Wikipedia: Dmerrill/Talk

Hello from another Linux 'chick'! -- Claudine

Hello. I removed ", such as Bennigan's and the like" from the Caesar Salad article; otherwise it was great. --justfred

Thank you for your work on memorializing the victims, and providing reasoned criticism of some of my balderdash in other places.

The Linux Documentation Project is a brilliant idea as well, and I'm obviously interested in figuring out ways to improve and extend Wikipedia's mission, especially in relation to other projects (e.g. Project Sourceberg). --TheCunctator

: Thank you. I'm really curious to see if the HOWTOs will get improved enough to start using Wikipedia contributions on our site also. Could be a good synergy of projects!

: On another note with regard to the several commentaries you've posted, I disagree with some but not all of what you have to say. However, I really sincerely think your writing is often combatitive where it should be constructive. I think your cause would be better served by a less confrontational approach. Confrontational is sometimes required (ACT-UP has a good argument, when thousands of people were dying and nobody was doing anything), but that doesn't seem to be the case with your points. Please consider it. --Dmerrill

I hope you've noticed that my tone and approach varies wildly, from overly combative to vulnerable to hortatory to ambitious to analytical. And that's even ignoring my dominant approach on Wikipedia, which is simply to edit and create entries.

In other words, I think that my writing is rarely combative. The combative writing is more noticeable (which is part of the point), but it's really only a very small part of the time and effort I've spent on Wikipedia. In fact, I doubt that I've written much that could reasonably be considered combative other than How to Destroy Wikipedia.

So I largely agree that my "cause would be better served by a less confrontational approach", but I reserve the use of that approach within the context of a holistic method of dealing with issues. As long as I can convince people that I'm not treating them like scum, I think using an exaggerated tone to tackle the most negative side of issues directly, could be beneficial to the community. I didn't provide that context with Destroy, but I'm attempting to do so in retrospect.

I'm assuming when you ask me to consider a less confrontational approach you weren't implying that I never use one, because that would be annoying. I'm assuming what you meant was that I should consider not using a combative approach in the future if I contemplate doing so. --TheCunctator

: You're right, I think that you only sometimes are overly combatative, and that in those cases it is a disservice to your cause. But please also understand that I don't think you should treat the subject less directly. I just think your wording choices are sometimes inflammatory.

: I do very much appreciate your work on Wikipedia. My criticism was intended to be constructive. I apologize if I gave another impression. And now I'm going to go back to editing pages myself. ;-) --Dmerrill

Me too; I want you to know that your criticism is constructive (even though, as I explain here, I find the concept of "constructive criticism" to be poorly defined and misleading). --TheCunctator

Mea culpa on the Hugin and Munin front (and probably lots of other places as well), I have a tendency to cut up and recycle essays and articles I wrote/am writing... sjc

Have I never said "hello and welcome," David? Well, a belated "hello and welcome." Thanks for your support re my recent essay. --LMS

Hi! I've noticed you fixing a few articles with a statement along the lines of all articles should start with a sentance containing the title in bold. I like this way of introducing the topic in a single line, but I'm curious as to where you got this ruling from? Cheers, Verloren

: I just looked and couldn't find it, but I saw it somewhere. The pages that have this sort of guidelines are very disorganized and sometimes hard to find. --Dmerrill

Medical Doctor? (just because you seem to do a lot of biological stuff...) I really like your edits! JHK

: No, computer science. But I've not even touched those articles. I really enjoy working on more unusual or "fringe" topics, probably because one of the big advantages I see in Wikipedia is that it will inevitably cover realms of knowledge no mainstream publisher would touch (e.g., BDSM, Neopaganism, etc.).

Dmerrill, It sometimes looks like you are following people around changing what they've just done. I do this too. And so do many other Wikipedians.

However, please be careful about changing the "see also"s to REDIRECTS - maybe the subjects really deserve two separate entries/pages. If you're already doing this, fine - my comments are intended in a friendly tone. Have a good one! :-)

(I see somebody just did this with Oscar -> Academy Awards. Now somebody else is going to be bent out of shape because we've co-opted the page he was going to use for "Oscar, King of Prussia" or something like this. Comments?)

: Rest assured, I consider carefully whether to do a redirect. The Oscar situation is one that might be wrong, since Oscar technically is the statue, and an entire article could be done on him personally, and his evolution over the years. But maybe not.

: In the case of neural net, there is no doubt in my mind it should be a redirect to neural network. They are exactly the same thing - one is a contraction of the otehr. :-) --Dmerrill

Apparently Wikipedia and Wikipedians are working the way they should: I left it a "see also" because I wasn't sure, and you made it a REDIRECT because you were. Good on us! For anybody else who may stumble into this conversation, Naming conventions/Disambiguating may be of interest. Cheers.

If you want do Redirect German Bundeslands then do so with all and not just occasionally with some (e.g. Rhineland-Palatinate =>yes, Lower Saxony =>no)

: Sorry, that was just an accidental ommission. --Dmerrill

I just created a stub Discrimination page and linked it to Homophobia. I see that that page mentions hate crimes and violence (which are hopefully not day-to-day occurrences for a majority of GLB folks), but doesn't say much about minor snubs and hassles. You want to put in a line or two about this? Cheers.

: Sure. --Dmerrill

Thanks for revising Fossil Record. You said it much better than I had. --Ed Poor

: Thanks. (BTW, please add to the end of /Talk pages unless replying to something. It makes it much easier to follow.)

Re Sexism and/or misogyny:

: Yah, I think the idea is that sexism is more of a philosophical or reasoned position, misogyny an emotional one.

(After reading Chauvinism): Dmerrill, thanks for your continuing fine work. :-)

Hi David. I see the Slashdot community has its collective panties in a knot. I swear 9 out of ten of those guys only read the headlines. ;-) --STG

Thanks for fixing the Evil Eye / Eye of Sauron page. I was about to do that myself! -- Cayzle