User talk:Daniel Quinlan

Archived discussion: Archive1

Please use section headers and add comments to the bottom. Thanks! — Daniel Quinlan

Infinitely grotesque

Hello. Your insertion of the grotesquely incorrect phrase infinite keystrokes where infinitely many keystrokes was meant shows that you failed to understand what you called the "pedantic usage note". I've corrected it. Michael Hardy 00:00, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No comment necessary. Daniel Quinlan 00:09, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

header title chosen by Cyan

Place name wars

When I said yesterday other users are much more brute and insulting, this comment was not meant to target at you. I hope you did not understand it that way. -- Baldhur 08:33, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Elizabeth Smart

I consider your protecting of Elizabeth Smart (kidnap victim) in order to enforce your offensive POV title to be an abuse of sysop powers. ☮ Eclecticology 09:58, 2003 Dec 11 (UTC)

I protected it entirely according to the policy, I have not been involved in the debate nor did I make any choice as to the title, I merely protected the page where it happened to be when I became aware of the move war. And in the vote I proposed and set up, I even voted against the current title. I think you are overreacting. Daniel Quinlan 19:01, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

Bonnie et al.

On whose authority did you delete Bonnie, Jayne Bryleigh, Bryleigh's Theorem, and Slope field, without first leaving them on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion for five days? The deletion policy sets out what categories of articles may be speedily deleted, and as far as I can see none of those pages fit into any of the categories. The explanation in your deletion summaries ("nonsense from repeat vandal" and so on) doesn't really help. Vfd is the place to debate whether or not something is nonsense, unless it is pure gibberish (stuff like "uyggiuyg", which anyone can recognise as nonsense), in which case the deletion policy explicitly allows immediate deletion. If a page has the surface appearance of sensible text, then it should be listed on Vfd. One person's judgement should not override the consensus of the community. In these cases, it seems pretty clear that the consensus after five days will be to delete the pages, so why do you feel the need to bypass discussion by the Wikipedia community? The only motivation I can think of would be if you thought the community would end up disagreeing with you, but I don't think that is likely here. So why not just follow the policy? -- Oliver P. 21:06, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The pages exactly fit into the categories for speedy deletion under the deletion policy:

• pure vandalism, see my documentation of these IP addresses on Vandalism in Progress
• patent nonsense, read the definition which includes: Stuff that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irremediably confused that no intelligent person can be expected to try to make heads or tails of it.

Not one, but two valid reasons to speedily delete. In addition, the one person who originally expressed concerns that the Bonnie page might not be patent nonsense has withdrawn her concerns and has agreed that the page should be deleted. I'm not overriding the community at all and I'm not violating policy at all. You are violating policy by undeleting pages which are patent nonsense. This particular vandal (who may be Michael) has vandalized so many pages that it's not supportable to undelete these articles or even list them on Votes for deletion. It seems more like you're the person continually overriding the consensus of the community, especially in these cases. I will not reciprocate by laying disingenuous motivations at your doorstep, though. Daniel Quinlan 21:40, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I've brought the matter of "vandalism" up at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, so hopefully that will be clarified before too long. Please feel free to comment there if you want. Basically I don't think that the list of candidates for speedy deletion was intended to cover pages that appear, on the surface, to make sense. Such articles need discussion to ascertain whether or not they have some merit. And the articles we're talking about here certainly weren't patent nonsense. As they stood when you deleted them, they made perfect sense. And were actually quite funny. :) As for your final point, I wasn't accusing you of having bad motivations. Apologies if it seemed that I was. I meant that I could only think of one possible motivation, and then I dismissed it as being unlikely. So, even if I concede that the deletion policy can be interptered the way you interpret it, I am still left wondering... Given that there is some disagreement, what is so wrong with allowing the matter to be up for discussion for five days? What possible harm could it do? -- Oliver P. 23:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Unprotection question

Can we unprotect Elizabeth Smart (kidnap victim) so as to move it to Elizabeth Smart (1987-)? - Hephaestos 04:15, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, done. If I may be so bold, think this is one case where protection worked well. Otherwise, I suspect we'd have 5 more redirects and no consensus. Daniel Quinlan 04:18, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

Redirects

I try to fix those every time I make a move; sometimes there are quite a few. I'm wondering if I got all of Prince's today. Usually though it's just not a big deal. - Hephaestos 04:27, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Western canon

About your changes at Western canon: do you always make drastic changes to an article where there has been no discussion for a couple of weeks? I'm a little appalled at what just occured here. -- llywrch 02:22, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just being bold. Do you think a NPOV canonical list can be produced? Daniel Quinlan 04:31, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Welcome Thank You

