Ssd
If you want to talk to me about #Category changes, please read the section below first and add your comment there. --ssd 02:14, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If I answer your comment within a day of you posting it, I'll answer here unless you request otherwise.
I don't bother archiving what was here. If you wanna see it anyway, look for DELETED in the history.
Sysop
Congratulations! After receiving 100% support on RfA, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Good luck. Angela. 21:10, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)
- That's a helpful link! I've put them all in my watch list, and downloaded for later persual the ones I dind't read on the spot. I'll go through all of them in the next couple of weeks (offline) and read the relevant ones sooner. --ssd 03:51, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Neal Stephenson
Feel free to revert my modifications if you disagree - I promise not to take offense. :)
I agree that the last four books are historical fiction, but after reading almost all of his work (I have not yet read "The Big U", and I have not finished "Mother Earth, Mother Board"), I find that he does tend toward the same topics. You can see it clearly in "The Diamond Age", which reads almost like a rough draft of the Cryptonomicon/Baroque Cycle story. The Diamond Age deals with digital currency, cryptography, alchemy, information technology (of course).... it practically even has Shaftoes and Waterhouses (but that is beside the point). It seems that any of his books or short stories (save the Stephen Bury books, perhaps) touch on many if not all of these topics. The latest books are set in the Baroque era, but in all other ways they fall right in line with his other works.
Just some ramblings. Make whatever modifications you feel are needed to make this a better encylopedic entry. -Armaced 16:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, it is just that I can't figure out how to add the phrase back in without messing up teh prose. :) --ssd 02:05, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm. In the first paragraph, we say that he has a predisposition to divert into explorations of the history of science. Then, in the second paragraph, it is mentioned that his latest work, The Baroque Cycle, is a very long historical novel.
Perhaps the snagging point of contention is that the old sentence "Neal Stephenson is known primarily as a science fiction writer in the postcyberpunk genre, although his latest works are historical fiction focusing on the history of science. " seems to insinuate that his latest work is not postcyberpunk, and is therefore an exception to his usual style. I think the latest books are postcyberpunk, in that they are science fiction books about information technology. Sure, they take place in the 1700's, but hey, that Enoch guy is really old. Anyway, as I said before, I can see how people would disagree.
By the way, are you reading (or have you read) System of the World? I am about half way through with it now and, while it is not quite as much fun as Cryptonomicon, I am having a great time with it. It is great to find an author that respects the intelligence of his readers. -Armaced 03:07, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Categories for deletion maintenance
Hey, I need a sanity check on this, and since you're one of the other administrators that works on CfD, I thought you'd be a good person to ask.
I've done some restructuring at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/resolved which I think brings it closer to what it's supposed to be. (That is, interesting decisions are summarized, not included in full unless they are likely to be controversial, in which case I have archived them on sub-pages.) Is that acceptable? (I'm not done with all the summaries, obviously.)
I'd like to move on to archiving the entries at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/unresolved, which is generally a much bigger mess. I figure that individual entries there ought to all be archived on sub-pages, since they wouldn't be on unresolved if the discussion weren't worth retaining. I'd like to have my work checked by someone else before I start on this enormous project, however. --Aranel ("Sarah") 15:01, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I love the summaries you've written, very nice! Including the date was a good idea. It may be a good idea to also include the final vote count (this is even more important on unresolved). I'd like to see links to the archived discussion; I don't know if the discussion is important on /resolved, but it is fairly critical on unresolved. People might add their comments to unresolved, so it might be a good idea for the date to indicate when the count on the summary page was last updated/changed. Good work! --ssd 15:56, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
WP:CfD
Yeah, I'm just trying to give you and Sarah a hand to get caught up. I usually take care of RfD and WP:AN, but you all seem like you could use a hand for a bit! :-) I hope I didn't mess anything up, or do stuff not a la your system; if so, apologies in advance. Noel (talk) 02:30, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
CfD deletion
Hi there. I'm a little concerned that you've deleted a couple of cats that were still within their 7 day discussion period (particularly as you admit to not knowing the speedy policies for cats). Even though the voting was obvious, we have a process and it really ought to be followed or we just get complaints and have to go through it all over again. Most concerning was Category:Australian mobsters, which you speedied because it duplicated another cat: that's not a speedy criterion. The CfD policies are available on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion policies. Also, did you make sure that the cats you deleted were empty before deleting them? Otherwise, the articles will just have redlinks on them now, and the cats will be recreated next time the article is edited.
