User talk:Brian McNeil/Archive 15

Reply to your criticisms

• Oh. Could you be more specific? What part of what I said is incorrect? I find you comments and accusations on my page unclear and needlessly accussatory. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. [1]

Examples:

• "In addition to the alluded-to 1984" ( What is the "the alluded-to 1984"? I did a search for 1984 and could not find a mention.) What do you mean by this?

• "I would suggest familiarising yourself with a TV show from the UK called "Drop The Dead Donkey"; that might orient you in terms of some of the warped humour people employ" - by "people", I assume the editors of wikinews. Isn't this a very narrow sample wikinews editors? Or are they all from the UK and of the age and value system mirrored by that UK sit com. Perhaps the lack of NPOV behavior of editors here is why editors are driven off and contributions are declining. I assume you ascribe to Wikinews:Neutral point of view but evidently think that a culturally narrow group of "people" can provide a global, culturally diverse view? You suggest I must take on the values of a 1990's sitcom in order to fit in here and understand comments and write articles? No wonder this site attracts so few editors. They don't fit the "warped" stereotype.

• "you still seem to expect a plethora of rules and conventions you're used to to apply here." This is based on what? That I asked a question regarding an image that had been deleted? (I have never understood the image rules clearly anyhow.) I was trying to get help. The fact that the editor I was trying to help personally attacked me three times that day, and did so on the image discussion page, and on the image page under discussion was not commented upon by the "people" giving their opinion, gives the impression that the "people" here overlook that sort of thing. I guess is part of the warped sense of humor so valued here and is tolerated, perhaps even encouraged. {One editor uninvolved in the discussion reprimanded him. And one relatively uninvolved editor commenting in the image question gave him an incivility warning.[2]. Why did none of the other "people" notice? Do you think that incivility is part of the "warped" behavior tolerated here, but asking questions and trying to make sense of the written rules of wikinews is not?

• "If you hang on to a Wikipediaesque view" - where is you evidence for this? Again because I asked about the deleted image? Or do you have other evidence that I am hanging on to a "Wikipediaesque view" that '"What the World knew six months ago was wrong, we must now correct everything associated with it" attitude'. Could you list your evidence for this? (Aside from the image question, one incident that you have misinterpreted.)

I apologize in advance if this sort of discussion and seeking clarification is not allowed on this site.

Mattisse (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• This sort of overly-verbose-in-the-extreme request for clarification is what I find most "Wikipediaeqsue". Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that; if you don't get "Memory Hole" as a reference to the George Orwell novel 1984, then I cannot be held responsible for what you have, and have not, read. Please ask someone else if you're still having issues, I'm working on a substantial article under embargo, and would prefer not being drawn into other issues; I believe I have attempted to be helpful; I do not believe my remarks have been construed as such. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• My advice to you is to communicate clearly, and not use culturally specific metaphors that may not be understood. Why should you assume an editor has read certain books, and even if they have, if you are referring to George Orwell, that they understand your reference. Just some advice to you on better writing, per the sentiment behind Wikinews:Neutral point of view-Anglo-American-centic point of view. Mattisse (talk) 20:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• An utterly irrelevant appeal to policy; my, most brief, advice is to take your issues up with someone who has considerably more idle time. I'm busy, very busy. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• My problem is with you and one other editor who has been warned for making uncivil comments to me. I will be perfectly happy if you just leave me alone and cease suggesting to me that a provincial POV is the way to go. Please stop your bad faith accusations toward me. Hopefully, this is our last interaction. Best wishes watching your UK TV sit com. Mattisse (talk) 21:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• See my earlier response, which strongly discouraged you from responding on this particular page. Consider this my resignation from the "Welcommittee", and notice I will delete any, and all, further communications from yourself on this page, without response. I consider your approach most unreasonable. I do not take at all kindly to the way you have interacted on this page (let alone going into remarks elsewhere). You were, in my prior comment, advised I was working on an important news item. I am most unamused at this response - not something likely to endear you to someone who has spent nine hours in a mentally demanding office job, plus five hours on work related to this project. Take. It. Elsewhere. - As previously advised. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

ACLU, EFF challenging US 'secret' court orders seeking twitter data

Could you explain a bit more why you think "twitter" should be lowercased? I realize that's how their logo is stylized, but Wikipedia capitalizes it, and the bottom of their home page reads, "© 2011 Twitter". In addition, their about page (and other pages) all capitalize "Twitter". Do you think this is enough to move it to a capitalized "T", or is there a SG requirement standing in the way? —fetch·comms 22:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• I'd drop Wikipedia from that argument: 1. It can't be considered reliable, 2. MediaWiki settings there force 1st letter capitalisation in titles. Beyond that, I'm not ultra fussed but think the logo style is what most people expect. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 01:20, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

  Many internet websites don't capitalise the first letter - Facebook doesn't (see File:Facebook.svg), yet we wouldn't use it lowercase. To me it looks wrong not to use uppercase. Maybe WP isn't reliable, but every MSM source I've seen uses "Twitter", and we have as well in our previous stories. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

  (Software detail: granted (1), not (2). There as here, initial letter of a display title can be {{lowercase}}d.) --Pi zero (talk) 01:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

  Reliable or not, WP also uses the capitalized version in the prose itself, not just the title. But as Tempo said, other sources use "Twitter", and as its own website does, too, I've moved the page accordingly. —fetch·comms 02:28, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

  Note on 'pedia in title. MediaWiki can now work around that issue using display title. (for example see w:iPhone ). As for the actual issue - shouldn't we be considering that Twitter is a proper noun, instead of considering what twitter actually does? (otoh, one wouldn't capitalize xkcd). But anyways seems a moot point per above. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)