Archives

/2004, /2005, /2006, /2007, /2008, /2009, /2010, /2011, /2012, /2013, /2014, /2015, /2016, /2017, /2018, /2019, /2020, /2021

This page has archives. Sections older than 60 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

Edit this box

Wikipedia is celebrating its 15th birthday on January 15, 2016. I have thought for a while that it would be neat to meet some local wikipedians. According to the wikipedians in Winnipeg or Wikipedians in Manitoba category you are one of us. I am contacting people in this category to say: Let's celebrate this milestone. If you know other wikipedians, please ask them to join in as well.

I am posting this to your talk page as a transclude so that any updates will show up automatically.

Hope to see you there! Tenbergen (talk) 04:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One other Winnipeg Wikipedian showed up, in addition to a number of regular skullspace members. It was nice to actually talk to someone else who has worked with Mediawiki and actually "gets" transclusion. Cake was eaten! Tenbergen (talk) 06:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aw, apparently I haven't logged in to Wikipedia in over 6 years and I totally missed this message and the event! I guessed I missed any 20 year celebration, too. Let me know if you end up doing a 25 year one. :) Clayton Rumley (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Mzajac. You have new messages at Sargdub's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:Monobook.js. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:Monobook.js redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. — J947 ^[cont] 06:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it could be argued that using Kiev over Kyiv, et al, violates WP:Systemic bias. You might take a look at that page in preparation for the ARBCOM. This is something that the W?F takes seriously, especially in today's political climate. - BilCat (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That’s occasionally occurred to me, but I haven’t yet stopped to think about how to frame this argument. Will keep it in mind.  —Michael Z. 00:28, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @BilCat:, apologies for joining your conversation, but when I saw your comment above, I could not pass by without saying anything. If you yourself think that today the right way of spelling Ukraine's capital is Kyiv and not Kiev, and that the only reason some "old timers" cling to Kiev is because of WP:Systemic bias, then why would you not change your original Oppose vote to a Support vote?--73.75.115.5 (talk) 03:28, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's not an argument for ignoring the guidelines in move discussions, but for getting the guidelines changed. I support the guidelines as long as they are the guidelines, and Kiev is still the common name. Sorry, but my !vote stays the same. BilCat (talk) 03:57, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have to voice my disagreement since you’re posting this here, BilCat. The guidelines, including WP:COMMONNAME, support using the name most common in up-to-date, reliable sources, not in some Google search results, or G Trends, or what you hear from Joe in the doughnut shop. That would be Kyiv. —Michael Z. 04:15, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Michael, I being nice and answering their question. If I'd known you'd see it as yet another opportunity to relitigate the RM, I'd have just been rude and ignored it! Sheesh! Can't you ease up for one minute? BilCat (talk) 04:53, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think your recent post may indicate that you misunderstand my intentions. My impression is that the coverage of the Ukrainian Crisis is far too reliant on the commercial news in general, not just the Ukrainian sources. It should make far greater use of the sociological research that is available on the topic. Please consider this post by Losduarte, with which I unfortunately now mostly agree: Talk:2014_Ukrainian_revolution#Questionable_competence. That being said, Ukrainian news media should be used with even greater caution because the conditions for independent journalism in that country leave a lot to be desired. Heptor (talk) 09:19, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn’t familiar with Blum, so I looked at his website. He was not a professional historian, with only a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He appears to be an “anti-globalist” activist, meaning anti-USA, and one of those willing to uncritically repeat the kind of anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories that I think even the Russian state media won’t publish on its official websites. I see he was a regular at Global Research.ca. Definitely not a reliable source on the subject. —Michael Z. 17:36, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You admit that you did not read any of Blum's texts. You have already admitted to not knowing who Noam Chomsky is. The claims that Blum is allegedly "not a professional historian" and "anti-usa" are uncritical thought and the shifting of attention from the lack of research in the wiki piece to shooting the messenger. The implication is that, if somehow the author of a book were a booster of a particular nation, you might read the book. The standard in scholarship is/are the citations to evidence in the text and the peer review testing the thesis and critical interpretations. See e.g. Theodore G. Vincent, independent researcher, "The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's First Black Indian President," https://muse.jhu.edu/article/7448/summary. Blum's research has been cited over 68 times by University reserchers and addressed in scores of University articles, with approval. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Killing-Hope%3A-U.S.-Military-and-CIA-Interventions-Blum/6b8e15b7636623b56df62bf7391c1770cdb45211. As for your Wiki piece, it contains zero (0) sociological or historical research to attempt to analyze the social historical origins of an event in Ukrainian history. losduarte user_talk:losduarte. —Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, hello. And welcome to Wikipedia.

