User talk:Horologium/February 2008

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Impostor category

But being a member of Category:Impostors is already supported by his claim that he was a journalist. Was Gannon pretending to be a journalist? Do we have evidence that he was a real journalist? If he's not an impostor, then what is he? —Viriditas | Talk 01:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"Journalist" is not a term that has clear qualifications, such as "Doctor" or "Lawyer", which have certification requirements. He was getting paid for his writing, regardless of the quality of his work. Talon News was a shoestring, rinky-dink outfit, but so are most of the smaller groups, whose reporters all received day passes. Calling him an "imposter" actually could be a BLP violation. Horologium (talk) 02:12, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I work on journalist-related articles. They all have college degrees in their field or related fields, are recipients of media-related awards, and are members of professional organizations. Does Gannon meet any one of those qualifications? If not, then he isn't a journalist. —Viriditas | Talk 02:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not going to fight it (note that I didn't even attempt to revert), but I disagree with your interpretation. A brief look at some of the other articles in the category reveals that the category is rather ill-defined, throwing together hoaxes (Kaycee Nicole), misrepresentation (Jesse Macbeth), simple fraud (Miss Cleo) and redirects with no previous history and no mention in the target page (Elizabeth Okazaki). Two notable imposters (Ward Churchill and Rigoberta Menchu) are not members of the category, but I'm not going to wade into that minefield. Horologium (talk) 04:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not looking for a fight; I want to make sure your POV is covered. How about reporting this to the BLP noticeboard? —Viriditas | Talk 04:14, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Adding my $0.02 because I saw the revert in the Jeff Gannon edit history. Here's a link that can shed some light on this. It's the official web page of Rep. Louise Slaughter. She asked the White House to explain how "Jeff Gannon" managed to get security clearance in spite of his questionable background. The imposter label fits because "Jeff Gannon" is not his real name and Talon News is not a legitimate news agency - but rather front for a Republican outfit called GOPUSA. He also lied about getting a journalism degree from Penn State on his Talon News bio.Reelm (talk) 00:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Gannon applied for (and was granted) his daily pass (note that, daily pass) under his real name (James Guckert). Slaughter's hyperbolic press release is nothing more than pure political posturing, similar the the nutty ravings from Dan Burton over the Vince Foster affair, and just as nonsensical. The "debunking" of his degree from Penn State doesn't work because they asked about "Jeff Gannon", who did not receive a degree from Penn State. (Since the Talon News site is gone, it's also impossible to verify the statement that he claimed to have a degree from Penn State.) Boehlert is a left-wing political hatchet man, who works for Media Matters for America, and should not be taken seriously. (BTW, his degree is in Near Eastern studies from the University of Massachusetts, not a journalism degree, yet he is included in Category:American journalists. Care to explain that?) As to Talon's ties to a GOP lobbying group—so what? Media Matters for America is cited hundreds of times throughout Wikipedia, despite its financial ties to George Soros and its open support of left-wing politics. As I indicated, I don't plan to pursue it, but please don't insult my intelligence by attempting to use press releases from Democratic congresswomen and opinion pieces from partisan hacks to buttress your arguments. Horologium (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Sanity check?

I know this is an odd request, but I'd like the opinion of someone whom I respect and who is not too intimately involved in the subject (in other words, you can review it dispassionately, and since you probably are not overly familiar with the subject, will be able to ask the questions that an engaged editor might overlook.)

I have been working on a project to replace the woefully inadequate Environment of Florida article. I have created a replacement article at User:Horologium/sandbox2 which is a significant expansion of the current article. Would you be willing to give it a read-through and let me know if there are any obvious issues that need to be addressed, and if there are any interesting hooks for a DYK feature? The new article is well above the 5X expansion for DYK consideration, and there are a number of possible hooks I see; I'm curious to see if you see the same ones, or some even better ideas. Thanks! Horologium (talk) 01:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

After a couple go-overs, I find myself wanting to say all those absolutely useless things like: "Wow, that looks good.", "You must have put a lot of work into it", or other such things that, while true, and sincerely meant, don't help the creator/editor with the wished for critical critique of the work in question.
I'll take some time later and go through with more than just a cursory eye.
I hope this helps : ) - jc37 01:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I see you've gone "live" in the meantime : )
First, great job with referencing. For one thing, I'm happy to see how diverse the source material is.
I'll say now that I'm not well-versed in images, but the last image (birdwatchers in Florida) has a license that doesn't seem to be free, and since the picture isn't necessary to the article, is probably one which could/should be removed?
My only real "critique", is about the section on parks. Could you clarify in the article that sections inclusion? Why parks are considered environmental concerns, etc. It's something that might seem obvious, but might not be to the uninitiated casual reader.
Otherwise, looks fine to me : ) - jc37 12:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to have to expand the parks section now... (grin) About that last image: Actually, it carries a BSD license, which is most assuredly a free use license, with even fewer restrictions than GFDL, although it's not copyleft. The reason I have added it here is because I am going to remove it from the Florida article (where it currently resides) once I rewrite that portion of the state article. There was a bit of back-and-forth over inclusion of the photo (it suffered from licensing issues for a while, and a couple of editors didn't care for it to be in the article), but it is appropriate in this article as written. (I specifically added the notation about birdwatching with that photo in mind.) Horologium (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians who listen to FM 103.2

