User talk:Rd232

Welcome to Meta!

Hello Rd232!, and welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). Happy editing! — Mikhailov Kusserow (talk) 11:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

SD request

If you move a category, you need to delink it too. Category is not empty so it can´t be deleted untill then. --WizardOfOz ^talk 05:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Thought I had... Rd232 06:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Requests for comment

As the distinction RfC vs. RfC/U has never officially existed here and it's very hard to determine in which category some RfC would fall, I'd rather keep a unified archive at least for past requests. Thanks, Nemo 10:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

"Officially existed" is meaningless given that nothing about RFC here is official; and the distinction clearly exists since 2011. And so far it's really not that hard to apply retrospectively (for the cases I've archived so far). And I think it's a useful distinction. Rd232 13:01, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not that meaningless: it means that nobody had such a distinction in mind. As noted on Talk:Requests for comments, it's hard to understand what's "systemic" and what's "about a user". And yes, you've archived only few RfC (and you're not going to read them all completely, I guess, so how will you distinguish even if it's possible?). Nemo 09:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what note you're referring to - I can't see anything relevant on the talk page there. I intend to finish the archiving, and so far it's not been difficult to distinguish between "policy" and "user" (where does "systemic" come from as a term?). Once it's done (or even before) it can be reviewed on the talk page, and if necessary amended somehow. If anything I think amendments will not be about distinguishing "user" from "not user" RFCs, but clarifying different forms of "not user". Rd232 (talk) 09:59, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Why not list all RfCs together like it's been done before? Separating "user" cases from "not-user" ones makes sense in projects which have a separate RfC/U page, but here it seems like an artificial distinction. Jafeluv (talk) 10:04, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Because (i) user and "not user" are very different and (ii) the distinction has been employed for RFCs since 2011 and (iii) I want to do some analysis of how RFCs have worked, and it's helpful for that. Also, my user talk page is not the best place to discuss this. Rd232 (talk) 10:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Then open a discussion to propose this subdivision. If you do so, I'll explain why you put some RfC in the wrong section of the archive and perhaps you'll see that it's highly controversial and confusing. Nemo 09:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

With respect, the division has existed for a while on the main RFC page; I just applied it to older RFCs. If there are specific cases you want to discuss, feel free to mention them here and/or on the rfc talkpage. Rd232 (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Meta:Translate extension

Hello, I had already seen on Commons that you mention l10n as an interest of yours, so I was going to contact you about this plan about the usage of the Translate extension, which will be a huge improvement here on Meta. It's not completely ready for comments yet, but given that you mentioned l10n on Wikimedia Forum I'm leaving a link. Nemo 09:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. Rd232 (talk) 00:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Best spitting award :-)

Excuse silly header amidst [insert preferred description], but my sincere applause for your well-lubricated, insightful comment. :-) Cheers [no reply necessary/delete with impunity] -- Proofreader77 (talk) 18:36, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

"well-lubricated"? What are you implying? ;) Rd232 (talk) 18:54, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Not IRC, hmmmmm ... Ah, yes! :-) "MI5 train psychic mind readers - fact !!" Proofreader77 (talk) 09:58, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

