Regions followed
Bruce: These issues must be dealt with if you are to continue editing this wiki. Do not remove the following text, move it to another page, or otherwise move it out of the way. Sidetracking will get you nowhere. Please respond to the facts below or stop editing.
Fact #1: Other editors have discussed many specific edits with you. Fact #2: Other editors have told you how those edits violate wiki norms. Fact #3: You have continued to violate those wiki norms with subsequent edits, and insisted that editors provide new explanations. Fact #4: The editors have repeated the explanations (many, many, many times), but you continue to break wiki norms. Fact #5: Other editors have become frustrated because you repeatedly ignore wiki norms — and they have stated this. Fact #6: Other editors have become frustrated because, each time, you act as though you are hearing these explanations for the first time — and they have stated this. Fact #7: When other editors try to discuss their concerns and frustrations with you, you either ignore them or derail the discussion with side issues.
All of these facts are demonstrably true. Do you disagree with any of them? If so, please state which ones. It would help other editors understand where your thinking is. It would be most helpful if you just answered the question "yes or no," and then listed which facts you disagree with, if any.
(Bruce created a whole separate page with the info above + his reply which I see absolutely no reason for...sorry it looks like another stall attempt. Anyways I deleted it & copies his reply below. —PeterBoulay
Do to time constraint, I respectfully ask those interested in this subject to be patient to receive my response. I do not intend to avoid this matter, rather I will attempt to clarify and help resolve this issue. Some significant points are that I had been pursuing legitimate editing goals, but I didn't want to fight to prevail. The mention of possible trolling was something that was untrue and not what I am about. An ensuing discussion of that, of which this discussion is a continuation, was painful for me. I was totally off-line from a week before last Friday until the following Sunday, so that I would not get sucked into this wiki. Eventually I started to edit without reading most of the above "Facts," most of which were probably on my user page later on Sunday when I accidentally saw my page and that there was a list, but left the page without reading it. (Later editors were trying to entice me back to my user page, so I minimized the side of the page window and took a peek at the first line and read that I was into bouldering and flew my own plane — I wish. I got a chuckle out of that.) I acknowlege that I made some editing mistakes. I believe there were some things I learned. I noticed day before yesterday that I became absorbed in the Wiki to the detriment of balance in my life and the best edits that I am capable, which negatively effected the lives of others. So it actually is with thought of benefit to all, that I am trying to have balance in my life and so, have not immediately responded to the demands of others. Thank you for your understanding. —BruceHansen
Since I already made this page the way I wanted it, but it was deleted by an editor, I'll just suggest the alternative that the content above be placed in a comment section like is normally done on a user page. Starting with "Fact #1: Other editors have discussed many specific edits with you." This does not look good at the time of my user page. I realize I'm just an editor that has to explain to a small group of perhaps lordly editors that the "facts" at the top of the page only have to do with a relatively small portion of my editing history. Any other user coming to this page will not have a very good introduction to my user page. They may perhaps not know that a select group of editors seemingly insist on having this topic here. They won't have a place to leave a comment for me in the normal manner. Perhaps you know this without me having to tell you, but I don't see that you're demonstrating that you do know. Back to "Fact #1," of course I know that in my entire editing history, there have been many communications about specific edits. However more specifically, since around the time when I first deleted this page, I remember stating that I would like to know which specific edits to discuss. I was told something like, "We have told you before." A second inquiry would bring a response like, "We have repeatedly told you before." As far as I'm concerned, just based on my memory, the only editor to have the decency to respond to my questions about specific edits was EdWins when the discussed the "university" link that I had made and then removed on Navigating Davis. CovertProfessor responded by stating that all my edits in an edit of Navigating Davis were bad. I don't believe that. I haven't looked at the edits there since he stated that. His statement is probably just part of the nonsense that he demonstrates sometimes. "Fact #1" is not a fact, but perhaps you'll stick with it as well as some of the rest of your knowledge. Hopefully not. —BruceHansen
The facts are placed where they are because we must have your take on these things. Until now, you have refused to answer them. There is a massive communication problem here and we're trying to make sense of what you're saying. We asked for yes or no answers to whether or not you agree with these facts. You gave a somewhat lucid response to fact #1, something you would sum up as a "no" response, correct? What about 2-7? —WilliamLewis
Yes NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
You're not taking this seriously. Given your responses and your inability to work with us on these issues, I have no faith in your continued ability to be a part of this editing community. And I am not alone. In the interests of avoiding a painful, drawn out referendum on this, I respectfully ask that you stop editing this wiki indefinitely. —WilliamLewis
I find you (plural) to be generally non-understanding and disrespectful on this matter.
