Hi. Thanks for reverting the edits. It seems that Crystal Palace is trying to assert notoriety by having a bunch of people from there come to Wikipedia to "set things straight". That's all fine by me for them to do that, and I welcome it. You could argue that I shouldn't have created the article in the first place, since my only knowledge of it is in how it affected the wider community, and that, as far as I am aware, that is purely in relation to the controversy section - specifically the 3 incidents of 1) hacking 2) spying 3) blackmail. That's the entire reason that I created the article in the first place, because those reasons were used by people to abandon talkers in favour of instant messengers. Whilst you could argue that it is really only focussed around Planes of Existence, as that is where the 3rd of the 3 incidents happened, the fact that it was done by the person who is supposed to have done the first 2 makes CP relevant, in terms of a build up. In my mind at least.
The issue of whether or not he did them isn't the point. Whether he did them or not is not what caused people to abandon talkers back in 2000, and debating over whether he did them or not is not going to stop the reality that people really did abandon talkers in massive numbers over that issue. Nor is debating over whether it was really Virus or someone else that did them. These are rumours, yes, but rumours with a high degree of speculation surrounding them.
Remove them and you have ---- nothing.
It's a bit like the relevance of including how Surfers stole the Foothills code. Its very historically important to mention that. Whilst officially the code was open source, there is enough evidence that it was stolen for it to be included. And certainly, you can say without question that it was said to have been stolen by Foothills staff.
Incidents like these are actually what created the whole history. Had Surfers not (allegedly) stolen the code from Foothills, ew-too would never have been open source.
Similarly, a lesser example is that had Graeme not stolen the code from Lintilla to create Sleepy's multiple worlds, then it, Fantasia's multiple worlds, and the whole era would not have existed.
Such controversies are a part of history. The NPOV way of displaying them however is as something which is disputed.
And if they manage to come up with foolproof evidence that it is not true, then by all means they can say that it is not true. But even if they did that, they would still have to say that it was believed to be true, because it was.
Anyway, I am happy for them to sort it all out. I am glad that you stepped up as a neutral 3rd person to make sure that they follow good editing practises, and I am hopeful that they will sort everything out. Hopefully they can cite some sources to back everything up, which would make for much better articles. That whole series needs a lot more sources and for things to be made more accurate. I am sure that it will turn in to a good thing. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 02:57, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I re-included the "NPOV" section on "controversy" because what they stated is not remotely accurate. Perhaps a "factual accuracy" tag should be included instead. Trying to cover something up isn't accurate. It's like what happened on the Michael Jackson page when people tried to remove the whole thing with him molesting little boys. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 18:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
My word, you are exceptionally familiar with WP policy for someone who joined yesterday. Good research. Unfortunately, I think you may misunderstand certain policies.
Perhaps I should have been clearer: I find the reams of material on talkers to be overkill, and this is where I'm choosing to start. Here's why:
1.) The size of each individual community suggests to me that, while talkers as a phenomenon are certainly worthy of documentation, different articles detailing these communities is probably not valuable.
2.) The discussion of the internal politics of the talker doesn't meet the standards for notability in my opinion. If we aren't accepting biographies of local political candidates in jurisdictions many times larger than the entirety of the talker universe, then I can't justify the inclusion of details of the talkers' politics.
3.) The discussion of the internal politics and many of the nitty-gritty details of a given talker's history relies on inherently unverifiable facts. There are no real records of substance; I suspect that has a great deal to do with the fact that it is not a topic of substance.
4.) You cited a number of items listed under problems that may not require deletion. However, demonstrating multiple problems from that category are legitimate matters to consider when debating deletion.
5.) The list of problems that are potential causes for deletion is not definitive or complete.
6.) The policies are wonderful, but the golden rule for inclusion is this: "Would this same type of material normally be found in a print encyclopedia?" The answer is no, not unless we were discussing the most esoteric single-subject encyclopedia in existence--"The Encyclopedia of Internet Chat Mechanisms," or something.
I hope this clears up what I meant. An addendum to this effect will be made to the AfD discussion relatively soon.
Tom Lillis 07:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Glad we can agree to disagree. I apologize for the tone of accusation regarding the "campaign." I have since been told by someone else where the users are coming from, and campaign was too strong a word.
I hate to do this, but I'd ask you to consider working with Zordrac on the merge process. You seem to know what you're talking about and he has done his homework; you were also on opposite sides of the delete debate. It seems to me that, if you're both willing, you'd probably produce the fairest and most balanced result of a merge process by working together.
As for my part, I put up the merge flags but I don't trust myself to produce a fair, final article in this particular area. My bias is shown in the delete process--I'm not the one to do the merge. Tom Lillis 21:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- Last time I'll bother you. The following is an excerpt from the ongoing conversation on OwenX's talk page. I am hoping it will go some way to ending the ugliness.
- For the sake of completeness, I want to verify Shinmawa's account of our individual dispute. I shared (perhaps originated, to be honest) a lot of the allegations Zordrac made to the end of gaming the system. However, I (perhaps clumsily) attempted to investigate the matter on my own before making any public allegations, which was really at the root of the aforementioned dispute.
- Again, I apologize to Shinmawa for the perceived antagonism, but the evidence for a "gaming" case was pretty strong. I had, I thought, good reason to believe that he was involved, partly rooting from an erroneous assumption I made about the vintage of his membership and an accurate assumption about his ties to the talker community. (I made a mistake when I was checking his edit history--I didn't actually check his edit history. In my distraction, I checked his USER PAGE history and jumped to an incorrect conclusion. Slightly biased by the nature of the situation at hand (the protection, the sudden anonymous IP votes from new users), I made an error.
- I maintain that there was impropriety and "gaming" on the AfD discussion. Further exploration of the topic reinforced that belief. However, and here's the big point, I can find no evidence that Shinmawa had a whit to do with it and would be irresponsible to suggest as much in a public setting.
- The last bit is sort of the important part. I'm hoping you understand that, despite my customary brusqueness, it wasn't my intent to harass you here (as in, on this page) over your vote. I was suspicious of wrong doing. I remain suspicious of wrong doing. While discussing the merits of the AfD debate (which you didn't appreciate), my primary motive was to look into that wrongdoing through direct and indirect questions. I wanted to make sure I had my shit straight, so to speak, before going off and making public accusations. It turned out I didn't have my shit straight regarding you in particular and was ultimately dissuaded from making those public accusations. I understand that I may have come off as aggressive and offensive, but I assure you that those were not ends in and of themselves. I apologize for the unpleasantness of that behavior and the confusion that caused it; I am glad that I did that instead of running around and causing larger problems by presenting it all as "evidence."
- Thanks for participating in the process despite its sliminess. Good luck and happy future editing. Tom Lillis 05:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I've posted my reply here. Owen× ☎ 02:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't sure you saw my latest response there, so here it is, reposted:
- Shinmawa, my apologies for assuming bad faith regarding your Talk page deletions and the associated edit summaries. You are right—keeping messages is a common practice, but is not a documented policy or guideline. I was misguided by the fact that you removed them only a few hours after they were posted, but now I understand the reason behind that action, and appreciate the fact that you restored them.
- Currently, Wikipedia:Talk pages is the only relevant page I could find about this issue, but as you point out, if you don't know about it, you probably won't go looking for it... I'd welcome your suggestion as to how we can make this better known. Suggesting policy and guideline changes isn't limited to admins!
- I'm happy to see things are moving in a positive direction. It is a pleasure dealing with intelligent, articulate, and civilized people like the three of you. Glad I could help! Owen× ☎ 16:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)