User talk:TMC

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

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 21:31 Oct 15, 2002 (UTC)

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

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 04:14 Oct 16, 2002 (UTC)

I can live with that. -- Cock

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

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 23:52 Oct 16, 2002 (UTC)

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 19:04 Oct 17, 2002 (UTC)

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

PS: 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

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 12:27 Oct 17, 2002 (UTC)

I dont really appreciate being called a Moron, I dont think you were intending to: [1] - 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)

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

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