User talk:EvanProdromou/May 2004

Chicago
Hey, so when do you guys get to Chicago? The article has changed a bit, and might have some more stuff that's of interest to you and MAJ. Likewise St. Louis. -- (WT-en) Mark 02:00, 4 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Excellent! We're leaving Chicago today, down the Big River. --(WT-en) Evan 11:01, 4 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Have fun! I guess most of my Chicago additions were too late to be of use.. hopefully the St. Louis stuff will come in handy. Check out Hullaballoo. -- (WT-en) Mark 11:54, 4 May 2004 (EDT)

United States
Thanks for your even-keeled response to my ctitique of the US article, and for your invitation to edit the article. I made a response to you in the form of a proposal at the bottom of the talk page. I wanted here to make sure you saw it. I hope you will reply. (WT-en) William M Goetsch 09:50, 6 May 2004 (EDT)

Romanian
Hi, I saw that again, the Romanian Wikiktravel mentions GNU FDL as his license. Still, Atribution ShareAlike is used as a license on LanguageRo.php. Why didn't you use LanguageRo for interface?.

Anyway, the text of the license in romanian would be

Ajutor de editare, caractere speciale: ă â î ş ţ Ă Â Î Ş Ţ Reţineţi că toate contribuţiile la Wikivoyage sunt considerate ca respectând licenţa Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 de la Creative Commons. (vezi $1 pentru detalii).

--(WT-ro) Danutz

P.S. Why does the Namespace not work? I noticed that on ro and on fr too. See for example Cairo on ro: and Royaume-Uni on fr:. Still, it does work in english (see Granada (city)).

Wikivoyage concepts
Again, thanks for such an even handed reply on my USA comments. I imagine that everyonce in awhile you get somebody new selling a new approach that thinks he knows everything. I doubt I could be so detached and well mannered about something I had started.

The Wiki notion of egalitarianismo is a new concept to me, and interesting, but it seems in a way to be inefficient, what with constant small changes, rollbacks, contention about small isues which go on and on and back and forth. Philosophically it reminds me of some economist's comment about the so-called British "commons": if no one owns it, it tends to go to hell. Nevertheless, I will get with the program and make mods directly in the affected page.

I read "The traveler comes first" and I certainly buy-in to all four statements there, especially, "We share our excitement about the destinations we cover" I think that is essential.

As to the notion of not merely making links, but actually having some content of our own, I also agree. But there are some considerations here that require balance, and I'm not sure we have struck the best balance. If I am going to travel somewhere the first thing I would probably do is use Google. The trouble with Google though is that it is too much, and there is a lot of chaff in with a few kernels of wheat. That's where I see our niche: providing some modest commentary and a consistent (templates) brief range of coverage concerning truly "static" information, and then, importantly, selecting the best of the external references for the traveler.

The world's a big place and if we try to become encyclopedic we'll never get "rich" enough to be consistently useful, and people won't use us. The "holes" in Wikivoyage's world coverage are monumental. Plus, external links are in general more au courant, especially in "Things to do" and other "dynamic" information that we have little chance of keeping up to date. (WT-en) William M Goetsch 08:17, 9 May 2004 (EDT)

Goals and non-goals
If you have a minute to peek into Project:Votes for deletion it seems that (WT-en) I've managed to construe Project:Goals and non-goals exactly differently than User:(WT-en) Nils. Since you wrote the page, your clarification would be definitively helpful. -- (WT-en) Colin 12:32, 10 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Perhaps you could add to the thread and explain how your alteration of Patricia's page fits in with the policy? -- (WT-en) Colin 15:17, 18 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Do you mean the Project:User page help or Project:goals and non-goals? --(WT-en) Evan 15:23, 18 May 2004 (EDT)


 * You're right: I really meant the thread regarding Project:User page help that occurred in Project:Votes for deletion discussing Patricia's user page. -- (WT-en) Colin

Referendum
Evan, the "referendum" and "voting" resulted from the discussion on using the most common English name versus using the official name. Even if it says "referendum" and "voting", that is not what it is. It should have been "poll" and "polling" and give an idea of the general opinions of Wikivoyagers on the issue. (See Project:Article naming conventions where it is stated that In fact, we should probably call this a poll rather than a referendum...) I'm not going into further detail here, you can read all about it when you have the time.

