User talk:Bishonen: Difference between revisions

I want to thanks for all your support. I know you have been very hurt by the disgusting treatment you have received in this horrible debacle. As you, together with Geogre, are amongst the encyclopedia's finest and most valuable editors you deserved better. However, I'm planning to say little more on the subject unless I'm attacked again. I have proved my point about the IRC admin channel, and many people (whose opinion matters to me) now seem to believe all I have ben saying was true. The channel is now thoroughly discredited and will never be a source of power again, and used by anyone of Wikipedian value - it is now basically finished - no one will ever believe a word that emanates from it again, no doubt a few little firecrackers will continue to pop on admins notice boards and such places but I think people can now evaluate such comments for themselves and see them for what they are dying embers of a former power base. Once again thanks for your support in this. I have appreciated it. Giano 10:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

De nada, Giacomo. I wish the Wikimedia foundation would remove the official-sounding name from #wikipedia-en-admins, that's all. It's all wrong that that poison pit should have "Wikipedia" in its name. And who's going to remove this claim in WP:IRC: "The Wikipedia channels on freenode are the official place to chat about Wikipedia on IRC." The arbcom have shown that statement to be false--nothing official about it, no Wikimedia control of it. Bishonen | talk 13:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I've made the change. I mentioned it on the talk page to the IRC page. We'll see what happens next. Geogre 13:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I went one step further [1]. Cheers. Ben Aveling 11:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately within minutes of me announcing I was stepping back Tony and the IRC gang immediately began to blacken my name again on IRC [2] I never believed the new "policemen" would bother to do anything about it, but I did expect at least a pretence! Giano 13:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on the front page article - seems it's been listed for ages though. It's really nice to see an overview article of such quality there. It seems sometimes, that only the more marginal, niche articles can jump the hurdles, whilst the invaluable overviews get bogged down in disputes and difficulties - getting a single editorial 'voice' for these articles is a real achievement. --Mcginnly | Natter 00:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that's on today? Cool. Geogre wrote it, you know, I just contributed a section. He's the one with the soaring eagle eye! Bishonen | talk 01:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, it is, and it's wonderful too; I've set it aside to look forward to reading in detail in the morning. Newyorkbrad 01:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reading it this morning as well as I don't think I've read it completely through. It will also give context to The Man of Mode, next on my reading list after finishing Tis Pity She's a Whore. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 14:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't read The Man of Mode, Gan? I think you'll really like it. I feel it's like the perfect play for you. It's as funny as all getout. Bishonen | talk 20:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I'm quite excited about it. After Tis Pity, I need something a bit lighter. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 20:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. Man of Mode is fantastic, and so is Love for Love. Really fun parts for an actor and great jokes. (I'm only at the computer for a few minutes, but the shocked FAR fanatics on the talk page and the griping piping voices deserved a swatting.) Geogre 21:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alkalada is begging me to be unblocked and promising good behavior. I'd like to give him a chance. Any objections? Fred Bauder 17:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Who...? Oh, I see. He's a very young editor but with a pretty bad record of POV-pushing and puppeteering and intransigence. This time he has apparently done exactly what I asked[3] [4], that's great. I hope he's turning over a new leaf. Feel free to unblock. I also suggest the harmless indulgence of asking him which identity he likes best, unblock that one, and exhort him to stick to it. Tell him I'll know if he creates any more socks. (I will, as his style is unmistakable.) Bishonen | talk 20:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you, unblocking Alkalada (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Fred Bauder 00:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to reminding user's of policies like WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF and WP:NPA, there is never any harm in repeating them. The use of templates for all users, established or not, is not prohibited. I prefer them because it is my epxerience that in many situations they are preferable to users actually speaking their mind (like your comment about users leaving).

If you believe that the personal attack referenced is harmless then you will not mind me making the same comment with regard to your so-called advice: why are you so interested in me? Per WP:NPA you should comment on contributions and not contributors.

Posting a comment like "Yes, I do see that you announce your imminent departure, but that doesn't malke me think this advice redundant. Most people who make such announcements, in my experience, tend to retract them pretty soon." (diff) does not sound productive to me. It sounds like a challenge, which can deter users from returning. If that is your intent I find it utterly disgusting. I would advise you to please consider phrasing yourself differently in the future, or if that is not possible to refrain from commenting at all. Such comments are not helpful.

