User talk:Mandel

Hello Mandel, welcome to Wikipedia.

Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: E. Fauquembergue, Culture of Kyrgyzstan, Dr. Dynasaur, Batá drums, Images, More... Expand: Munich air disaster, 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, Mass marketing, Catholicism and politics, More... Copyedit: Sathyaraj, Seijuu Sentai Gingman, Seventh Sea (game), Swamithoppepathi, More... Wikify: 1AC, Abbas Uddin, Acoustic neuroma, Adelphi University, Adult literacy, Backlog... Cleanup: Back-fire, Erode District, Linkword, Training corset, Rules of construction, Sink, Backlog... Merge: Sogdiana, Crablogger, 2004 Australian riots, Arch bridge, More... Update: Leon Bakst, Balanoglossus, Ionia, Copyright, Lepontine Alps, Alexandria Troas, Will, More... Stubs: Independence, Playwright, Strudel, Keyboard instrument, Rhombic enneacontahedron, More... Projects - Transwiki cleanup, Punctuation, Disambiguation, Syntax, Cleanup Taskforce, More... Admin backlogs - WP:VIP, WP:VFD/Old, Transwikification

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Angela. 10:14, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Contents

1 Cinema of China 2 Hamlet 3 Wuxia 4 Re: Zen 5 Thank You 6 copyvios 7 Moving pages 8 Lee Hsien Loong interwiki 9 Strange edit with <a> links in it == Spyware! 10 The Straits Times - unfair? 11 Neighbourhoods of Singapore 12 Monopoly (game) 12.1 Madame de La Fayette 13 Your Madame de La Fayette 14 VfD 15 New School High School Deletion 16 Neuqua Valley High School deletion 17 Union County Magnet High School 18 Schools (even fictional ones!) 19 Threat to ban 20 VfDing schools 21 Murky waters here... 22 Straits Times 23 WP:VFD/HS 24 International Tchaikovsky Competition 25 Article Licensing 26 Singapore 27 Yongle Dadian 28 WP:RM March 14 29 Straits Times 30 Anton Chekhov 31 The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber 32 Sad stubs 33 Gogol 34 Edit summary

Cinema of China

Hi, if you move a page, please use the "move this page" function on your left hand sidebar. "Cinema of XXX" seems to be the standard we use on WP, but you do have a point. It is best to ask on the relevant talk page and wait a couple days though. --Jiang 10:49, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thank you. Very clarifying. Will do so. - Mandel

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Did you machine-translate for Ruan Ling Yu? It looks like it's written by a human (smooth grammar), but sometimes it just breaks down. Good job, but please Wikify proper nouns, etc. --Menchi (Talk)â 10:30, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

To Menchi. Thanks for the advice - I have not completed the article. I have to save it here as my computer was hanging. Will complete it as soon as possible, as soon as my bot's problems are solved. I do not want to burden it with excessive editing and saving. - Mandel

No, that wasn't what I was asking. I'm curious as to how you wrote that article. It seems machine-translated at some parts, but other parts seem perfectly fine. So it's a bit strange...and interesting! :-) --Menchi (Talk)â 11:11, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I didn't machine-translate the article - the facts are collected generally but the article is a result after going through my head. In other words, it is written by a human (ie me). Could it read strangely because I haven't completed it? Those parts are read strangely haven't been ironed out by me (Don't know how to write it yet). It may be how I work - I usually string together a few facts in case I forget. You may say it is an article yet to be completed by a human. :) - Mandel

Well, as long as those are your own words and truth. You seem to be doing a good job! Using dictionaries are fine of course. Keep it up! :-) --Menchi (Talk)â 09:23, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hamlet

Hi, I've replied on my talk page.:) Markalexander100 01:38, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Now adjourned to the Hamlet talk page, in case anyone else wants to comment. Markalexander100 01:30, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm already thinking that I sound like a naggy grandma. :(. Mandel

Wuxia

Excellent addition! Kowloonese 00:39, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! It's good to feel appreciated! BTW I might add a second section on Wuxia Fiction. Mandel

Re: Zen

If for the good of the article, I don't see why you can't revert my change. Esp when I may be wrong. :-) Mandel

That's cool. I just didn't want to come across like people occasionally do making reverts: "Take that, sucks0r!" - Nat Krause 05:25, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

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As the uploader of Image:Qin.jpg, can you answer my question at Image talk:Qin.jpg? Also, I'm curious about its origin. Did you create the map? Otherwise, where was it taken from? I want to make a historical map based on comparison data, so I look for good materials. --Nanshu 00:33, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

