User talk:Swift/Archives/2009

RE: Old transwiki request on Wikibooks

Haha I don't really care anymore. I forgot i wrote that and i'm not really that active these days... so yeah. icelandic hurricane #12_(talk) 21:16, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering if you could mediate again

I have been attempting to continue work with microformats, but I am failing at this being able to reach common ground with Pigsonethewing. Perhaps you would again agree to mediate? Today I posted a request on the admin incidents board after another spate of revisions that do as I asserted before. They remove functionality that I have been adding to wikipedia pages. (Actually, a few were genuine errors (I forgot to add a pipe in one page, and mistakenly added a double pipe in another. I don't have any problem with those edits.) If you do not have the time, perhaps you know someone who might agree? I agree in advance to submit to whatever ruling is given. I realize this is volunteer work for you folks too and dealing with so many disagreeable situations must not be fun, so I really cannot expect anyone to help out with this. I would appreciate it if you would. Thank you. -J JMesserly (talk) 07:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have gobs of time right now, but I'll try to have look in the next couple of days. I'm actually not an admin here (nor on Commons, for that matter) so I can only mediate if both parties agree to it. Seeing how Pigsonthewing hasn't heeded my advice, I'm not sure if he would agree to that. --Swift (talk) 03:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to predict. I certainly prefer it to other mechanisms. I appreciate the time you have already put in and I realize this might be a huge time sink for anyone. I was just asking in case it was a more favorable moment. -J JMesserly (talk) 07:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Which advice do you think I have not heeded? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Demonstrating alternative solutions. [1] --Swift (talk) 12:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I did that, in Commons' template "Information", as described in the edit you cite. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you did. I hope you guys find a solution to this. --Swift (talk) 13:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I am a little new to all these dispute resolution mechanics, so it appears we may not be following the correct process. According to what I read on Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal and Wikipedia:Mediation, the correct process for binding mediation is the latter. Informal mediation is of course allowed, but the power to make or not make a binding judgment that both parties agree to follow appears to be reserved only to formal mediators. I suppose the rationale is that the community has an interest in the mediators being truly impartial and competent at mediation, so it looks like there is value to going the formal route. Since my desire is for binding mediation whatever the outcome, it appears that we cannot go this informal route. If I have misread something, then let me know. Otherwise, it is as Bugs Bunny used to say, "I think we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque", and I should be making an application for formal mediation at Wikipedia:Mediation. Agreed? -J JMesserly (talk) 19:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there will be much progress without a binding process. I'm happy to help but Wikipedia:Mediation may well be the best way forward if you can both agree on that. --Swift (talk) 12:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Korea4one socks

Do you think it's worth it to file a sockpuppet report? We've already gone through three; it doesn't address the fundamental problem. I've just been tagging them as {{sock|Korea4one}} to keep track. Cheers, cab (talk) 01:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

reply 04:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

U.S/U.K. English in Flag of the Earth

Please read WP:ENGVAR, which covers the use of U.S. or British spelling in Wikipedia articles. In 2004, this edit [2] was apparently the first to use a spelling of a word to distinguish U.S. from U.K. spelling. Per WP:ENGVAR, it should not be changed to suit the preferences of aome subsequent editor. You are welcom to open a discussion on the article's talk page, as to make a case that the article subject has a special relation to one country or another. This has also been discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:76.252.224.121 and US/British spelling. Thanks. Edison (talk) 20:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Reverted Edits on History of whaling page

Yeah, you added a bunch of info on Arctic whaling to the South Sea Whaling section, some of which was already covered in the Arctic whaling section. I removed much of it. Jonas Poole (talk) 04:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I hadn't noticed the redundancy when merging the information from Whaling. --Swift (talk) 19:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization of whale common names

Hi Swift, I see you've been spening quite a bit of time changing the capitalization of whale species names on various pages. Just so you, know, the Cetaceans WikiProject has specificially addressed this issue and has standardized on capitalized common names of whale species. It is discussed at length on the WikiProject page at WP:CETA as well as on the talk page and its archives. So when you make those changes, they are against consensus. This is similar to the Birds wikiproject naming convention that is discussed on the page you are wikilinking to in your edit summaries. Feel free to discuss further on the project pages, changing the standardization to sentence case is certainly something I'd support, but until there's consensus, I'd hate for you to do a bunch of work and have to go around and undo it all later. Neil916 (Talk) 10:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

You know, I actually just plowed through some of the project's pages and talk archives since the time I first raised the issue in 2006, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of strong feelings against changing the convention, and even some page move proposals to lower case that didn't raise a peep of concern, so the people advocating for capitalized common names may have moved on and nobody may raise any objections after all. Just wanted to call your attention to it, so you'd be aware of the potential for problems, though. Neil916 (Talk) 10:41, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, mate. I've actually just looked through the project page and haven't been able to find any consensus. Do you reckon it is wise to bring this up on the project page or just let sleeping dogs lie? I'm personally against creating standards on Wikipedia and it seems that the literature uses sentence case. --Swift (talk) 11:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

That's up to you, you won't get any grief from me. I, for, one, though find it incredibly maddening to spend my free time improving articles just to have some rude snob revert them all in five minutes, with the explanation that "we've discussed it (back in 1978) and the consensus is clear that it should be MY way". Might be worth the effort to see if anybody has an inclination to butt heads with you over it. Neil916 (Talk) 20:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll look into it. Cheers, --Swift (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

How's this? --Swift (talk) 22:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Much better

...than removing it with the edit summary of "irrelevant". Well done. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 03:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

It was never a question of either or. But thank you. :-) --Swift (talk) 04:00, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Apologies; it had appeared so to me. I do think the edit summary could have been chosen better. However, hopefully this is past tense now, and we're done cross posting. Thank you for the lovely detailed note on my page btw; I had already left my considerably shorter one here. :-) KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 04:10, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Conic sections.png

A tag has been placed on File:Conic sections.png requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. JaGa^talk 22:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Cetaceans

Just wondering how active this project actually is. Im just trying to understand what User:Belugaboy535136 is trying to accomplish and do they have the experience to do it. I would have proposed that Cetaceans be merged back into Mammals and have one larger group working together. Cheers ZooPro 12:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't seem too active, but the articles still get a fair amount of attention and have regulars watching them. I'm not sure if there is a need to merge it with the mammals project. I guess that if it would encourage the mammals people to work on cetacean articles that otherwise wouldn't get any project attention (assessment etc.), then it'd be a good idea. Not sure that would be the case as the mammals project already has nearly thirty times as many articles. --Swift (talk) 14:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)