I’m not sure what you mean by “your wiki piece.”

I certainly have known who Chomsky is for a very long time. I’ve now read some of Blum’s editorials on his blog and on Global Research. None of them are really about Ukraine, on which subject he uncritically refers to or repeats Russian propaganda tropes, without the most basic fact-checking (e.g, on MH17, “I’d guess that it was the Ukranian government behind the shootdown, mistaking it for Putin’s plane that reportedly was in the area,” and on the Maidan revolution, Nuland “spoke of 5 billion (sic) dollars given to aid the protesters who were soon to overthrow the govt”). But that’s just decoration for articles which are all about his favourite subject. It seems to be important to him that Ukraine was “overthrown” by the United States, but he only supports that notion by referring to the same anecdotal “evidence” found in conspiracy-theory forums. Maybe I missed the good stuff. Had he authored any articles in peer-reviewed journals?

Sorry, I don’t understand how Anna’s book review is relevant. The writer appears to be a professional scholar.

Anyway, please don’t work too hard formulating more “implications” about me. —Michael Z. 20:31, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Mzajac, I recently took upon myself to do clerking duties and uncollapse the vote that you cast on July 2 diff, because the sysop who colappsed it said that it could be uncollapsed once RM discussion is unsuspended (which it is now). However, User:TaivoLinguist has reverted those clerking editing on my part diff] with a comment You were not given permission to do this. Your idiosyncratic assumption that "you" when speaking to Mzajac means anyone who passes by is not supported. This move has not been sanctioned by anyone but you. I am confused as I did not think that my clerking editing was in any way contentious, so asking for your advice here. I will fully understand if you do not wish to evaluate those edits (given that it is related to your own voting comment), so if that is the case, please let me know and I will ask for evaluating advice from a different enwiki sysop. Thank you,--73.75.115.5 (talk) 18:09, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"I am confused as I did not think that my clerking editing was in any way contentious" is disingenuous. The entire bottom half of the discussion at Procedural note on clerking is devoted exclusively to this question. He has been reverted by multiple editors both before and after his block and his block was partially as a result of his contentious editing on this very issue. If you, Mzajac, wish to reformat your comment you are free to do so, but no one else is. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 18:44, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, both of you. I’ve been busy, but I will add a separate vote under the RM soon. —Michael Z. 20:31, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Mzajac. I am asking for Wikipedia:Mentorship advice in relation to being able to constructively edit on Talk:Kiev: there is a discussion right now here User_talk:Barkeep49#IP's behaviour at Talk:Kiev, which resulted in sysop re-blocking me a 2nd time. I explained myself User_talk:73.75.115.5 to User:Barkeep49, but he has not replied; I know that on enwiki there are sometimes arrangement when one editor takes mentorship over another (and even sometimes takes on responsibility to guide an editor as a condition for allowing him to be unblock), therefore I ask for your comment and Mentorship in this discussion User_talk:Barkeep49#IP's behaviour at Talk:Kiev (I do fully understand that per unwritten rules of enwii adminship, only the sysop who blocked a user can unblock them, so my request is not about unblocking but about Wikipedia:Mentorship advice that would allow me to continue constructively contibuting to Talk:Kiev discussion.--73.75.115.5 (talk) 18:12, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, 73.75.115.5 (does that link inform you of my edit here?). I’d be glad to mentor, although I don’t have much time to spend here these days. I’m pretty sure you understand and appreciate what got you blocked, and what to not do to avoid get blocked again. You’ve been a tireless contributor to changing the article name to conform to Wikipedia’s content guidelines, and you’ve done more than anyone else to correct the situation. But you’re still one of us many cogs in the encyclopedia, so don’t feel like it will all fall apart if you take a day off or if you don’t respond to just that one terrible comment. If you feel yourself clenching your jaw at some remark or unhelpful information, just put it aside for a day instead of posting, until you can see it as old news. Worst case: we revisit this again later, but I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. Thank you for all your efforts. Cheers. —Michael Z. 15:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]