OK. I have answered on that page. Mandel 09:25, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

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Greetings. You asked in an edit line of the Shaolin article if zazen was the same as meditation. It is a form of dhyana meditation, but it isn't generic meditation. Zazen is the Japanese pronunciation of 座禅 Tso Ch'an lit. "sitting dhyana". I hope this helps. Regards, Fire Star 05:15, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you for your polite and reasonable defense of myself in the face of intense hostility on FAC. I knew what would happen if I objected, or edited the article, and so I avoided it for a day or two, but when I saw there were no longer any remaining objections (other than those dismissed by eloquence) I felt a need to say something. Anyways, thank you again, Sam [Spade (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Sam_Spade&action=edit&section=new)] 22:23, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No prob. I have a problem with some Wikipedians' attitude too. Sometimes I object, not because I know it would mean anything, but merely to let myself be heard. I just had to intervene because I felt they were indulging in bullying verbally. It could well have happened to anyone, including myself. I'll hate to lose anyone here and for this place to be turned into some priviledged sysops' resort. :) Mandel 22:43, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

copyvios

Hi, you left a msg on User_Talk:Pgeffen about a month ago regarding possible copyright violations in the contributions of this contributor. I am trying to follow up and resolve the matter. Please see: Wikipedia:Help wanted#Copyright violations and POV material in many articles on pianists. Thanking you in advance for your timely response and assistance. -- Viajero 08:16, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Moving pages

Never make controversial page moves before posting a note on the talk page and gaining consensus. It's a waste of your time and mine to have you reverted. Cheers, Jiang 20:34, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK, I have spoken on the Talk page for a discussion. I just wonder if it is this controversial? Mandel 09:09, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

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Good job of keeping Asian Cup 2004 on the straight and narrow. Both Nanshu and TakuyaMurata have a streak of revisionism that really calls into question their motives. Fuzheado | Talk 13:55, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No problem. :) Mandel 11:08, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

Lee Hsien Loong interwiki

Please kindly avoid removing working interwiki links without reason. Interwiki links are not always easy to construct, especially for less popular articles. Software bug should not be cause for removing minnan: links, as that only hides the problem. If you'd like to see the bug go away, please do vote for bug#115 (http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115). A-giau 03:29, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I've no idea it is a interwiki link. It looks like a piece of vandalism. Maybe you can make it more explicit by making it appear right at the top for instance?Mandel 04:54, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

Strange edit with <a> links in it == Spyware!

Hi!

Could you tell me what's going on with for example this edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Animal_Farm&diff=5664678&oldid=5664620)? At first, it looked like pure vandalism, but then I noticed that you've made a lot of very good contributions. What happened in this case? Here is another edit showing the same problem: Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Yasukuni_Shrine&diff=0&oldid=5664422) is another edit showing the same problem.

My theory is that you have some kind of spyware on your system, that replaces pre-defined phrases with links to web pages run by the spyware company. Please use AdAware or some similar program to clean your computer from such problems before editing more. Probably when you save your reply to this message, "combat" will be infiltrated by an unknown link... — David Remahl 04:03, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe that's true. Thanks for your input. I'm using a computer outside and I've no idea what could be inside the system. Mandel 04:38, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)

The Straits Times - unfair?

Hi Mandel, I was at the Wikipedia article on the Straits Times when I saw your comments about ST's unfairness being unjustified. I would like to point you to a comment I made on the discussion page there. The article in reference was published a couple of days after you wrote the comment, I believe. Gov't versus Chee (http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,271311,00.html?)

Also, it's really called football and not soccer.

Your articles are fine, keep them up. - 'Anonymous'

Neighbourhoods of Singapore

Hi Mandel,

Regarding Template:Singapore: I think I'm taking an entirely different point of view here... I think that such a template is not only suitable for Singapore, it's suitable for any city in the world. After all, every single city has major neighbourhoods and other "locales" that are important geographical references for residents and tourists alike; often these are more important than actual administrative boundaries like districts. So why not use a box to gather all of these together? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 03:00, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

I hold a very different view here. Most of the locales you refer to are residential areas, meaning they are simply populated or demarcated as housing areas, nothing more like millions of neighborhoods around the world. With more than 60 (!) areas in the template, some are pretty featureless and I doubt there is enough interesting feature info to write, even considering some are taken from tourist brochures (see some of them, like Clementi, Ang Mo Kio). I can almost vouch that some, if not most of them, will remain stubs or be filled with useless information.

