User talk:Timcrow

Aerican Empire

Note: I saw how you said you agreed with kitka on this AfD page. Be aware that my username is Kitia, with an I. That's all. Kitia 15:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I'm not a great typist -- I always go through what i write for errors but because it was a proper noun I missed it. Won't happen again! Timcrow

• That's okay. I've done it too. Also, if you wan't an answer usually, I advise you to write to me on my talk page. Thanks. Kitia 20:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, Sorry about before, i shouldve talked about it on the talk page before putting the tag. Sure, it would be my pleasure to help out with the prose; i remember trying to edit it before, but someone reverted them. I didnt check to see who it was, so it kinda fueled my fustration before. But now that i see that the page isnt a hoax of some sort, it would be my pleasure to help. It has the makings of a very good article, and has a very interesting topic; just the prose threw me off, thats all. Xlegiofalco 05:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Sir, I have noticed you undid some of my edits on the Aerican Empire page. I have left some of your changes, but redid some. I am the elected King of the Aerican Empire, and most of these edits you claimed were unverified can be verified on the Aerican website. Those that are not verifiable, I have left removed, simply because I cannot prove these things are true, even though they are. I do hope you will keep in touch regarding changes. I am not logged in now, but I am User:General Mazur. Please post on the discussion page to continue this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.216.121.250 (talk) 18:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Virtual

Everything you posted... points to the fact that this group has never done anything off the Internet. There's never been an actual physical territory claimed, no coins minted, no passports issued, etc. That makes them unlike Sealand, Hutt River Principality, etc. Has there ever been a real-world meeting of citizens? An actual "Supreme Court" session not conducted on the Internet? A physical building barricaded from the world and claimed as sovereign? Look, it's all in good fun, but this is a serious encyclopedia, and we can't be misleading our readers into thinking this group is actually some sort of nation. FCYTravis 06:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

We just had a convention in montreal where people from multiple countries gathered. Land has been legally purchased in Montreal, though of course Canada has refused to recognise claims of independence. Supreme court sessions have been conducted in person as recently as this month. We don't issue passports or coins because they cost too much, and there's no point in having them if they would be ignored. You're making the error of assuming that every nation *wants* to be like Sealand. I think we can compromise on what the best way to wriote things is; many of your changes are good and I don't object to you adding phrases like "tongue in cheek" but "fictional" simply isn't an accurate descriptor.Timcrow 12:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm prepared to accept that "imaginative" is a fair word. Thank for you meeting me halfway. Timcrow 15:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade - trust me, I think if this was real I'd move there in a second ;) I just want to make sure we're fair to our readers. FCYTravis 15:24, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

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Aerican empire listing in List of micronations

We try to keep the list entries serious and factual, in general. The particular change made had a factual basis, but seemed just to be silly.

Yes, I know the Aerican Empire is sort of silly by definition. But we have to write about it in a factual and serious manner, not jokingly. We are an encyclopedia, not part of their joke...

If you want to go to the Talk:List of micronations page and propose a new expansion entry for the Aerican Empire I have no objection. I just don't want the tone of the list to degrade; that is the first entry in a long list. If you can keep in mind that we want to keep the discussion and notes serious, that should be fine.

We have a policy ( WP:OWN ) which makes it clear that nobody "owns" an article, so I definitely don't want to come across as trying to dictate how it comes out. I think that putting proposed changes up on the talk page and letting the other editors who follow the page comment would help.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 19:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

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Thanks for uploading File:AElogo.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

• make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
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If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. J Milburn (talk) 16:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Aerican empire infobox