Thanks for the welcome, Dan, and for the help on some of my recent articles. I hope to have time to stop by frequently and expand the encyclopedia. Garnet R. Chaney 17:13, Dec 13, 2003 (Malaysia)

I was looking through the list of most wanted articles, and decided to tackle the American Museum of Natural History. Does this have enough info now to not be considered a stub, or should I leave the stub boilerplate at the bottom? P.S. I looked through the help, but I couldn't find a good style guide or boilerplate of how to talk about a place. Garnet R. Chaney

I think it was borderline before wetman's last edit. I've definitely removed stub warnings from articles of that length and I rarely add bother adding them to articles that long. It's a judgement call. I try to gauge it more on content than length, but usually, anything below about 400 bytes in length is going to be a stub. Daniel Quinlan 21:51, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Nation State

You wrote on VfD that

'nation-state' means something else.

but it sounds to me like the recent history of how it has been used in List of nation states and Nation state is consistent. (Or did i screw up interpreting the page-histories of the pages and redirect?) I intend, unless someone else starts a discussion of this on Talk:Nation state or somewhere else off VfD, to do so and reference it by responding to you on VfD. I'll undertake that from a library, with The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (or is it something like "...World Politics"?) at my side. Of course a sketch of the differences you have in mind would be helpful. --Jerzy 16:01, 2003 Dec 13 (UTC)

It seems like a very fuzzy definition indeed. I'm not really sure the word is used in this way or applied to those countries in this way now. I've always seen the word used in the context of historical earlier forms of states. The fuzziness and possible non-NPOV of our definition and how it is being applied concerns me more, though. Daniel Quinlan 22:07, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

I'm less certain, after thinking further abt what you wrote, that my research is relavent (note title fix above, BTW), but still in the dark. Do you find Nation state fuzzy, or some implicit definition you want to infer from List of nation states? --Jerzy 12:59, 2003 Dec 14 (UTC)

Acting Sheriff

There weren't enough votes in favor of deleting Acting Sheriff. You suggested merging it. Merge with what? I think it would be better as a redirect, but I'm not sure what to. Angela. 20:16, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

sign I must have thought it was a dictionary definition for some reason. That should just be deleted. Daniel Quinlan 22:07, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Rick Santorum article, and working cooperatively

Are you willing to try working with me on Rick Santorum, or are you only willing to use oppositional methods? --The Cunctator 04:38, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I tried and failed. Daniel Quinlan 03:13, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

You'll be missed

:'( It won't be the same without you. I really hope you reconsider and come back after a break. With sadness, Angela. 03:41, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Absolutely -- you've been one of the most thoughtful and reliable contributors here. Even if you have to take a break for a bit, I sincerely hope that you'll stick around. And if not, thanks for all you've done. BCorr ¤ Брайен 04:52, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

While I fully understand your reasons for departing, I nonetheless hope, that you might change your mind. Remember that we will have the arbitration committee, and the situation may become better then (hopefully that does not sound too naive). Please think about it and consider returning, Daniel. Thanks. -- Baldhur 07:24, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Good Heavens! Do come back! (please). Pfortuny 13:06, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Agreed - you're sane. Secretlondon 13:08, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

Daniel, i can hardly claim to know you or your work, but our peers' testimonials are sufficient for me to also hope for your return, to presume to say so, and to leave me concerned whether my questions added to your burden this week. Be well, be happy, and come home soon. --Jerzy 14:37, 2003 Dec 16 (UTC)

The damn Santorum article highlights some real problems with this project. Now the problems the article has brought to the surface have been a factor in three people leaving so far. The problems it highlights won't go away and will have to be dealt with sooner or later. Sorry to see you go almost as much as I was sorry to see me go. --- Ark30inf

Those of us in the neutral camp (surely far more than a few? just seems lonely sometimes) will miss you very much. I hope that we will indeed see you return: common sense is not so widespread a commodity that Wikipedia can easily afford to lose an editor possessed of it. Best wishes regardless, Jwrosenzweig 22:18, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please Daniel do not leave. I disagree with your views on some issues, agree with you on others. But you always been a thought-provoking contributor. I hope your experience on Talk:Mother Teresa did not influence your decision to leave. What was done to you was distasteful. I'm sorry for inviting you onto the page, given how you were treated. Please don't leave for that reason. In any case, the best of luck in whatever you decide to do. And thank you for contributing so much to wikipedia in your time here. FearÉIREANN 23:09, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Don't let the likes of TC cause your departure. There are many more folks who respect your work than not. Hope you'll be back soon. Fuzheado 23:21, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)