Secondly, to me your response sounded --I'm going to be frank-- aggressive and dictatorial, and I felt it was unlike Evan. Maybe you didn't have the possibility to read the whole discussion, but was this sort of reaction really necessary? Wouldn't it have been better to have asked that the thing be stopped until you could take the time to have your say in the matter? In your response to Mr. Goetsch on Talk:United States of America you say: ... Maj and I don't claim any special privileges on Wikivoyage. After declaring this initiative "null and void" you would forgive people for starting to doubt your claim.

Maybe you had a good reason for reacting the way you did, but right now I can't say I understand it. (WT-en) Akubra 16:40, 13 May 2004 (EDT)


 * I'm really sorry if it sounded like I was declaring the vote unofficial. I wasn't -- as you note, I have no power to do that.


 * What I was saying is that we don't have any official votes on Wikivoyage. We don't have a voting policy. We haven't had any votes on Wikivoyage before. We don't have any way to make a vote official.


 * If we really want to set up some kind of voting system, sure, fine, let's discuss that. But I don't think it's OK to just start throwing up referendum discussions as if they were official. They're just not. --(WT-en) Evan 12:33, 15 May 2004 (EDT)

Evan, I think we need to clear up a few things here. One of the things I couldn't understand in your "null-and-void" reaction was why you would think this referendum was official. After reading your subsequent reactions, I think I do. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you probably interpret the term "official name referendum" as an official referendum about the naming of articles. I (and I think all who voted) interpret it as a referendum about the use of official names. That is a huge difference. As I've said before, I think "referendum" is a badly chosen term here. It should have been called a "poll".

Speaking for myself, I only participated after Ronline had made it clear that the referendum was not binding but indicative, that the word "official" referred to the naming and not the referendum, and that decisions could be reached on a case-by-case basis. In other words, voting didn't mean that we would have changed the system we used until now. It simply meant that some of us answered the question "which name do you prefer?" I don't know if you've had the time to read what I and others have written on Project:Article naming conventions and Talk:Bombay. But if you haven't, please do, it should clear up a lot.

About the referendum/polling framework I proposed to set up: I'll suspend that for the time being. Instead, we could exchange ideas about their usefulness on Wikivoyage. But I think you agree that that is not the most urgent thing on Wikivoyage. (WT-en) Akubra 20:01, 15 May 2004 (EDT)


 * I think I was the one who first used the word "referendum"... sorry, it was in fact a bad choice of words. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:03, 17 May 2004 (EDT)


 * I read the comments, and I understand them. I thought it very strange that, after you, Pierre, and Mark all objected to the idea of a referendum, the thing continued. I'm still not sure how that happened.


 * For me, I think it's vastly more important to figure out why you want something to be some way or another, than just to hear that you want it that way. How does changing to using official names get us closer to our goals? Do we understand all the repercussions, and agree to them? If not, how can we ameliorate them? I don't think a simple yes/no vote solves the problem satisfactorily. --(WT-en) Evan 00:43, 18 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Evan, I didn't even read Akubra's reaction to your "null and void" statement, but it seems to agree with my point of view. Please see Project:Article naming conventions for my comments. Really, it is unlike you (I mean, you used to open-minded before...) Also, don't think I'm trying to divide Wikivoyage by convincing people to have the same view as me. I am just very angry and upset at your decision. Look, I understand Internet access is limited where you're travelling, but that didn't prevent you from at least writing a friendlier response. Also, sorry if I misinterpreted what you said, but it seems the more I read it the more I feel that all of our work for Wikivoyage, both in the English and Romanian versions, has been in vain. I've done all I could for Wikivoyage... founded the Romanian version, promoted it at Wikipedia, made a new page design for the Romanian version and tried my best to sort out the issue with Mumbai. And it could've been sorted out... (WT-en) Ronline 02:47, 14 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Ronline: I'm sorry that you may have misread my statement. I'm neither laying down a dictatorial rule nor closing down a vote by fiat. I'm just describing the current state of affairs on Wikivoyage. We don't have a voting system. If you want to start a Project:voting policy, let's get that going.