--Oden 22:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, there speaks the wikilawyer! It's not prohibited. I explain to you what bad ideas it is to point to the three Troll Favorite Policies, and to use templates against established users; I enlighten you as to the massive consensus against such behaviour; and that's all you've got? (Well, except that you prefer templates because they're preferable, but that doesn't do a lot for the advancement of human knowledge, either.) It's "not prohibited" so I'm going to do it? Don't worry, I'm not going to waste any more of my time explaining stuff to you. Bishonen | talk 22:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Unbelievable: Templates are for use with null accounts and incommunicative users. Experienced administrators use them for IP accounts and nonce accounts, where there is every reason to believe that there is "no one" there or that the person there is absolutely committed to trolling. They are never appropriate for established users, ever. They are incommunicative, carry with them no explanation, and have no justification offered within them. They're billboards, not communication. It is disruptive and inappropriate to try to drive users away, even bad ones, as bad turns to good, but gone never turns that way. To say that there is a consensus against this use, Bishonen, is litotes. There is virtual unanimity about it. Geogre 02:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Troll Favorite Policies should be an essay. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if you are following the discussion at User talk:ApocalypticDestroyer's. I don't know what Ben is trying to do with that. So anyway just keeping you up-to-date. Btw thanks for the e-mail (I'm almost a week late) and good to see that you removed the leaving announcement from your page. Hope you stick around.--Certified.Gangsta 23:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Umm..and also an IP edited Isberg's userpage, [[5]]?? Is that you or can it be Guardian Tiger?--Certified.Gangsta 00:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not following that discussion, Boney. I disengage, I go Zen, I take stuff off my watchlist. I advise you to do the same. The IP isn't me, I've no idea who it is. Bishonen | talk 01:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Sure, thanks for the advise. The pages have been removed from my watchlist.--Certified.Gangsta 07:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bish, sorry to be a pain, but I'm going to ask you to have a look at User_talk:ApocalypticDestroyer's#User:Guardian_Tiger_Timeline. It's an annotated copy of a timeline Gangsta put together. Tiger and I have been discussing it and we don't believe that it demonstrates that Tiger has been abusive. (A sock, yes, but you and I could both be hung for that.) I'd like your feedback. I want to take this back to ANI and I'd very much like to have your support when I do. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I blocked someone today and noticed that the edit summary for one of its edit read Jesus is coming, look busy! Look busy, I like that! El_C 13:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with the Dawg! El_C 01:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Fondly.] I never understand a word you say, honey! Bishonen | talk 17:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I now understand why you are angry. --Kim Bruning 04:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Calton, if you don't mind my asking, what on earth is going on?

Yeah, trivial, but it's the principle of the thing.

Reader's Digest version: last year, someone created an article about a minor playhouse in NYC called the Grove Street Playhouse. That someone -- MissMajesty (talk · contribs) -- seemed to be Marilyn Majeski, its owner, since the article seemd solely done to promote the importance of Majeski -- especially after the playhouse and the bio both went up for AFD. Angry messages, talk page spamming, an ongoing fight with User:NYTheaterHistorian (whom she apparently knows IRL), massive sockpuppetry, etc. Eventually, the drama ends, and MM goes away.

A few months ago, I noticed that a brand-new user had edited one of my Talk Page archives (it being on my watchlist), removing the reference to "Grove Street Playhouse" from a message. So I followed backwards from there, and discovered that for the last several months before, a series of one-off accounts had been expunging the record from various pages about what had happened. Nothing as crude as blanking entire pages, but still. The one-offs and older sockpuppets include:

• Gary1952 (talk · contribs)
• 69.143.167.9 (talk · contribs)
• Casual Observer (talk · contribs)
• Misha3 (talk · contribs)
• Princess Grace (talk · contribs)
• RickJo (talk · contribs)
• Theatrelog (talk · contribs)
• Mambo5 (talk · contribs)
• CyberAngel (talk · contribs)
• CyberAngels (talk · contribs)
• Julie123 (talk · contribs)
• Quatro4 (talk · contribs)
• Chico99 (talk · contribs)
• Krane7 (talk · contribs)
• Krane77 (talk · contribs)
• VictorBumbalo (talk · contribs)
• NYTheatreHistorian (talk · contribs) (NOT the same as above)

