User talk:Stephen B Streater/Archive 4

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My RfA and your vote[edit]

 Hi Stephen,
Thanks for participating in my RFA! Ultimately, no consensus was reached, but I still appreciate the fact that you showed up to add in your two cents. Hopefully I'll earn your unwaivering support next time! You can feel free to talk to me about it or add some advice on my improvement page.


Sincerely, The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me)

You've got a Thank you card![edit]

Light rail article[edit]

Stephen: I wonder if you've ever seen the light rail article. It's filled with the kind of promotional language that's been removed from the PRT articles (rightly so), yet it's been that way for quite some time with no correction. I think it requires the same level of overhaul that PRT got. What do you think? I can participate, but I'm afraid it's too big a task for me to take head on, and for me to take the lead would give the appearance that I'm just another PRT fanatic bashing light rail (I'm not - I actually like light rail and PRT, though certain fanatical elements of the debate seem to think that it's not possible to like both). So if you took the lead I could maybe contribute where I see fit.

Note specifically the "Disadvantages" and "criticism" sections, in which almost every single critical point is debunked, often with arguments that seem to be taken right out of a promotional brochure. Light rail, it seems, suffers from the same sort of problem that PRT does: many of its most vocal proponents push it as the be-all-end-all solution for all urban problems, and bristle at any sort of critical analysis (even if it's valid criticism). The article seems to reflect that mentality. A Transportation Enthusiast 15:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a look. Stephen B Streater 15:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a first pass and cut it from 44kB to 39kB by making it more concise, and removing some future predictions and a few implausible uncited claims. Stephen B Streater 23:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GHe's RfA[edit]

Hi Stephen B Streater!

Thank you for taking part in my RfA! Unfortunately, it ended with a final result of (62/23/7), and with only 73% support, no consensus was achieved. Nevertheless, I'd like to thank you again for your trust and support and better luck to me next time! :)

 G.He 03:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Light rail[edit]

Thanks Stephen. I'll take a look at your changes in the next few days. BTW, what's the status of your RfA? Let me know when it is and I will be sure to vote my support. You are a spectacular example of everything Wikipedia aspires to be. A Transportation Enthusiast 20:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stephen: I browsed the changes, and they are definitely an improvement. Nice work. I'll try to read the article more thoroughly in the next week or so, to see if I notice anything else. I think I may mainly add a bunch of {fact} markers to try to elicit citations for many of the points. You already caught a bunch of these in your edits, but there may be a few more. In most of the cases, I think reliable references are probably out there, it's just a matter of getting them into the article. A Transportation Enthusiast 05:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your encouraging comments :-) I'm looking forward to an RfA in October, when I'll have time to hit the ground running. In the mean time, I look forward to working with you. Stephen B Streater 10:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you[edit]

Hello!

Thank you for participating in my RfA! Unfortunately, it ended with a final result of (32/31/5) which no consensus was achieved. Nevertheless, I'd like to thank you again for your comments and to keep an eye out for me within the next 3 months. If you would like to give any helpful advice, please contact me via my suggestions page for my next RfA. :) SynergeticMaggot 23:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for your work on light rail[edit]

A Barnstar!
The Barnstar of Diligence
I, CComMack, award you this Barnstar of Diligence for your excellent work on cleaning up light rail. It has been said that an article achieves NPOV when you can no longer tell what the opinion is of the person who wrote it, and that is now true for light rail for the first time I can remember. Many thanks. CComMack (t•c) 17:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

adminship[edit]