Hi, about the infobox in the Aerican empire: all information in Wikipedia must be *facts* that can be confirmed by independent sources. Aerica's existence is a fact validated by independent sources, so that is OK. Some other information about it (such as who started it and when, the physical get-togethers, the exposure ) can be considered "verifiable facts" too, although that is already stretching things a bit. (We must assume that the newspaper reporters did a little bit more than simply copy items from the website; which is probably a very optimistic assumption.) But the contents of a website (and blogs, emails, etc.) are not idependent sources about the doings of the website owners. So most of the details in the "info"box, as well as the politicl offices, customs, etc. are just claims by Aericans about their own fantasies and role-playing virtual actions, and as such have no place in Wikipedia --- in the infobox or anywhere else. (Indeed, since an infobox looks more authoritative than the text, it is doubly inappropriate there.)
Aerica is great, and wish it all good luck; but it is essentially a game. Wikipedia can report on games, but canot become a playground for them.
All this of course holds for all similar "micronations". I did some cleanup on its article and on Talossa's because I ran into them; I bet that articles on other less-famous groups need much deeper cuts. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You say that

The information [in an infobox] doesn't have to come from an "independent" source. Wikipedia requires that notability be estalbished by a certain number of outside sources, but content in an article about a website can certainly come from that website... it would have to, because you can't assume that an outside reporter will arrange to cover every single fact that someone might want to know.'

I believe that Wikipedia does not agree with you at all. In fact, Wikipedia does not consider "the contents of a website" to be a suitable topic for an article. As I said above, even the newspaper reports are dubious evidence, inasmuch as they were largerly drawn from the site.
Anyone can set up a website and write anything in it, complete with blogs full of fake messages from fake people. If you think this is being paranoid, look at the two websites of the "Kingdom of Talossa" and try to figure out which of the two "histories", if any, is closer to the truth.
By the way, "notability" and "verifiability" are two completely unrelated concepts (although deletionists like to confuse them). Verifiability has to do with the question, "how can we ascertain that these claims are true?"; and every serious editor in Wikipedia believes that this is is an important criterion. Notability has to do with "how important is this topic?"; that is a big concern of "deletionists" (editors who believe that Wikipedia should have only articles on "important" topics) but not of sane people. In any case, Aerica is notable enough so the second point is not an issue.
However, everybody agrees that the content of an article should respect several other criteria, including "relevance" ("are the readers likely to find this information useful?"), "permanence" ("how likely is it that this information will change tomorrow?") and "encyclopediality" ("does it belong on an encyclopedia?"). These criteria follow from the defintions of "what Wikipedia is not". Thus, for example, everybody agrees that Wikipedia articles should not contain bus schedules, how to increase the font size of footnotes in Microsoft Word, the source code of the Linux kernel, the room regulations of Montreal's Hilton, how many bathrooms there are in Charing Cross Station, proofs of theorems, where Britney Spears said she is going to have lunch tomorrow, which jokes were told at last week's bingo session of St. Johns parish, and so on. Now, "data" such as the precise areas which the Aericans decided to claim as their territory is of this sort: neither relevant, nor permanent, nor encyclopedic. Finally, Wikipedia articles are not meant to be substitutes for its sources: readers who really want to know what Aericans are playing should read their website, which only one click away.
You also say

In the case of these microstates, information such as supposed land claims and currencies are essential data to appreciating the content and scale of the project,

Sorry but I can't see that. That "information" is about fantasies, not facts. A website can just as easily claim half of Pluto or half of a park bench; it may claim to be ruled by an accountant, by an Emperor, or by a jar full of squid-like beings from Saturn. It may be one of those today and another one tomorrow. Those pseudo-facts may look like information, but are actually just meningless noise.

and the best and most reliable source for that data is the website in question.

Indeed, and that is why that "data" cannot be considered verifiable.

It's no different than putting up an item of celebrity news based on a press release from their website, which we do routinely. It's a biased but valid source,

...as long as the *facts* are at least potentially verifiable and relevant. Wikipedia is not "People magazine" or a personal marketing site either. Any article that reads like them needs fixing.)

As it happens, I do have a citation to support the "purported currency" and "population" figures... They were mentioned in a European radio broadcast a few months back...'

However the currency info is still pure fantasy, and so it has no place in Wikipedia, per above. The membership data *are* relevant; but since the only source for them is the group itself, they are not verifiable either. Just as Aerica claims that it owns half of Pluto, it could post a list with 50,000 nicknames of "citizens"; and each real citizen could post to their blogs through a hundred different sock puppets. How could we check that? Thus, a line in the text that says "{The website claims|group members claim} that the group has about XXX active members, local or remote" is more than enough. Putting that number in an infobox, even with a [7] next to it, would make it seem that the figure was somehow verified, which is not the case.