I reversed the whitewashing. The puppeteer has become angry. That's it in a nutshell. --Calton | Talk 01:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. [Still scratching head a lot] Good job it was the simple version, or I'd have been in even more trouble... I think. Bishonen | talk 01:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Trust me, I left off a lot of details: the ongoing fight with User:NYTheaterHistorian (whom she apparently knows IRL) covers a multitude of sins and would be worth a few hundred more words, if I could actually sort out what it was about, which I do not want to. Oy. --Calton | Talk 01:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Hurriedly taking your word for it.].[6] Let's do that thing in Shibuya sometime. Bishonen | talk 01:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I have responded to your note on my talk page. Julie123 18:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bishonen; I was actually working on this, but hadn't learned anything useful. I got the pic to display by copy-and-pasting the body of the template, {{POTD/{{{date|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}}|condensed}}, but I don't really know what I'm doing. Anyway, it it a cool picture. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do we refer to a hypothesis or an hypothesis - I think it might be an. We usually put an an in front of words beginning with vowels eg. an irritation but I've got it in my head that h sometimes has a peculiar status eg. an honourable peace. Is this just 1. a product of my confusion or 2. archaic usage or 3. quite correct?......--Mcginnly | Natter 16:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't think of asking me? I'm tempted not to answer, but the pedantic urge is too strong. /H/ is not a consonant. It is an aspirant. (I.e. it is a breath mark. It tells us to blow out with a hhhhhhhhhh.) Therefore, traditionally, we treat words beginning with /h/ as beginning with whatever letter comes next, which is usually a vowel. However, many people now think it sounds weird and therefore will use "a." Basically, I say "an hypothesis" and "an history," but some people will think these are wrong. It's considered a little fussy to use the 'an', but it's still correct. (Sorry, Bish, but I had to.) Geogre 16:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Geogre, I did think of asking you, but as my first point of call for dumb questions I thought I'd spread the burden out a bit.....Thanks very much for the confirmation. --Mcginnly | Natter 17:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree in part, though: At least in the Eastern U.S., any word beginning with a sounded "h" takes "a". Newyorkbrad 17:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I say and write a hypothesis and a history, but an hour and an heir. See also A, an#Discrimination between a and an. —Mets501 (talk) 17:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we're right back in the old descriptive vs. proscriptive argument. The rule is that /h/ is not a consonant. The practice and therefore growing usage is to treat it as "not a vowel and therefore as a consonant." Ultimately, the reason the rule came into force in the first place as a disambiguation, as it were. English doesn't like blending vowels between words, and so we use the nasal to provide a stop. Thus, we had "thy glory" vs. "thine arm," as well as "my bird" vs. "mine emu." The rule is exactly the same, and you're still actually correct to put the /n/, but the language is losing those rules (by analogy to the loss of nasal pronouns? as part of the same shift?), so it's debatable whether "a history" is wrong or not. Geogre 19:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ask and ye shall receive. Both are acceptable. Raul654 19:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• If we wanted to be linguists, we'd figger out what it is about some vowel lengths that, when aspirated, need no stops. I.e. "hy" is longer and heavier than "how" or "hoi," and therefore "hypothesis" and "hyperbole" and "hyperborean" all feel like they need no nasal stop before them, where as "howl" feels like it does. If the u is really yu ("hubris"), we feel like it's heavy, too. However, I traded in my linguist badge for a crossing guard sash years ago, so I'm not qualified by temperament or training. Geogre 20:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'ard 'earted 'ercules 'it his 'orse over its 'ed with an 'ammer cause it to give an 'orrible 'owl. So for a cockney everyfink beginnin wiv H 'as an an. ie. maybe your suggestion re. vowel lengths is only going to work with received pronunciation --Mcginnly | Natter 22:17, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I'm at all qualified to judge this, but the obvious rule seems to be that "a" goes with "h" that is pronounced ("hhhh"), and "an" goes with "h" that is silent. An honour, an hour, a hotel, a horror. Counterexamples, please? Kosebamse 08:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• To tell the truth, each of those. The thing is that we're at the point of discarding an ancient rule in English. Some people, like me, preserve it in written English (but not in spoken English) because I regard it as best to be conservative in writing. (In other words, some hypercorrectives will be offended if "an" isn't used, so I avoid being "wrong" to them. Additionally, I cannot be sure how the reader is going to pronounce the /h/. As Mcginnly's cockneys demonstrate, English speakers around the world treat the aspiration differently, so some will have more or less of a vocal initial sound, so "an" does them some service, while it just looks fussbudget to the people who aspirate heavily.) Since we've lost our /n/ speedbump between our pronouns, keeping it with /h/ may be gone already. Note that a good many people in speech will say "a" and anything following. The nasal is getting lost altogether. In 50-100 years, it seems like there will be no "an" at all. So, does one make a stand and fight for the /n/, or does one not? I do, but humbly. Geogre 13:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• There is a strong distinction between British usage and North American usage (I have no idea about Commonwealth usage apart from Canada). In North America it is extremely rare to see "an" before a voiced "h". This has been the case for many years: I remember the issue coming up on an episode of M*A*S*H when upper class Bostonian, Charles Winchester, was revealed as an absurdly pretentious oaf for saying "an harmonica"...; that was in the mid-1970s. A further wrinkle is that of words like "homage" that may be pronounced with either a voiced or an unvoiced "h"; I've seen examples in Canadian and US texts of both "an homage" (which I would srite and say) and "a homage". Pinkville 14:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]