 * I'd be really unhappy with a WikiPedia:Calvinball approach, though. I don't think that serves travellers or this community. I understand that the Bombay issue is very important to you. I'd like to get it worked out in an amenable fashion. --(WT-en) Evan 12:33, 15 May 2004 (EDT)


 * I've responded in length at Project:Article naming conventions. I'd also like to get this worked out in an amenable fashion... I tried getting this solved many times by public concensus, it didn't seem to work, thus the referendum idea. Anyway, it seems the poll has ended, the YES vote won, which sort of proves another point for Mumbai. Other than that, I think we should agree on public concensus whether it should be changed to Mumbai or not (we can do this of couse on the Talk:Bombay page). (WT-en) Ronline 05:59, 17 May 2004 (EDT)

Vandalism on fr:
Some Proxadian has been repeatedly adding a phpbb and other inappropriate external links to two pages on fr:. I called it an edit war (between me and Yann on one side and the Proxadian on the other) but Yann says it's vandalism. P refuses to talk it out on the talk page. I suggested protecting the pages; is that OK? -(WT-en) phma 05:35, 15 May 2004 (EDT)


 * I'd be disappointed to see it. Can you live with reverting for a couple more days? Is the Project:External links style guideline translated on fr: yet?
 * Yes; it just didn't have a link back to en:. Edit war I started translating when this happened. -(WT-en) phma 10:15, 18 May 2004 (EDT)


 * Another possibility is just leaving the link in for a few days until the guy goes away, and then reverting it. Yes, it's kind of underhanded, but amazingly effective. Patience and long-term view are a great asset for people who actually have the project's best interest at heart.


 * Also, I don't understand what a Proxadian is. I'll try and help with reverting when I'm online. Maj and I should be back in Montreal in a couple of days. --(WT-en) Evan 12:40, 15 May 2004 (EDT)
 * A Proxadian (a neologism from phma ;o)) is someone who uses Proxad as ISP. BTW he seems to have understood that a link to his forum is inappropriate. Didn't come back for 2 days. (WT-en) Yann 10:20, 17 May 2004 (EDT)
 * He left a message in Eastern Europe. I think he understands now. -(WT-en) phma 16:13, 18 May 2004 (EDT)

Please read the paragraf about romanian wikivoyage !
Thanks. I've read it, and I've tried to update the LanguageRo.php file with your changes. I also added the Creative Commons image to every page. I didn't add the text ("Article text and images available under a Creative Commons license") since I didn't know how to say them in Romanian.

The insertion messages aren't working on the Romanian and French Wikivoyages because of a bug in MediaWiki 1.2. I'm trying to get it fixed... expect some changes later this week. --(WT-en) Evan 12:30, 18 May 2004 (EDT)


 * The message for "Article text and images available under a Creative Commons license" would be "Textul articolelor şi imaginile sunt disponibile în termenii unei licenţe Creative Commons."


 * More, we have a new bug. We cannot send pictures. It shows error and the images are not uploaded. Before, it showed error but the images were uploaded, but now it doesn't work anyway we try. --Danutz

New Orleans
Should I move New Orleans Mardi Gras to "New Orleans/Mardi Gras"? What do you think about spliting off the French Quater section of "New Orleans" into "New Orleans/French Quarter"? Cheers, -- (WT-en) Infrogmation 14:59, 25 May 2004 (EDT)