You speedied a couple as capitalization issues, which is fine, of course, as long as you converted any categories in the articles over to the properly capitalized form. -Splash 02:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
- I agree with your concerns, except that the categories you mention were a) emtpy, and b) had no dissenting votes, and c) were obvious. Categories are not recreated when articles are edited. Categories are only created when a description for them is saved. I helped form these policies, I am aware of them. Actually, I am one of the ones objecting to speedy deletes -- mostly because I think the discussion needs to hang around for a few days, and articles should not be moved out of a category before the discussion is over. I won't speedy a non-empty category, even if it looks like it should be speedied. I made an exception to that one today, because the category was offensive, and the user violated the CFD policies by recreating it; but of course, that category was not on your list. --ssd 04:51, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
- Bah, you didn't list the category that was probably the real problem. Yes, I probably deleted it too quickly. I was probably confused by the lateness of the hour, and blinded by the abnormally large unanimous vote against the category. Anyway, nobody's gonna vote for that one, and certainly not enough to reverse the vote. There were only two articles there, and I did move them out. --ssd 05:14, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I am sorry, my comment must have sounded patronising. The principal reason I decided to leave you a message is that there have been several slightly rapid deletions on CfD lately. One in particular was brought about by an unhappy user emptying a cat (contrary to the consensus) and managing to get it speedied into the bargain. We're still clearing up, and I'm keen to avoid a repeat in a few days' time. Anyway, you evidently know the rules inside-out and back-to-front. I must confess I'm struggling a little to work out which cat I did(n't) list or was(n't) on my list, but anyway. I think that Toupee wearing one might be what you mean: that was clearly a recreation in bad-faith and rightly speedied. Anyway, I'm sorry I was mean to you.
I wonder if you could clarify my understanding on the other point. I'm not sure that cats are only created when a description of them is saved. That's true enough of the category description page itself, but the cat itself can exist without a description page, such as when a new cat is created. It's populated, even though it is a redlink (pressing 'cancel' on the blank edit box for the description page will give a population listing). Also, the cat entries on the article remain even when the cat itself is speedied (I presume), so the cat still has members. It won't exist however, until the article in question is saved (e.g. could be a null edit or a real one), at which point it will be repopulated. That's what I thought, anyway. Do i misunderstand? Thanks. -Splash 18:08, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
- If there was a category incorrectly emptied that you wish to resurect, let me know, and I'd be happy to help. I know the toupee was correctly speedied. There was another that I pre-emptively emptied and deleted that I probably should have waited for, right before the one you named above. As to categories existing or not, that's kind of a grey area. Technically, categories don't really exist, and they can't really be delteed. They can have description pages, which can be deleted, and they can have members (or not). Categories are only populated or depopulated by the existance of the category tag in an article. Sometimes the tags are put into or removed from templates, and then the articles are not put into or removed from the category until they get an edit (even if no changes are made, it fixes the category). Perhaps that's your confusion. You can't otherwise remove an article from a category (even if you "delete" it), without editing the articles in the category. Does that make the mud any clearer? --ssd 01:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
anti-dejavu?
Ok, so I'm reading along in this discussion, and I find this fairly long and really pecular comment, and I think to myself either "What fool wrote this garbage, must have been half asleep" or "What clever guy wrote this? I agree with it totally!" and I get to the end, and it's ME!! Ugh. Creepy. --ssd 2:30am EST, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Losing data with CFDs
Could you compare cats before deleting. Deleting Category:Cornish Sports and Games lost the details of the cats it was in and left the new cat Category:Cornish sports and games orphaned. It seems a little cruel to blame just you as there are many people involved in deletion processes but I'm just bringing it to your attention. MeltBanana 13:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
- Good spotting! I've copied the categories from the previous category, thanks for linking it, made it easy! --ssd 14:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)