My suggestion is a long, detailed article on the geography and neighbourhoods of Singapore, maybe demarcating it into North, South, East and West location, which can branch of into the more featureful locales, would be much easier and useful than having a template on every single regional neighborhood of the country.

Imagine a place like Hong Kong divided into 60 areas and requiring feature writing on each and every one of them. I'd think it's a near impossible task. And HK is nearly twice the size of Singapore! Mandel 11:47, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Featureless to outsiders, yes; but certainly not featureless to the people who live there! Take a look at Woodlands, Singapore, for example. (Some of the Chinese province articles are also pretty featureless right now — but that's just because people haven't gotten round to writing them yet.)

I agree that we need an article on neighbourhoods in Singapore in general... but I also think that we should allow and encourage people living in individual neighbourhoods to write informative and interesting articles about where they live. After all, who else knows better? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 02:35, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

I do know Singapore quite well, and my idea is that generally it will be straining a bit to allow features on 60 neighborhoods in the country. Maybe it differs from people to people, but the article about Woodlands can easily be substituted for with another neighborhood in Singapore and the facts will still hold true. It basically mentions Woodlands contain a bus interchange, an MRT station, shopping malls, a public library, schools and expressways, which makes it very much like some 50 other residential estate in the country. My idea is that the current article reads more like a street guide than a true, interesting "encyclopedic" article.

Go to the history page and you will realize only one person has been working on the article, which means it also does not ensure NPOV.

I am not totally against the idea of writing such an article, I'm just afraid of wasting valuable byte space (whatever is said about Wikipedia being paperless, I'm still against wastage) if these articles remain stubs or dull throwing-up of plain facts. It would amount to hundreds of thousands of short, stubby articles needing clean-up whereas serious informative articles on the country, for instance on the educational system of the country in general, go unwritten. Mandel 17:35, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry. If people have more to write about the education system of Singapore than about Woodlands, then they will do so. People will write about whatever is most interesting to them — and that's exactly what we'd like.

After all, every single article on Chinese provinces and counties is likely going to talk about province/county seat, population, area, GDP per capita, local dialect, cuisine, major waterways and roadways, CPC chairman, local produce, list of famous people, etc... and I don't find this uninformative at the least. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 21:19, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'm still pessimistic about it. After all even a small county in China is *much* larger than Singapore. The recent addition to Yishun does not help - the same thing, schools, a local library w male/female toilets do not make it no less featureful than thousands of other such locales worldwide.

If you take the area of Singapore (650 km2) and divide it by the no of estates on the template you get each as a 3 x 3 km2 "area" locale. Not very big by the way.

BTW I feel as pessimistic about the expressways template, maybe even more so. :( Mandel 10:05, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the Yishun page does seem a little ... not very optimal ... right now, and probably reflects the scenario that you have in mind. But that's okay. After all, Wikipedia is not paper. If it stays that way for the next ten years, then that reflects the precise level of interest the Wikipedia community has for Yishun, and that's fine. But I don't think it'll stay that way... and if it grows and becomes more interesting, well, even better.

In any case, Singapore is probably larger than the average county in China... after all, Singapore has 4+ million people. That's something like several Chinese counties put together.

As for the expressways thing, I'm certainly not going to write any articles on Singapore's expressways any time soon... what's there to write? I can't think of anything, so I'm just letting it be. Maybe some day someone will find something to write.

Don't worry... after all, generating participation isn't a bad thing, and aren't we always worrying that Wikipedia isn't being broad or detailed enough anyways? ;) -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 02:38, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

I personally am getting a bit unnerved about where Wikipedia is heading. Stubs are added on and piling up each day like manure while those important ones not added or improved on. Every day serious users argued and slogged over deleting a piece of possible whim writing. More and more people are taking Wikipedia for a spin, and VfD is letting too many go scot-free. We have to find a way to stop this, or else Wiki's reputation will be at stake. I'm in for stricter rules: allowing only people who has an account write an article and banning people for longer period for possible garbage entries and vandalism.