Thanks for linking to the prior discussion about the television station categories; I knew that there had been a previous discussion about similar categories but hadn't been able to find it. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Since they were the first categories I nominated for deletion (and I remembered who had created the userboxes), it wasn't too hard for me to find the discussion. (grin) Should we add that to the index? Horologium (talk) 20:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
It was in the index, but I wasn't able to find it since I couldn't remember the name of the discussion and neglected to look in the "Unsorted" section, where it is currently located. If there have been other discussions involving television/radio stations, I think that they might merit a separate section. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I am fairly sure that there were no other discussions, as I nominated all of them as a batch, checked to make sure there were no others, and stated as such in the nomination. Since you spent a lot of time adding all of the discussions, I imagine that there were no others, as they would have ended up in the "unsorted" section as well. Horologium (talk) 20:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
There may be some discussions prior to June 2007 (I plan on extending the index's coverage back a few months in the next 2-3 days), and it seems there are a few more categories in Category:Wikipedians interested in radio that may need to be nominated. So, there may be material for a new section soon enough. ... Can you think of a fitting section title? Black Falcon (Talk) 20:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
How about "Wikipedians by media station"? We could also go for the more verbose "Wikipedians by TV or radio station". Horologium (talk) 21:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Either one is good, since both are concise and clear; they are certainly better than some of the lengthy, complex, and grammatically-questionable monstrosities I had tried to formulate. :) Black Falcon (Talk) 21:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Heh. I took a look at the TV and radio interest sections, and you're right. While the TV section is (thankfully) clear of single-station cats, there are half a dozen single radio stations, plus a couple of single-station broadcasts and one podcast, which should all probably get nuked. Let's wait until the FM 103.2 cat gets nuked, as the precedent was based on three votes (yours, mine, and Haemo's). Since several DRVs have been initiated because of low turnout on the original discussion, I'd rather see if we can get a firmer precedent on this one. Horologium (talk) 21:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I found another prior group nomination with 5 participants (see here), but I agree that having a new precedent and/or test of prevailing sentiment would be a good idea. – Black Falcon (Talk) 22:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Environment of Florida

I think you have a point. My idea was to have one of the pictures of Florida directly after the "Environment of Florida" phrase, but I guess it should relate somehow to the rest of the hook, so I've added a picture of the everglades, which shows some (presumably) freshwater in which you might find some of these species. What do you think? Gatoclass (talk) 23:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

That works for me. Most of the freshwater fish in Florida are in the canals and lakes, but I know that some freshwater fish can be found in the canals in the adjacent Big Cypress National Preserve, and it's likely that some of the exotics are in the Everglades as well. BTW, thanks for the props on the article. Horologium (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

fort myers

So according to you, Fort Myers is the safest city in Florida? 66.99.216.2 (talk) 21:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


DYK

Updated DYK query On 10 February 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Environment of Florida, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

—Wknight94 (talk) 18:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Damn, I knew I forgot something. Sorry, this is my first time doing DYK. I'll get right on that. :S Keilana|Parlez ici 18:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, seems like Wknight did it. Sorry, thanks for telling me. Keilana|Parlez ici 18:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Rouge ucfd talk

Well said. --Kbdank71 18:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. My feelings about that category have not changed, obviously. <wry grin> I actually stopped participating at UCFD for about six weeks over that (and the equally preposterous admin/trout category). Horologium (talk) 18:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

UCFD

You're welcome. As for the other round, Vega pinged me on IRC. I used to be very active on UCFD back in February, but now when I'm around I'm pretty much always huggling vandals ;-) Feel free to directly contact me if in need of more closures in future. Happy editing, Snowolf How can I help? 01:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

We've deleted ~100k articles. They were bot-generated sub stubs with no use whatsoever. There were even articles for things like prime numbers up to 300.000 or whatever it was. Mostly in English or Catalan too. Anyway, we've decided to delete all the articles created by the bots :) Snowolf How can I help? 01:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians of Multiracial ancestry

Ping : ) - jc37 20:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not going to try and argue this one, but I have a fundamental disagreement with the philosophical position that race is solely a social construct, which was my opposition to your contribution. Since a couple of other racial categories have been nominated and appear to be headed for deletion, I've decided not to worry too much about it. Horologium (talk) 21:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I think (possibly because of the source of the quote I posted) you misunderstood my reasoning. It had/has less to do with what race is (whatever that may be), but rather the confusion inherent is grouping those of different multi-racial "combinations" in a single category. Does that make more sense to you? - jc37 19:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
As it is, I am spending way too much of my holiday time over that gawdawful rouge admin thing, and since that is a battle that I feel is both important to me (from a philosophical standpoint) and winnable (since there are apparently more than a few users who agree with my position), I am going to focus my energies there.
Of course, my voluble support for deletion of that category (a position that is not terribly popular amongst the admin corps) is likely to make a bid for adminship less likely (I declined in November because I didn't feel ready, and again in January because I was involved in an Arbitration case), but I have no burning need to acquire the tools right now. Horologium (talk) 21:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
There's no deadline, and nothing stating that you must become an admin. I merely personally think that you could be trusted with the tools, and would likely be a helpful user thereof : ) - jc37 19:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Reopened discussion on Category:Wikipedians interested in books

You were part of the discussion of the ucfd of Category:Wikipedians interested in books. I have reopened the discussion. If you wish to particpate in this second discussion, it can be found here. - LA @ 00:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.