Hi Stephen. I haven't been able to be around Wikipedia much lately, but I do want to log on to give you a message. It's recently been six months since your arrival at Wikipedia. I wanted you to wait until you'd been here longer before you went up for adminship, and I think this is long enough. Therefore, I suggest that if you feel up to it, you should now go through it. I'm not sure if JzG has written a nom for you or not. I would be happy to write one if not. -lethe talk + 17:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your offer here. For comparison with my previous edit count above, here is my current edit count (Interiot/Tool2):
Username Stephen B Streater
Total edits 3399
Distinct pages edited 618
Average edits/page 5.500
First edit 11:14, 12 February 2006
(main) 1566
Talk 752
User 98
User talk 352
Image 2
Template 1
Template talk 1
Help talk 1
Category 1
Category talk 1
Wikipedia 383
Wikipedia talk 241
I'll have lots of time in October, so was planning to stand then (see three sections up), but as you say I have been around six months and have had good experiences with other editors here, so perhaps now is a good time. I don't know whether JzG had written anything, but he is very busy so I expect he was planning to wait until I was ready. He's around, so you could always ask him.
Either way, if either you or JzG were to nominate me, I am likely to accept this time. Stephen B Streater 20:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help to become an administrator[edit]

I already have a page: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Patchouli. What do I need to do to complete my request?--Patchouli 08:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen how you got your page yet. Did you find the this page first? It has a button about half way down where you replace USERNAME with Patchouli and push the "Nominate youself" button. Did you use this to create your page? Stephen B Streater 08:48, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to. If we're lucky, you'll only have to wait seven days ;-) In the mean time, I'll see if a friendly Admin can delete the page so you can try again. It's worth mentioning that if you have difficulty with your nomination, some editors might suggest that more experience would be beneficial before you are given the powerful Admin tools. Stephen B Streater 09:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I figure it out. At Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/nominate, I have to enter my username in CAPITALS. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/PATCHOULI.--Patchouli 09:06, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're supposed to type your username as it is, as names are case sensitive. You see that none of the other nominees are in capitals. The problem is that the correct named article already exists, and this is confusing the generator. So what we should do now is delete both. I've had a look round, but I can't see an admin I know editing this morning yet. I suggest you tag both articles for speedy deletion, and they'll be picked up soon enough by a passing Admin. Stephen B Streater 09:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be a redirect rather than a move - the old page is still there. This was almost the right thing to do, as an actual move to the correct address would have worked while the correct address was empty. As it is, the capitals page should still be deleted. Stephen B Streater 09:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are right. I will case to remove PATCHOULI.--Patchouli 09:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK. That will fix it. Stephen B Streater 09:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA[edit]

Is at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Stephen B Streater. Please sign acceptance and then when Lethe has added the co-nom one of the three of us can add to WP:RFA. Good luck! Just zis Guy you know? 18:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great! I'll add some answers in tomorrow ready for the weekend. Stephen B Streater 18:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Stephen, going by the guidelines you're the one who should add the page to WP:RFA, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate#What to do if you are nominated by someone else:. All the best/wangi 22:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice, though in this case the section: Finally, once the nomination has been accepted and the questions answered, any editor (including the nominator or the nominee) can link it to the RfA page could apply here. Lethe may want to add something to the nomination, but his User page hints that he might not be around right now. He suggested above he would be happy with the JzG text, but I'd like to give him a chance to add something himself before it goes live. Either way, I expect it will go up within tweve hours, either because Lethe adds something and puts it up, or because Lethe is away and JzG or I put it up. Stephen B Streater 22:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, enjoy the rollercoaster ride when you join it! ;) /wangi 23:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your tips. I've put my RfA up as people are starting to voice opinions on it. Stephen B Streater 08:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like the "beat the nominator support" nonsense, I prefer to get the thing ready and accepted before presenting it to the community. It seems somehow tidier that way. I guess it's my workflow design background coming out :-) Just zis Guy you know? 13:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Luckily, everything was ready before the deadline ;-) Stephen B Streater 13:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Google rank[edit]