Quantitative there is aplenty, but qualitative is what we must move towards, especially in version 1.0. Mandel 10:33, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Monopoly (game)

Hi Mandel,

In general I like your modifications to the lead paragraph of Monopoly, but I see you don't like the idea that Monopoly resembles a race game. What would you suggest as a more probable antecedent to the format of the game? -- Solipsist 19:29, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have no idea, but Monopoly does not resemble a race game in the least -- the person going first need not necessarily win the game. To be honest, I can't think of any antecedent to the game in general -- it's unique on its own. Mandel 19:40, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is pretty light on the history of games at the moment. A classic race game is based on moving around a spiral track based on the throw of a die or dice. The archetype is often quoted as the Game of Goose ([1] (http://maf.mcq.org/jeux/jouets/vignettes/en/jj_pc_oie_1977-0128.php) or [2] (http://www2.kumc.edu/itc/staff/rknight/Game15.htm)). But an older example is the Royal Game of Ur. Other related examples are Ludo which transforms the spiral track into a circular one, but still has a defined ending. Pure race games are relatively boring, so most incorporate squares with special meaning; double moves, forfeits, draw a card etc. Monopoly includes most of these features. More modern example would be Pictionary, which introduces collaborative drawing and elements of charades to add interest or Trivial Pursuit which introduces quiz questions. You can pretty much guarantee that any game that involves moving around a track based on the roll of the dice has its heritage in race games. Monopoly's inovation is that the game isn't won by reaching the end of the track. The track is endless and the end game is based on finances. -- Solipsist 21:02, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Maybe you should write an article on race games, since you mentioned Wikipedia is pretty lightweight in this respect. You seem to know quite a bit... BTW Snakes and Ladders sounds like one (ie. a race game).

You're quite right, Snakes and Ladders is a classic race game with unusual emphasis on go-forward squares. Backgammon is also rooted in race games, but is so far diverged that it has become a style in itself. I probably will write the article on race games, but for the moment I've misplaced my copy of Bell's Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations ISBN 0486238555 which would add many useful details.

But I still can't see Monopoly as a race game. To me a race game must have an element of competitive speed involved in reaching a certain destination, yet Monopoly does not seem to incorporate any of it. For one, Monopoly is almost an endless game (can't remember ever having played until every single player has bankrupt; ) Mandel 21:14, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Again I would agree. Even though all the players start on the same square and roll dice to move round the board, it really does not matter how fast you move. And allthough you get $200 each time you pass 'go', it doesn't make much difference how often you loop round the board. That's why the previous lead section said 'a first sight it is a race game' but actually it is about finance. -- Solipsist 03:35, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Madame de La Fayette

It's quite understandable that you accidentally created a duplicate article. There should have been a redirect at Madame de La Fayette - which there now is, thanks to you. I do agree with you about the 1911 articles, and have spent a lot of time altering some of them into modern English. In the case of your article, I did incorporate some of your text into the existing article, but I didn't have much time and I didn't look at it too closely. There were only one or two places where I felt that what was already there was better than what you had written. It's now open to you to continue to "update" the 1911 article. Personally, I think that would be better than just reverting it. Deb 11:35, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your Madame de La Fayette

Hi, Mandel, thanks very much for your great Madame de La Fayette article. I want to cheer you on for removing the 1911 EB material completely, I think it's well lost. (I read your message on Deb's page.) I frequently meet the attitude around Wikipedia that "Well, the 1911 text may be outdated, but it's better than nothing", and that may be so in some cases. (The only case I can think of at this moment is Classical mythology, where I do find it better to have the quite detailed and informational 1911 text, than to have nothing, but there are probably other cases, that I can't think of right now.) But when it comes to literary and cultural description (=evaluation) of, say, the European 17-18th centuries, it's just simply worse than nothing to have these arch 19th century discussions of, as it might be, the "indecency" of Restoration comedy, or the unrelenting 1911 choice of what are to the modern reader the least interesting details in the lives of notable 17th century women. In Elizabeth Barry, for instance, before I rewrote it, the things in Barry's life thought worth a mention were:

1. The coaching of her lover, the Earl of Rochester, turned her from a bad actress into a good one. (Probably an invention by the notorious Edmund Curll sixty years later.)
2. The Duchess of York gave Barry her own coronation robes to wear for a particular part. (Probably true, but so what.)
3. She's supposed to have created over 100 parts. (Duh.)
4. She had two children without ever being married. (This I kept when I rewrote the article.)