I'd appreciate it if you refrained from making sweeping comments about micronations being games or role-playing. I don't ask you to say that they're valid political organizations, but given that the people involved don't consider it to be playing a game, it's arguably not accurate to say that it is one.

Well, that is precisely the point. A Wikipedia article about a micronation (or any other entity) should not be written from the group's viewpoint, as if it were a page of their website. That would turn Wikipedia into a playground for the group. The article should be written from an outsider's point of view, neutral and factual, as if it were a report by a scientist from Mars looking at the group through a telescope. Now, looking from the outside, some of the micronations, especially the most "physical" ones (such as Sealand) may have serious purposes; but many, including most of the internet-centered ones --- and Aerica in particular --- are clearly social clubs that people join exclusively for the fun of it, and what they do there is definitely playing elaborate games --- irrespective of what they like to call them. (As in any game, sometimes the members may forget that they are just playing. My son was a citizen of Talossa for some years in the late 1990s, and through him I got to know of some rather nasty fights, not entirely virtual, and people getting really distressed/upset;depressed/offended/etc. And that was well before the group broke up in 2005...)

Obviously, though, I'm biased on this point, and I freely admit that. Timcrow 03:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Good to you for admitting it. But, again, Wikipedia articles should not be written from a biased point of view. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Dear Tim, first a meta-comment: I am what some people call a "radical inclusionist", because I believe that notability should not be a requirement for the existence of an article. I don't know about Aerica, but it seems that the entire "Kingdom of Talossa" article was speedily and permanently deleted twice before its current incarnation, presumably for being "non-notable" or something of the sort. I don't know how someone could possibly think of labeling as "non-notable" a topic with over 100,000 Google hits (not to mention over 2,000,000 for "Talossa" alone); but unfortunately those as the times we live in. I just had a good scientific article of mine deleted, several years old and with lots of references, because four or five deletionists who know nothing about the subject glanced at it and decided that it looked like "original research". (To boot, the entire "trial", from "accusation" to "beheading" lasted from December 27, 2009 to January 2, 2010!) I do believe that Aerica, Talossa, and many other less-notable "micronations" deserve articles; but I also believe that those articles should abide by the fundamental Wikipedia standards of accuracy, clarity, timeliness, relevance, neutrality, etc. — if nothing else, to save them from the deletionists' chainsaw.
Second, accuracy and clarity demand that things should be described for what they are, not for what someone would like them to be called; and all English words should be used with the meaning that they have for the majority of readers. AFAIK MacDonalds does not want to be called a "fast food" company, but since they *are* the prime example of a fast food chain, an article that does not use those words is a faulty article. Now."micronation", to most readers, means just "very small nation"; and "nation" has a rather specific meaning that is quite different from "internet site", "cultural association", or "role-playing game", and the like. Moreover, "micronation", as used for most "micronationalists", is a fuzzy term that spans from entities liek Sealand, which actually tries to enforce its territorial claims by physical actions, to free-for-all blogs set up by kids. The latter naturally want the term to remain fuzzy, since "micronation" sounds much more dignified and substantial than "kid's blog". But using "micronation" all by itself, without a more precise qualification, would be misleading to readers.
Now, all I know about Aerica is what I read in your article; but I was moderately acquainted with Talossa through my son, and I believe that Aerica, while bigger than Talossa, is no more serious than it. Talossa claims sovereignity over a borough in Milwaukee, Cézembre and part of Antartica; Aerica has similar claims on Earth, a bit of Mars, half of Pluto, and an imaginary planet. Obviously they have no real intention of ever enforcing such sovereignity claims, e.g. by refusing to pay taxes and custom duties to the host macronations, violating their building codes, giving asylum to fugitives, etc.. Their members come and go in a matter of months, are not united by birthplace, personal contacts, descent, or cultural heritage. So, perhaps "club" and "game" are not the most accurate English words for such entities and their activities, but they are certainly much, much more appropriate than "(micro)nation", "politics" and "government".
Some micronations may qualify as "creative cultural associations", such as many other clubs devoted to quilt-making, pottery, railroad modeling, limerick writing, etc.. However, even in Talossa the creative activities (such as flag, anthem, and language design) were limited to a tiny fraction of the membership, and cannot be presented as activities "of the group". Even the yearly physical "Talossafests" were limited to a dozen or so people, mostly Milwaukee locals. The only activities with reasonably broad member participation were the virtual "political" and "journalistic" activities. Since those activities have hardly any consequence in the physical world, even for the members themselves, and are undertaken only because the members take pleasure in them, calling them "games" is not a point of view, but merely making good honest use of the English language.
Now for the specifics:

1. You say that the Aerican coins are physical. Somehow I had understood that Aerica does no mint currency or issue physical passports, ostensibly because it would be a waste of money; but if that is not the case, it would be OK to say in the article something like "Some Aerica merchandise is available. The latter includes plastic coins of 2.7, π and ${\sqrt {-1}}$ "pazuzas", where a pazuza is claimed to be worth 2.71828 Canadian dollars. However, those coins do not have any numismatic value and are not recognized by any bank, and are not accepted as tender outside the group." Note that putting the currency unit and coin denomilations in the infobox is not OK, because the disclaimers would then have to be omitted.
2. Once again, statements by a person or group, or any other information derived from the same, cannot be considered reliable evidence about the actions of that person or group. If a claim about Britney Spears is based solely on her own statements, or her agent's, or her publisher's, then it not "verifiable", and has no place in Wikipedia. (Exmples to the contrary prove nothing because almost all of the 3,000,000 English WP articles are little more than rough drafts.) Using information from websites is Ok only if it is possible for editors to check the claim by other means, or the site is trustworthy for some reason. Examples of the latter include a faculty roster on an university's official site, a court sentence from an government page, a stock quote from an established financial company, a product fact sheet from a major manufacturer, and so on. Now, Aerica members claim, in the website and interviews, that Aerica considers half of Pluto to be their territory. That claim alone means that one cannot trust anything else those people may say or write: if they have immaginary territories, why not also immaginary citizens and government officers? How do weknow that they are not counting Santa Claus and his elves as members? Therefore, consider these possible claims:
   • Aerica has over 200 citizens: There is no way a non-member editor can verify the truth of this statement. The website and member interviews, even to the New York Times, do no prove this claim, or even make it more likely to be true than any other random number. Therefore this statement is "unverifiable" and cannot be put in wikipedia, with or without citations, in the infobox or in the article text. Moreover, even if one could somehow verify it today, the claim could easily become false tomorrow (literally, not in the sense "several years from now" as the number of US states). Therefore this statement also fails the "permanence" criterion.
   • As of 2003, Aerica had 200 members / Arica's membership peaked at 200 in 2003, and until 2009 never exceeded that mark: These statements are "permanent", but are still totally unverifiable.
   • Aerica's website claims that it has 200 members / According to its website, Aerica had 200 members in 2003: These "statements about claims being made" are verifiable, since any editor can check the website; but they are not "permanent" since ten minutes from now that webpage could be edited to claim "2" or "2,000,000", and then both statements would become false.
   • As of 2009-12-27 14:32:15 GMT, Aerica's website claimed a membership of 200 This is a "permanent" statement but is practically impossible for other editors to verify (unless the page was somehow saved by some trusted web archival site). In any case this statement fails the criterion of relevance, see below.
   • In a New York Times interview, Eric Lis claimed that Aerica had 200 members in 2003. / In 2003, a New York Times article reported that, according to their site, Aerica had 200 members. These statements *about what the NYT article said* are permanent, and independently verifiable (by finding a copy of that newspaper). However, these statements fail the criterion of relevance, since any claim by an Aerican about Aerica cannot be trusted, and therefore carries no useful information.
   • Eric Lis was interviewed by the new York Times in 2003 / in 2003, the New York Times carried an article about Aerica: These statements (finally) pass all the tests, and therefore are acceptable for Wikipedia.

I hope this clarified my understanding of Wikipedia's fundamental rules. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)