Doh! You are absolutely right, extlinks on user pages are served with rel=nofollow, which takes care of this problem, and I should have remembered that. I confused myself by getting several unrelated recent incidents mixed up with each other in my thoughts. One of these is that user and talk pages are indexed even though the links on them aren't followed; that's making some people complain about various unflattering content in user and talk pages getting high-ranked Google hits, with the consequent raising of BLP alarms. So I've been wanting to propose that all user and talk pages be served with a meta robots=noindex tag, to prevent those pages from being indexed at all. Those pages are meant for internal use and I don't see any important reason they should be indexed off-wiki. If you have an opinion about this idea, let me know. Thanks for catching my error about the extlinks. Phr (talk) 23:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer your idea. Often people use user pages to develop articles, and these could be confused with the real thing out of context. Also, when I edit people's user pages, they sometimes object (though quite rarely, surprisingly!) - but they certainly don't come under the normal level of scrutiny. PS I halved the number of links in my external links section to two. I think people get the idea now ;-) Stephen B Streater 00:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: video formats[edit]

I thought DV was a free format and it just used too much space. I'm not that much of a video user though (I still use a hi-8 analog camera) so I could be wrong. I'd hoped DV could be converted to Theora without intermediate conversions.

I'll have to look at the FORscene web site some more to make sense of your question, which I may not have a chance to do real soon. I also may be away for a few days, so if I don't seem to be around, I'm not ignoring you. Phr (talk) 07:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your engagement has been very welcome. It would be even more welcome if you could see how my approach will lead to a big step forward, and support me ;-) Any such big step forward will always get a reaction while it is being worked through, as it won't fit well into the old system. But all this can be fixed :-) When you get back, you might like to join the debate on wikimedia. It would be good to have a reasoned consensus before I take it to Jimbo. Stephen B Streater 08:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Show preview[edit]

Please, for the love of God, use "Show preview" rather than hitting "Save page" everytime. Look at the history on Breastfeeding ... you made over fifty consecutive edits. I don't want to assume poorly of you, but the only reason I can think of why someone would do that is if they were trying to boost their edit count. --Cyde Weys 20:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I wanted a high edit counted I would write a bot. The edits are distinct: there were a lot of things to fix. Perhaps you can explain how "show preview" would reduce the number of edits. Stephen B Streater 21:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's no excuse for only fixing one thing at a time when you're fixing fifty different things. Fix a lot of stuff and then hit "Save page". --Cyde Weys 21:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So I edit 70 things, hit the save button, and then it says "edit conflict". Been there before. I also use the comment field to describe the edit. The last half dozen times I tidied up articles in this way, I got huge compliments and a Barnstar. So you see your view is not universal, though I have decided to merge more of the edits at a time - see the talk page on the article for details. Stephen B Streater 21:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Check out {{inuse}}. It's better than making dozens of individual consecutive edits to an article. --Cyde Weys 23:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This could be what I've been looking for. The default does say a short while, which I'm not sure six solid hours of editing counts as, but I think this is the best solution yet - I'll use it next time. Stephen B Streater 23:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your RFA[edit]