You see the tendentiousness. She became a good actress because a (famous, aristocratic) man helped her, she looked impressive on stage because the queen, always mention anything to do with kings and queens, gave her a real coronation robe to wear. This about a woman who made a remarkable success of herself as an artist and businesswoman, in the 17th century, for crying out loud. Of course I don't imagine that only the 1911 EB was pushing a POV and I'm not. I'm writing inside the box of today's preconceptions, for instance about emphasizing women's achievements, just as the 1911 editors were writing inside theirs (of for instance, well, making light of women's achievements). But honestly, if I hadn't known anything about Wikipedia, and the 1911 Barry article was the first thing I saw, or the 1911 John Vanbrugh article (grrrr), I would never have returned for a second look. That's why I think we're totally justified in removing the 1911 stuff, even if we don't have time to produce new text of our own: nothing is better in these cases, and just cleaning up the language isn't necessarily the point. I think it, I don't do it, because I know many Wikipedians disagree. But in cases where I've had a chance to produce anything at all of my own to replace the 1911 text dump, I definitely do boldly remove it. After all, things that we remove don't disappear. If anybody thinks I've been too radical, they can always revert what I did. Anyway, what I basically wanted to say was, I think your Madame de La Fayette article looks great now. Be bold!--Bishonen 21:27, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks a million. I'm surprised I did not get bashed for being so bold, but thanks anyway! Mandel 01:15, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

VfD

I don't know what you wanted to do but you messed up the VfD page and I had to revert your changes.

My browser hanged. And for some odd reason, my previous edit didn't work either. Mandel 09:19, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

New School High School Deletion

Hi. I can understand your decision up to a point to add the deletion notice. However, there are a variety of reasons to keep the page in existence. By virtue of this school's very radical education philosophy, it deserves to be far more noteworthy than any typical high school, and it forms a good example of this philosophy of education. However, I will grant you that it shouldn't have a link in the Alternative Education page, as it isn't quite well known enough in most circles to belong there. For that reason, I'm getting rid of its link there. I hope we can arrive at a consensus on this soon.

Neuqua Valley High School deletion

Hello Mandel. I just wanted to ask why you listed Neuqua Valley High School for deletion--Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Neuqua_Valley_High_School, where comments are generally placed, does not exist. --pie4all88 03:53, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My browser crashed, and I worked for the whole of the day trying to put it back. I wasn't able to get on the net in the meantime. Mandel 09:25, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Union County Magnet High School

Would it bother you terribly if I voted "keep" on this one? I almost have to, since my suggestions have been followed up so vigorously. I actually sort of like the article now.

I think.

It's hard to tell because there's a little edit war in progress. Have you looked at the page history?

The thought has occurred to me that encouraging contributors of school articles to improve them might be mischievous and irresponsible on my part. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 15:11, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It'd be ok, but i hardly think it'll matter. The lawcase is *still* non-notable to me. And the rewrite to me is not glorious, but I don't think it matters. They're still outvoted as of now. Mandel 15:36, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Schools (even fictional ones!)

Hi there Mandel, re the school voting, I did, indeed, vote to keep all of the schools I could find. As I mentioned elsewhere, I would like the ability to register that I would like to automatically vote to keep all school articles, but there doesn't seem to be a concensus for that. I believe that a neutral, verifiable article about a real school is notable enough. I understand that others don't think it is notable enough, but I think our disagreement is less about schools than about vision for the project. I think that as an electronic encyclopedia we can afford to think outside the Britanica box, and go to a level of detail that other information sources cannot. We can be an encyclopedia of local history if someone wants to write a neutral, verifiable article on that. With regard to Barbie's school, we have articles on Tolkien places that are probably comparable in notability. Barbie is a cultural icon, why not have an article about her school? I say keep! See you! Mark Richards 17:28, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The thing is, nothing is known about the school except the name. So what article is there to write? Mandel 17:30, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

If there really isn't anything to write, then make it a redirect to Barbie or something, either way, it doesn't need deleting. Yours, Mark Richards 16:02, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You made a comment that the New School High School probably failed due to it's system. Having first-hand knowledge of the events, I can tell you that that isn't true. It encountered rough financial difficulties (in the wake of the recession, which hit the ATT employees who were often the parents of the students there). Problems with the staff and some conflict over the proper amount of structure (you could say a problem with the system) account for the rest.