On a different tone, but I came here to comment the same message. As you imply that the interpretation of policies and the implementation of administrative action here on Meta is left to some unwritten IRC process or CommunityLore, I'd like to reassure you that this is not true. I've always disliked IRC, so you can trust me and my attention on this: lately I'm often online and I had to reckon that it works very well for some coordination tasks, of which stewards (hectic) activity is a good example, but Meta's internal community processes don't rely on IRC, and in particular no consensus ever happens to be formed off-wiki (which is what I've always considered most dangerous). If you think of it, it's quite natural, even considering only the timezone differences.
It's true what you write, and I liked it a lot: «it gives experienced Wikimedians a taste of what it's like to be a perplexed and frustrated newcomer»; I've been around for several years also reading Meta, but I had the same feeling a couple of years ago when I became more active, which means I avoided some complex tasks (which happens on all wikis) and I trust the judgement of older Meta administrators way more than mine. But I learnt exclusively reading the discussions on wiki and following the community processes. Regards, Nemo 09:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Hear hear! re "...taste..." (See photo re further speculation on coordination method ;-) Proofreader77 (talk) 09:58, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. I'd add that I've been interested in newbie experiences for a long time, and documenting how things are supposed to work, as clearly and briefly as possible, is a key part of that. Meta is severely lacking in that department - which considering the mentorship role of smaller wikis it occasionally aspires to is particularly disappointing. And... I've never seen anything good come out of IRC, which colours my opinion of it; but I'm sure it does have valid and useful purposes; the lack of transparency, however, is fundamentally a problem. Example Rd232 (talk) 11:20, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't know: I agree on the general idea (it's one of the main things I like to do), but not everything can be documented. And your point about Meta's documentation and small projects is not so good, I think, because documenting general practices for content wikis is a very different task than documenting such a complex wiki as Meta, which serves so many different purposes.

I'm not sure that example about IRC is very well chosen: I share the discomfort when reading such things, because I'd like to know more, but stewards are allowed to discuss some things among themselves, and it's up to them how they do so. If you'd like to dig more into this topic, I suggest you to read some old discussions about stewards confirmation and the election committee (in the confirmations' talks). Regards, Nemo 20:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Given Meta's purpose in serving communities and users who only engage with it very infrequently, I'd say documentation of its internal processes is at least as important as for other wikis (where maybe there's a core of regular users who need it less). And I think you've not quite got my point about the mentorship role: I meant that if Meta's processes and policies are partly meant as examples for small wikis to follow (which otherwise tend to follow en.wp perhaps, which is probably less appropriate), then again documentation (and multilingualism...) is very important. Also IRC discussion may be a valid means of coordination, but unless there are actual reasons to keep discussions private, they should be public, so IRC should be kept to a minimum and any conclusions properly summarised and documented and evidenced, at least. That's just my opinion, I don't intend to do anything about it, in the near future at least. Rd232 (talk) 22:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I got your point, I just think that Meta is not a content project therefore its own internal policies are not really relevant as an example for content projects. Generic "processes and policies" examples/best practices or whatever are usually placed in main space and somehow used also for Meta itself, as they could be on any project. Nemo 23:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI

Hi Rd, may I please ask you to take a look here? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 23:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

You're trying to rely on en:WP:Canvassing, an English Wikipedia policy which does not transfer easily to that cross-wiki situation for users coming to Meta at all, because of what Meta is supposed to be for. Of course it is a problem to get a massive influx of users, especially if they're not familiar with the local way of doing things - but given what Meta is, it should be able to cope with that. Probably decisions like that should be based on policy, so that numbers don't matter much - but that requires policy to be clear and well-written. (Plus, decision-makers to know and respect policy, and not pontificate and decide based on what they'd like policy to say.) Rd232 (talk) 23:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

email

Could you please check your email? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:07, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Role accounts

Oh, forgot to say: your suggestion about User:God had already been implemented, somehow. Ananke is an admin-bot when needed, and not even Zeus can beat the Necessity. ;-) Nemo 09:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

OK... don't know what to say to that, it was just a little joke... ! :) Rd232 (talk) 18:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll determine if it was a joke or not, since it was my suggestion, I believe. :-) -- Proofreader77 (talk) 18:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Edit conflict

Hello Rd232, the Template:Edit conflict has been nominated for deletion. Kind regards, Mathonius (talk) 01:53, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

• re {{ec}} - Given the ramifications of the butterfly effect in the context of wikipedia templates, I have tweeted Al Gore that someone may be carelessly breaking his Internet. -- Proofreader77 (talk) 00:31, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Fight for the Future

http://fightforthefuture.org/. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:27, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Well yes, that's easy enough to find :) See my comment here. Rd232 (talk) 18:38, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Global bans policy discussion

At Requests for comment/Global bans, where you have commented in support of Option 2, a third option has recently been implemented. The first two options did not prove a way for respondents to indicate that they oppose global bans entirely, i.e., that it is not possible to write a meaningful global bans policy that would attract their support. Option 3 is intended to provide that opportunity, and to aid in distinguishing between people who oppose the proposed policy because it requires improvements and those who oppose the proposed policy because no policy permitting global bans should be adopted.