With regret, I would propose to withdraw your nomination. I strongly hope you keep contributing to the project, though. Cheers, --Ligulem 23:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really appreciate your helpful comments. RfAs certainly have a unique character. Let's look at the actual position (ignoring all the RfA fear, anger and personal attacks for the moment):
  • People have made many more videos for Wikipedia articles than for a long time (using FORscene)
  • The Wikipedia codecs are free and available
  • There will apparently soon be a Java player so people can actually watch Wikipedia videos in practice
  • FORscene is designed to allow new codecs to be added easily
  • Any video published in FORscene can be re-published in any supported format at any time
  • Wikipedia will pay to host all this content, which means I won't have to
So, in conclusion, every FORscene video could soon be converted to a Wikipedia supported format and played back within Wikipedia without me having to pay for it. This doesn't look so bad to me. Stephen B Streater 23:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Stephen, what I'm seeing here is what I've experienced myself here at Wikipedia: you've been labelled by a respected authority, and everyone else is now falling in line without doing their own research. Phr, IMO, overreacted with his original message, in comparing your additions to linkspam, which to me is an astounding stretch. But you have now been labelled "evil commercial product pusher trying to infiltrate Wikipedia" and everyone is now lining up against you. No amount of explanation, it seems, will suffice. I tend to agree with Ligulem that withdrawal might be the best solution right now.
I was in your position a few months ago, being labelled a POV pusher by a respected authority, and having no recourse in a community that perhaps trusts elder members more than it should. Everywhere I turned, I was treated like a used car salesman, just because a single admin had labelled me. For the longest time, I reacted in the exactly wrong way: I pushed harder in response to the accusations... which (of course) had no effect other than to cement my supposed guilt as a POV pusher. I had to back off, calm down, wait patiently for the furor to settle, and slowly build my case. That's what I did, and eventually you got more involved and improved things. In the end, the vast majority of the issues I had with the article (issues that JzG had rejected outright a month earlier) were now being fixed.
And I see some parallels here. I think the harder you push, the worse it will be, and so maybe a withdrawal to address the concerns is the appropriate move here. Take a step back, regroup, resolve the video issues, and try again in October, which also gives you a few more months to get the edit counts up. I also believe it will be viewed as a magnanimous gesture, that you would be willing to postpone your RfA to address their concerns.
In any event, I'm really sorry to see it turn out this way. A Transportation Enthusiast 08:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad you have shed your unwarranted reputation here. You may be sorry for this hostility, but it is what I expected from the RfA process. We've had a lot of Wikilove recently, and some people can't handle this ;-) As it's getting on for lunch time, a couple of appropriate mottos might be: You can't make an omelete without breaking eggs and If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. See my answers to question 4. Some Wikipedians may be cynical, but the main people here have been happily engaging in the debate and offering constructive information - which is crucial as the problem up until now has been apathy. New people are still expressing support too - there is hope for Wikipedia yet :-) Stephen B Streater 10:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you do stick it out, keep cool. IMO a few of your responses have been a little too aggressively defensive (if that makes any sense). I've even sensed a bit of sarcasm, which is unusual coming from you. Remember your advice to me and Fresheneesz, to not take it too personally. I know it's tough not to respond strongly to these allegations, but maybe you should step back a little and let others defend you, especially now that you've made your points clear. BTW, all of this advice is free, but free only in the "free beer" sense, so take it for what it's worth. :-D A Transportation Enthusiast 15:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I always listen to advice. Stephen B Streater 16:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll[edit]

I have added a straw poll to my RfA on access to video within Wikipedia. Any passers by may like to contribute. Stephen B Streater 18:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"I cannot play back Wikipedia Ogg videos on my computer"[edit]