Threat to ban

Hey there, I noticed that when you pointed out a possible sockpuppet in Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/New School High School of Monmouth County you threatened to ban the sockpuppet. While its possible that sockpuppets may be blocked and banned from time to time, its never a good idea to threaten one as such, as there are many times when users actually prove that they are in fact not sockpuppets. In case they are a new user, we don't want to discourage them, especially on an already unfriendly page (vfd). The best solution is to just mark it as a possible sockpuppet and move on, if it comes down to a need to block them, it will become apparent in time. —siroχo 00:36, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

• Personally, I think there should be stricter rules on sockpuppets used in vfD. I admit I was losing my patience w them, esp on school articles (not once but several times). Of course this is my personal opinion. Mandel 03:54, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

I understand, nobody likes sockpuppets. But there have on numerous occasions been new users that have been accused of being sockpuppets. The best way to avoid biting the newcomers is by not biting sockpuppets as well. At the end of any vfd vote, an admin tallies the votes to see whether to keep, delete, or whatever. If you simply mark under the users vote, "This user may be a sockpuppet", give some reasons, and sign. Then the admin will check it out and decide whether or not it looks like a sockpuppet, and most probably not count the vote. There is no need for stricter rules really, because the votes aren't counted. In general, wikipedia doesn't like to block or ban people when its not neccesary, thats very much not in the spirit of the wiki. —siroχo

VfDing schools

Hey, when you VfD a big group of articles that are related in some way, it might be good to put them all in the same VfD entry so it's easier for peoples votes to apply to all of them. Thanks! --Improv 20:32, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How to? Didn't they mention schools must be dealt with on a case by case basis? Mandel 07:57, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Murky waters here...

...Although I've seen other examples where VfD discussions were conducted on related groups of articles.

But, if it's OK to allow a person to vote on multiple VfD listings via a single request, then what about those who have asked for a way of automatically voting "keep" on ALL VfD items? Yes, this came up, and, yes, the people asking for it were serious. What about the people who vote "Keep. School" or "All high schools are notable?" Does this meant that they are entitled to have someone enter a vote on their behalf for every school listing on VfD or every high school on VfD? What if they specifically request such an action?

I have no idea what the right thing to do is and I have no idea exactly what will happen, but if I were the sysop acting on these deletion requests I think I might not count these entries despite the fact that WOT, Improv, etc. have clearly expressed their intention. I dunno, I dunno, I dunno.... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 09:56, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Their intentions are very clearly signalled at the beginning of the article. I am not voting on their behalf; I'm just making sure people see their votes. Improv has mentioned to me to lump them all together (see above on my talk page), but I think it better to separate them on a case by case basis.

If there are people who are inclusionists, then surely you'll allow some to be exclusionist anyway. BTW most people who bother to vote delete bother to read the article, but I do know one who simply vote keep and has no idea what the article is about. Mandel 18:40, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

It is a puzzle. But then it is a puzzle to me as to how as many as half of the citizens of the United States can possibly be going to vote for the person they are going to vote for. It's all beyond me.

I'm not saying you did the wrong thing, since the people you named did declare specific intentions with regard to a specific list of schools. I just expected... well, the sort of thing Anthony did. I wonder how, say, SimonP will determine consensus if he turns out to be the acting sysop on an article in which Dpbsmith votes "delete" and Anthony also requests that Dpbsmith be counted as voting "keep."

Well, leave it to the others to decide. Hopefully SimonP bothers to act more democratically; if necessary I'll strike those portions off if they are offensive. Mandel 21:12, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

On a related topic, I'm trying to take Wikinerds at face value, but I think my efforts will founder on complex issues about GFDL and copyright and preserving article history, etc. etc. But the site itself currently is, well, take a look at their current Allpages listing (http://jnana.wikinerds.org/index.php/Special:Allpages), I think you will be amused. If they manage to make a viable website by accepting VfD deletions and drawing contributors to their wider and more inclusionist vision, it will certainly be... amazing. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:51, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, at least there's a prospective place for Anthony to dump all his deleted school articles in; hopefully with an outlet he won't get too vindictive. Mandel 21:12, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

Straits Times

Hi Mandel,

Unfortunately I don't know too much about the Straits Times... but I'll keep the page on my watchlist just in case. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 01:48, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

WP:VFD/HS

Just letting you know that I thought you might be interested in taking a look at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/High schools, as well as what I wrote on Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 05:40, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

International Tchaikovsky Competition

Hi, nice job completing the winners list. I got mine by going through old issues of the New York Times, but a lot was missing. Where did you find it? Tualha 19:13, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It might seems strange, but I got it through a Japanese website. I don't read Japanese, but the winner's list is in English. Lucky me! :) Mandel 22:57, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Ram-Man&action=edit&section=new)| talk)