Because the third section was added late by a respondent, it is possible that some people who responded early in the RFC have commented at option 2, but would really prefer to support option 3, or support both. If so, you may voluntarily choose to move your original comment or to or strikethrough your original comment and add new comments. This is a courtesy notice of the change, and there is no requirement that you take any action. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Building a better Global Bans RfC

Talk:Global_bans/Archive_2#Ratification – You were one of the few people who knew that the ratification wasn't going to a simple process, and in my opinion, the process that Mr. Walling advocated failed to build consensus. I don't believe that a decentralized approach would be given the green light, so I'm building an on-Meta RfC with multiple questions instead:

• Talk:Requests_for_comment/Global_bans#Preparing_a_better_RfC
• User:Michaeldsuarez/Global_bans_RfC_2

What are your feelings on this? Do you have any ideas on how to improve the second RfC that I'm working on? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 19:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure there's enough enthusiasm for getting anything done at this point even with a better RFC. Your specific questions are certainly helpful, but it may be off-puttingly many questions (some are pretty specific). At any rate with that many questions you definitely need some more structure (at least broadly "unbanning / optouts" heading for questions 2-5, "banning process" heading for questions 6-11). Personally I'm not all that interested in global bans anyway; I was more interested in the opportunity to develop a better global policy process (decentralised ratification approach) than in the policy itself, and that doesn't seem very likely (and I don't have the energy to pursue it now). Rd232 (talk) 20:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

GRC

I left a comment on your section of Talk:Global_requests_committee; that seems like a fine idea, one worth dropping in a site notice. –SJ talk  12:39, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Local uploads policy

I'd like to get this move at last. We should follow Sj's suggestion and start simple enough to get the bulk of consensus and then – on this newly acquired solid ground – think later of case-by-case disablings of wikis which have big problems. See Talk:Local uploads policy#New RfC please. Thanks, Nemo 09:12, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Shakes

As you don't watch Meta that closely, you may have missed my reply to you; I'd lose an opportunity if I had to do without a really on-topic opinion/critic/vote. Pauses are always good from a selfish perspective of course, but I have a question for you now that – curiously – I've had sysop flag for more time than you on a Wikimedia project, i.e. how frustrating it's been for you not to have the usual tabs etc. on en.wiki. It quite is for me, and surely not for the few unimportant things one is remembered for (cf. blocked users drooling for an occasion) but for the mass of small usual useful things that one can't do without an overhead not worth their urgency (say, fix a typo in a protected template; or create a stub on en.wiki for an unregistered user)... and perhaps, here on Meta, for a few processes hosted here that however I'd just forget (although they'd need new maintainers). Ouch, I got too long as usual; check wm2013:Submissions/Multilingual Wikimedia Commons - What can we do about it, it was updated. --Nemo 06:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I find I've rather enjoyed not having any admin responsibility on en.wp. There are processes in place for non-admins to ask admins to do things, and I don't remember using them but I don't think I'd mind if the need arose. And I do believe that if I ever became an en.wp admin again, I'd be better for having had the break from it. Rd232 (talk) 17:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, it's very enjoyable not to have responsibilities, the only part one can miss are the small things. On requests, it might also be relevant that en.wiki has a more diverse (not necessarily broader) base of admins than it.wiki. --Nemo 20:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

New option on interproject links

Hi, thanks for participating in the RFC for interproject links. There is a new option that might be interesting to explore. Please check Dropdown next to title 1 and Dropdown next to title 2. They are part of Option 5.--Micru (talk) 14:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)