Why ever not? The media help page connected to each of our videos gives detailed instructions. True, it's not quite as quick as a shockwave player, and it doesn't help your video ipod... But I am aware of no reason your Windows and Mac systems should have any problems with our videos. --Gmaxwell 20:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. Different reasons for different computers. My PC is at work, and I have a policy not not installing external software on this machine, as I use it for demos and it's bound to end up full of viruses and spyware if I keep putting stuff on it. My Mac is at home and it's mostly that it hasn't ever reached the top of my list of things to do: I would have to find the instructions, read them, fiddle when it didn't work, and then repeat this every time an upgrade came out - and (by symmetry) for every possible plug-in out there. There just aren't enough videos available to make it worth while, and I'd rather be with my wife and baby. Of course, now FORscene has been turned into the perfect Wikipedians' video tool, there'll be a reason to make the effort ;-) Stephen B Streater 21:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK - I admit it. It was easy on my Mac (though I also have to admit that I didn't look for your instructions as someone on the FORscene chat system had given a good link). Stephen B Streater 22:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think my experience is atypical. We write Java players because so many companies have locked down systems, and so many consumers are technically incapable (or at least think they are) of installing a piece of software, that there was no point in any other solution. I have never come across anyone in real life who can play back Wikipedia videos. It's a pity people have taken objection to my very public and open experiment, as it has been very valuable for Wikipedia. I would appreciate a little goodwill in my RfA towards this huge and important work I have undertaken. Pragmatism is not such a bad thing, as the PDF guys have pointed out, and even WP trademark their logo. Stephen B Streater 21:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A good streaming Java player which works on any/variable internet connection speed is harder to write than it looks. But as you're fixing that, I'm tempted to move straight on to finding a way to make the collaborative editing tools available. I hope you can see that the negativity from the RfA is quite unecessary. Stephen B Streater 21:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your removal of my highly popular and useful videos, if it wasn't technically correct, would almost certainly be seen as vandalism. I'll add a couple of back in Theora format. I don't see much point frankly in putting them all back until people can actually watch them. Stephen B Streater 21:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC) Edit: I'd like to make it clear that I do not see it as vandalism, and have no disagreement with anyone enforcing policy in a controversial situation. I think we should aim to provide a solution which is technically correct which gives people the best experience, and this is what I am working towards. Stephen B Streater 12:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The removal of the links does not qualify as vandalism. Please don't use that word when an editor simply disagrees with your edits and reverts them. On a second note, I am thinking about what you could do. I for one am not enough knowledgeable to comment on this whole video thing and I would love if Gregory and you could work with each other and see what could be done for the best of Wikipeda. The RFA wasn't helpful at all because that just cooked up a lot of emotions. Adminship is a very sensitive thing here, that hoists a lot of paranoia which is completely disproportional to the power that an admin here has. Adminship is misinterpreted as an acknowledgement for the opinions of the candidate.
Stephen, could you write up a page for example under your user space (example location: Stephen B Streater/video where you describe the situation such that non-experts like me do have a chance to understand what you are proposing and how that can be achieved on Wikipedia? Adding the links to articles as a first "be bold" action was ok, but now we have learned that there is no consensus for doing this on Wikipedia.
As a second step there must happen some more discussion about this video stuff. I would try to start discussion on the Mailing list WikiEN-l, which is also accessible via NNTP. Jimbo posts there regularly. But I propose to first prepare that page where the information bits can be collected/referenced. --Ligulem 12:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. Perhaps I will write an essay. I think the real issues are very poorly understood here, and the RfA contains a lot of useful information which is helping progress. I'll wait until after the RfA before I start a discussion because there are still a few things to fix up to be more WIkipedia friendly. Stephen B Streater 12:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"A rare point of U.S. Constitutional Law"[edit]

Per your RfA, I'm curious what was the "rare point of U.S. constitutional law" that you mention. There aren't that many constitutional issues that have to be settled via use of "rare historical facsimiles"! Just curious. Regards, Newyorkbrad 19:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you asked me that :-) As you will know from Stephen B. Streater, I was born in the U.S.A. and this has various implications, particularly when I visit. I studied a little US history at school, and of course we learned about the constituion first.
Then skip forward 15 years to a crucial contract discussion at Oracle. They were just bringing out their Network computer which was to wipe out Microsoft by allowing all applications to run via the web. Eidos (which was tiny at that point) was chosen through an incredible serious of meetings climaxing with one with Larry Ellison himself (briefly the World's richest man, and the richest man in California at the time) - to provide the video solution for this new machine (and hence the Whole World™).
So we went into a vast meeting room with a huge lozenge shaped desk. Ranged along one side were a dozen Oracle lawyers with loads of papers on US Federal and Californian law. In the middle was there most hot shot lawyer - confident, intelligent, aggressive. Opposite him was me. And my trusty supporter by my side. They were a bit surprised I didn't bring a lawyer, and I think this made them slightly cocky. In the small talk before the discussion, I happened to mention that I was born in the US and according to the fourteenth amendment I was a US citizen. Their guy pounced at once. Everyone knew that the fourteenth was about slave emancipation. Did they laugh. Who was this guy from England? I remained unconvinced. Their legal expert advised us to get a lawyer (there are legal reasons for this in California), but was happy to continue the negotiations.
Next day, I got a phone call. As we had a day off, their top guy could show me round his stunning Palo Alto offices. And, it turned out, their priceless archive of legal documents. This would surely demonstrate who knew what. After moving his hand over the huge collection, his hand alighted on their priceless copy of the US constitution. And the fourteenth amendment said - just what I said it said. He was stunned.
A couple of days later, we returned to the huge table - twelve of them on one side, and me and my friend on the other. Debate resumed. I corrected a legal point (California law has many similarities with English law). This was answered by laughs of derision from the eleven, and a comment about my supposed knowledge of the US constitution, with more laughter. But to his eternal credit, the top guy corrected them. He recounted the story of the trip to the Library exactly as it had happened. And how I had been right all along. The eleven didn't say very much after that. Our mutual respect led to rapid agreement on the contract. The day we signed it, the announcement allowed us to buy CentreGold, including the Tomb Raider franchise. Eidos continued to expand, becoming the fastest growing company in the world in the 1990s (I've got the World Top 500 article somewhere from back in 2000).
It turns out that for a long time, there was no clear definition of a US citizen, and this became a problem when slaves were emancipated after the US Civil War. So the emancipation amendment to the US constitution defined a US citizen. For some reason, this point doesn't arise very often in California commercial law negotiations. Stephen B Streater 20:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very good, and you are right about the first sentence of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment defining citizenship of the United States and of individual states (this issue came up in a federal case I handled myself). For the record, however, the Thirteenth Amendment was the "emancipation" amendment, while the Fourteenth Amendment dealt with the new citizens' equal civil rights and related matters. Regards, Newyorkbrad 20:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I knew it was something to do with the end of slavery - my expertise is rather narrow in this area ;-) Stephen B Streater 20:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I remember a bit more now. He knew it was related to the end of slavery and assumed it was the emancipation amendment. That's probably where I got the name from, since with my more focused knowledge, I didn't know about this name and only knew of the content of the fourteenth. At school we only got up to 10, but I read on until I got the bit about me, and forgot the rest. Stephen B Streater 22:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