Singapore

You objected on the FAC, leading to its failure, but I've tried reworking the article now. Can you please chip in at Wikipedia:Peer review/Singapore about the article's current condition? Thanks. Johnleemk | Talk 12:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yongle Dadian

Thanks for your message. If you follow the link to the Columbia article, there is an eyewitness account. Some of the other links state that the fire was started by Muslim imperial troops who had no idea of the significance of Hanlin college. The looted/rescued probably needs to be expanded - various foreigners rescued volumes from the fire for various reasons, some self-serving. Technically taking these out of the country was looting, but there no question that various foreign scholars genuinely did rescue volumes in order to preserve them. I think the reference to troops was added by someone else. Andrew Yong 23:43, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WP:RM March 14

I have copied information from WP:RM to the talk pages of the pages you asked to be moved. Please check the edits I made to make sure that you agree with them because I copied you signature at the same time as your proposal. Please also take a look at the move template and make sure I have the targets correct. Philip Baird Shearer 19:25, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Straits Times

I did notice the introduction of those paragraphs heaping criticisms on the paper, and although they are valid to some extent, the way its being presented is hardly balanced, and I do agree it lacks a more throgh critical review. As a daily reader of that paper (print edition every morning) since 1994, I must say it does reduce a rather well-respected paper in this region into some kind of a party magazine!

Claims that "Opposition figures are often given little or no press coverage" are true even for PAP members. In fact, opposition figures, expecially the more successful ones, have had full page articles writtern on them...I still remember a recent full feature article on Mr Chiam See Tong. In comparison, I dont recall the president getting this much journalistic attention. ;) The paper writes what they think the people of Singapore are interested in. They have not failed to update us on the ins and outs of Chee Soon Juan, for instance, even if some take offence with the way the paper is worded. In general, the opposition members has always chosen (be it free choice or otherwise) to lie low, only rising out of the ashes when elections are drawing near. The paper reflects that trend. Therefore, like that entire line on the Human Rights Report, the paper operates in such a political environment, but it cannot be assumed to be fully complimentary, and even as an enforcement, of that environment. The papers cannot be singled out and blamed for the low profile of opposition members. They cannot be fully responsible for "fostering an atmosphere inimical to free speech and a free press" either.

In my recent critical review of the paper, I haven noticed it has been quite well-oiled when it comes to presenting taboo subjects with some attempt in balance. The recent comment by a PAP politician that the homosexual community was to blame for a rise in AIDS cases was reported by the ST, but not without it quoting the same politican admitting that his comment was not scientifically or statistically based, as well as quoting homosexual groups who expressed opposition towards his viewpoint.

In the forum page, I have noticed the paper would selectively publish letters from both sides of the debate...side by side, and often in equal quantity. Just a month ago, there was a lively debate over the role of the government in Singaporean society, in particular its "nanny state" policies and its tendencies in adopting a top-down approach in conducting its affairs. These exchanges, were, of coz, sparked of by a editorial piece based on the same topic...hardly a reflection of accusations that the paper steers clear from debating "long standing" and "core" governmental policies.

Even more interesting was the aftermath of Lee Kuan Yew's speech at my varsity about 2 months ago. My friend, who was told of how a student walked up to the mike and called him a despot, amongst other things, excitedly told me the news over MSN, and commented "I wonder if the ST is going to publish this tomorrow!" Well...he must be quite pleasantly surprised to discover the paper giving the incident great coverage, spanning several days, and there was even an article detailing an interview with that student conducted by the paper. Not surprisingly, it sparked off massive debate amongst Singaporeans in every channel imaginable. If the paper is seen as an institution which avoids criticisms of PAP policies, and expecially the personal dignity of their politicians (law suits against opposition politicians for defamation surely highlight the "severity" of it! :D ), then it must have failed quite spectacularly in this regard!--Huaiwei 05:26, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I noticed your questions on Huaiwei's talkpage. If you thought the claims on the Straits Times seem to POV, why not do a bit of research, find its merits backed with facts and try and balance on it? Be bold! :) I personally, though didn't like their recent action of forcing users of the online edition to pay to view it. - Mailer Diablo 10:18, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anton Chekhov

Hi Mandel, thanks for your note. If you feel anything that I removed is worth restoring, please do it. That includes punctuation. In addition to a lot of duplicates, I found a lot of unsubstantiated, unattributed or tendentious text or useless trivia (like the last words "I die") I thought not fit for a serious encyclopedia. I tried to do my edits in stages so it can be traced back. Let's work together to get rid of that cleanup tag. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 08:26, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber

Hi Mandel. I see from your comments at the Cheng Kun VfD that you read this book, and I was wondering if you could maybe improve the article, as it's pretty bad right now. I'm partially responsible for that, as I merged in a couple very poor stubs on characters, making it even more of a series of non-sequiturs rather than an article. From experience I can be pretty sure that the result of the Cheng Kun VfD will be merge/redirect, which will result in the word-for-word cut/pasting of one article onto the end of the other, making the article even worse. Anything anyone can do to clean up this mess would be appreciated. thanks. -R. fiend 17:10, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I know what you mean about mere plot recititation as being pretty useless. Wikipedia, however, is full of such articles, and I think at this point three sentences on what the book is about is better than tidbits of information on a few characters that cannot form a cohesive paragraph. It is annoying what some people try to throw into Wikipedia, and that combined with poor language skills really doesn't make for a good encyclopedia in these areas. Another problem is some users' absolute refusal to delete anything at all from wikipedia, and their insistence on merging and redirecting even the most trivial elements from any work of fiction. That wouldn't be a big problem necessarily, if it weren't for the fact that the "information" that they insist on merging is the stuff like vital sentence "His fa3 hao4 was Yuanzhen." Anyway, if you could write, say, two or three solid sentences describing what the novel is about, I'll make a "Characters" section at the bottom and include the little bit of information from the characters' articles that actually makes some sense. It won't make for a good article, but at least it will be semi-coherent, which will have to do. -R. fiend 16:58, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Well done! You sold yourself short when you said all you could do was turn it into a sub-stub. It's actually a coherent article now, and a decent one too. Unfortunately there's stuff that will probably have to be somewhat merged in still, which will be an unpleasant task. I'll perhaps take on some of that myself, as I'm the one who VfDed Cheng Kun. Youmay want to clean up after me though. -R. fiend 19:09, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey Mandel, do you think you could take a stab at merging Ice and Fire Island into The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber? I was going to but without context it's just a load of nonsense which I can't salvage. Thanks. -R. fiend 00:22, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Decided to do a redirect, no merge. Seems less controversial that way. I'm generally against redirects which have no mention of said title in the article, but it beats the alternative, which is a VfD with an inevitable result of merge/rediect with all the nonsense added in. Anyway, we'll see if it takes. I smell a revert. -R. fiend 04:33, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

They won't complain if they don't notice; let's hope no one reads our talk pages. Seriously though, there's little else that could be done. You've turned that into a good article and it would only screw it up entirely if contextless, nonsensical ramblings were merged in under the policy that no "information" should ever be lost. I really think I merged in everything that was mergable. Now if someone wants to expand their entries in literate English that would be fine with me. -R. fiend 05:19, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of screwing up the article, it seems more anons are adding contextless redlinks and empty sections. Sorry if it seems like I've appointed you to babysit this article, but I hate to see an awful article get salvaged and then trashed again. I can't do anything but wholesale reversions, and I don't need to get involved in an edit war. Care to take a look at it? -R. fiend 15:28, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sad stubs

Sheesh, Mandel, you can't have been glad for very long about finding the sad stubs Shakespearean tragedy and Shakespearean comedies! Thank you for the kind words, compliments deserved or undeserved will be eaten right up, but, I'm very sorry, no, I can't take them on. My wikipediholism is getting worse, I was recently transformed into administrator which gave it an extra kick by introducing me to the delights of banning and blocking... (just kidding), and well, I urgently need to do less, not more, around the place. For the sake of my employer, and so on. And the fact is, I don't actually "do" Shakespeare—I've never edited the Shakespeare articles. See, Shakespeare's reputation, that I had a lot of fun with, isn't a Shakespeare article—at least, I don't think so. It's more an article about cultural change over 400 years. And an outlet for my unhealthy fascination with late 17th-drama, which is why that bit is disproportionately elaborate. (Shakespeare's reputation's still glumly waiting for somebody or -bodies to input a proper amount and quality of Renaissance stuff and 20th-century stuff, and I nominate you! Yes, YOU!) Sorry, Mandel. (Cough/check out the Main Page on the 26th!/cough) Bishonen | talk 18:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Gogol

Pls give me up to 1 day to think and search for more on your Gogol's comment. I will get back soon at Gogol's talk page. Thanks! -Irpen 19:27, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Edit summary

Hello. Please remember to always provide an edit summary. Thanks and happy edits. Alphax ^τεχ 07:16, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)