyway, all the best! - Ta bu shi da yu 08:22, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry too...

I've been away for a while and didn't realize the final fate of the Cosmotheism article. Thanks for fixing that. BCorr|Брайен 22:17, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

about Randy Rhoads

I wrote about Randy.(Is my English strange?)Since I'm a Japanese,I can't understand English so much.I'm sorry to make a mistake.I wrote Santa Monica as both ""born in"" and ""buried in"".Actually,he is buried in San Bernardino,isn't he?It's my mistake.

from 61.26.83.139

Havoc

I am a strong supporter of being bold in editing, but your recent actions on the Cult related articles is causing havoc. You need to slow way down and allow consensus to be built. Before you joined the fry and started working on these articles, me and other editors have spent considerably amount of time in building consensus, adding text and providing citacions and biblio, while NPOV'ing what is clearly a highly controversial subject.

So I kindly request that you stop creating havoc on these articles and join a common effort rather than attempting to do this on your own. Take it easy...

Thanks. --Zappaz 06:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I see a different situation - a tangle of articles that duplicate each other, many with obvious, even blatant, POV slants, and several POV forks. I have not removed any sourced information. On the contrary, I have put many hours into sourcing articles. The Cult topic needs editing. I hope you'll help rather than hinder. Cheers, -Willmcw 06:25, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)