java player update[edit]

I am working on the code to do a clean integration into the mediaWiki code base like adding in language pointers, looking for dependent applications during installation, and doing more testing... we should have it integrated in the near future.

My company makes Java video players. Let me know if you need any help. Stephen B Streater 19:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki IPR[edit]

I suggest you be more specific. You could be asking about a Wikipedia trademark, GFDLed encyc content, the freely downloadable GNU General Public Licenseed Wikipedia engine software called MediaWiki, or other Wiki related IP. We have one lawyer, and I doubt he has time to play 20 questions with you. WAS 4.250 21:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some more details. I hope this doesn't get me banned ;-) Stephen B Streater 22:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it does, blame me; I'll take the heat for it. WAS 4.250 01:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Propriertary vs open[edit]

Wikipedias mission is to create a free (as in speech) encyclopedia. This means there's particular restrictions (but also permissions!) as to the kinds of content you can submit, as you found out the hard way at your request for adminship :-/ I'm so sorry you had to find out then.

It might be wise to contact one of the foundation lawyers to help you out wrt file formats.

I hope things can be sorted out!

-- Kim Bruning 19:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your help. I already knew the mission. The question is more does the means justify the ends. I have other (unrelated) things to talk to the Wikipedia lawyers about, as it happens, but I always bring the lawyers in at the end because they cost so much.
The RfA is a good place to discover new things, as people are more incisive than would normally be polite. For some reason, WP:AGF doesn't always seem to apply there. I find it funny that some are so critical of my liberal interpretation of the style guide, WP:EL, while completely ignoring a much more fundamental official policy, WP:AGF. Some people shoot first, ask questions later. Still, if you can't handle an RfA, perhaps you shouldn't be an Admin. Stephen B Streater 20:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Heya, just wanted to say that we may or may not come to agreement, but I've enjoyed talking with you, and would like to thank you for your patience and good humor.
Perhaps we could play a game of Go sometime? :-) Kim Bruning 15:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just putting ideas down at the moment. If we get enough different ideas, a solution will emerge. I always like to start with the answer we are aiming for though, before adding constraints to getting there. The answer here as I see it is: to build the best possible free encyclopaedia, not to build the best possible free encyclopaedia without using the letter f on Thursdays. Stephen B Streater 15:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to play Go with you :-) I'm a bit eratic though. What's your rating? Stephen B Streater 15:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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