User talk:Gmonkai

Welcome!

Hello, Gmonkai, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Alai 19:06, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wigdor VfD, etc

I think I might as well take this to your talk page, as the VfD page is getting over-long and over-digressive enough -- not to mention the 'edit conflicts' being a real pain in the arse. Pardon my imprecision in re: Godwin: Mediterranean corollary, if you will? The process is the process: the rules weren't invented on the spur of the moment to the disadvantage of your 'side', and frankly, if there wasn't something similar, it'd be an open invitation to both rampant sock-puppetry, and "contact my friends to get them to sign up, vote for my article, then disappear again". "Closed" it most certainly is not; the worst you could say is there's a minimal qualification and a small lag in the "openness". Outside knowledge is exactly what Wikipedia needs, and what it's pretty permeable to; just try to influence the Britannica on what it includes, much less to add some content yourself. And as I say, if you want to complain about, or change, the policy, there's not much point in doing it on an individual VfD page, it needs to happen to on appropriate policy, guidelines, etc talk pages.

I'd suggest that if KW's article does get deleted, and you really think this is a travesty: wait a decent interval of time, and recreate it with content that demonstrates Wigdor's notability. Cite critical opinion as to whether he's a surrealist, whether he's controversial, whether he's actually any good, etc. As it stands, it only tells us what Wigdor tells us thinks of Wigdor, some basic biog, and is substantially written by our friend from Staten Island. It gives the reader no objective, neutral impression of the signifance of his work, as seen by "the art world". I stress with different content, as the same content is simply liable to be regarded as 'speedily deletable' if it's already lost a VfD.

Come to that, if it doesn't get deleted, those are precisely the things it's in need of anyway. Not too late to add them. Alai 02:16, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm happy to accept your word for all of those things. I'm not really clear on whether they themselves really represent the critical input I was seeking, but if they can help provide same, abolsolutely. What I mine was published reviews of this work, assessements of his role in surrealism, etc, that could be quoted in the article (web-published is fine, as long as the author has some weight). If those don't exist, I honestly struggle to see how he can be seen as an 'important artist'. See these pages for the gist of what people are likely to be looking for when they vote in these things: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:Importance. Obviously these things are judgement calls, which is why they're decided on by community consensus, not by a single user. One shouldn't need to be an expert on the particular topic to make these determinations; if the article itself is written in a way that demonstrates the notability of the subject, that makes it nice and simple.

I don't think there's any attempt to prevent people from joining, or expressive opinions. (I really have no idea why anyone wouldn't be able to edit the VfD page; if there's some technical glitch or grand conspiracy there, it's honestly beyond me either way.) You've joined, you can edit pages (you can do that even without joining), you can take part in discussions, exactly what I'm entitled to do, no more, no less. Well, except... there's the guidance to admins as to how/whether your vote should be counted if you've only just joined seemingly to make that vote, but that's about it. I don't know exactly how that's interpreted if there's a general belief the new editors aren't just sock-puppets; you could ask Infrogmation on that, he's an admin -- as User 24-dot-dot-dot keeps reminding us. If you'd joined before the VfD and contributed to the Wigdor article, or anywhere else, the question wouldn't have even arisen. I'm not going to clain that Wikipedia isn't ridden with politics -- I've seen horribles examples. I don't really think you're seeing it here though. Infrogmation, User #24 and Bleedy and I obviously have some 'history' with the article; most of these people have seemingly just showed up from the WP community at large (and there are thousands of active editors, with a range of interests and expertises, and a boggling number in total, which makes it difficult for me to mentally square this with your 'narrow', 'small circle', 'small enclave', 'oligarchy' and 'artisans' comments) and made the best determination they can as to the notability of the subject, using whatever resources are available to them.

I've said more input would be welcome, as far as I'm concerned, and I certainly mean it. It still has to have as its aim encyclopaedic content, though. If a page can't be demonstrated to have important content, people are going to see its inclusion as whimsical, self-serving, detracting from WP as a whole etc. In one of his more lucid moments Bleedy described Wigdor as an 'emerging artist', which User 24 didn't really refute. (More usually the pair just bickered about the word 'surrealism', which is probably Bleedy's real motivation for the VfD, but that's just speculation on my part.) If that's true, how many emerging artists are there in the world with an equal claim to their own WP article? If it's false, it should be possible to demonstrate that it's false, and cite his importance much more extensively than has happened to date. Alai 03:19, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, that was rather disappointing

I'd the impression from your earlier messages that you were looking for a productive course of action with regard to the Wigdor article -- hence my lengthy suggestions and discussion around said point. This may have been a rash assumption on my part. If rather, you're just planning on throwing around baseless accusations about my supposed role as a leading light in the great oligarchical fascist conspiracy that is Wikipedia, I've been rather wasting my time, haven't I? Alai 10:26, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I was hoping that could be cleared up. No hard feelings. Alai 20:25, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Striking out: I don't know if it's preferred as such, but I've seen it done, and it avoids the impression of 'revisionism', I suppose. Deletion perfectly fine too, I think. It's done ~~like this~~. (That's <s>like this</s>.) ~~~~

User:Keith-Wigdor

If you'd like to RfC this user, in the first instance for a dodgy choice of user name, and perhaps in the second for being a sock-puppet, I'd be happy to help (or second; or third). Alai 22:58, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, just go to Wp:rfc#Choice_of_username, and describe why the user name is 'bad', against policy, etc. I wouldn't bother going into the gorey details of other issues, that might just confuse the issues. I'm sure User:Classicjupiter2 would be glad to endorse, as would I. I must confess to being slightly amused by the antics, too, but it could wear pretty thin after a while. This may not be strictly necessary, actually: after sending you that message, I noticed that an admin's told him point blank to change it, or get banned (which is a much stronger remedy than you'd get from the RfC). But you might want to, for the record. Alai 01:22, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Urk, watch those spaces! (Observe the format of your last two messages on my talk page.)

Yes, I think I mentioned as much myself. If those two aren't Bleedy sockpuppets, I'd be very surprised. They both existed before the vote, but only for the express purpose of provoking and aggravating User:24. Alai 03:14, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

LDS et al

Nope, I'm not an LDS; actually know very little sbout them, just got involved in the LDSM project out of curiosity. One of these days I'll actually edit a article on a topic I know something about, honest. No problem about the questions, I know the interface and the site is pretty byzantine in places. Correctly figured out about diffs and history. Same applies to talk pages too, but obviously 'signing' is very useful there for making it more explicit who said what, when. BTW, you may also notice that adding extra spaces at the start of lines does strange things to the formatting -- don't ask me why, mind. Alai 01:53, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dear Gmonkai, a question

Gmonkai, do you think that the user, "Bleedy" is also the impersonator, user, "Keith-Wigdor"?Classicjupiter2 18:35, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User pages and talk pages

Hi. If you have a comment for another user, please leave it on their talk page (as I am leaving this message on your talk page). The User: page is for the user themselves to edit. Thanks, -- Infrogmation 04:42, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)