Hey there Bruce, have you ever heard the names Charlie Sheen, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan etc...? And by the way, how can you edit so much? I can't, don't you have a full time job? Anyway silence is golden sometimes, and not to sound like an ass most of your edits compared to other wiki editors give me a headache to read. Again, it's just my two sense. P.S. You don't have to edit everything on the wiki? or do you? -Angry Diner
Hey Bruce, thanks for saying I have some decency. Most people don't, heh. I hate to say it, but I can quickly think up a bunch of pages and scenarios where people have spoken about some of your edits. "Edits" as a term includes new page ideas, page reorganizations, etc. I know I have for more than just the university link: that was just the most recent. Over here, I left a long comment about one. Here's a talk page about another proposed reorganization (and that one links to Tunnel and Station, two more examples). You tried to redirect something that led to a talk page as well. There was the yoga guy page thing as well. Those are things off of your user page. If you're talking about super specific edits in discussion (which are covered in the above links to some degree) then there are plenty as well. Look at an older version of your page before you deleted all comments: I'm copy pasting, you'd have to go to an older version in order to see the links. But that's beside the point: these are specific edits being discussed.
2011-01-09 18:07:59 Can you, please, for once stop writing utter crap like this? It serves no purpose. Nobody wants to read it. It is utterly content free. So why ruin a perfectly good redirect? —WilliamLewis]
2011-01-12 02:32:00 I feel like I'm picking on you for reverting or otherwise undoing your most recent three edits. However, I'm done just turning a blind eye to your silly edits which do nothing but make the wiki worse. It's just getting to the point where I can't ignore the lame stuff you're doing on a regular basis. What justification do you have for this edit? Are you just upset that someone else deleted your content-free introduction to that page? So if you can't have that introduction, there shouldn't be much of anything at the top of the page? And then http://daviswiki.org/Track?action=info. Oh boy. People are really interested in track in all its incarnations in Davis, from train tracks to degree tracks... right? No, they aren't. The only thing that those different "tracks" have in common is that people use the word "track" to describe them. Conceptually, they aren't linked at all and creating a page to link them is pointless. And then, what's up with this edit? The link you changed didn't point to a page before you edited it nor did it after you edited it. And your change was to make "elites" possessive? They possess what? —WilliamLewis
2011-05-29 17:42:17 Hey Bruce, this edit left the Yoga page virtually blank. Why break that section off to a new page? It seems like it's just extra clicking to find the information people are likely to be looking for. The page was already relatively sparse. —TomGarberson
2011-08-10 15:10:29 Honestly, Bruce, I have trouble seeing how you went from saying this, after Tom's explanation to topics being "about Davis" to this edit, which starts off with a big copy/paste job of an ad being placed 'in the New York Times.' How does that ad, in any way, specifically relate to Davis and the page subject? I think I'm understanding that many of your contributions are things you think are of interest and related to the topic, sometimes tangentially, but I'm not sure how else the basic tenant of the wiki, "keep the focus on <this topic> in Davis," can be explained. Perhaps, as a few people mentioned on various talk pages, you should think about getting your own blog website to explore those issues and links. —EdWins
I really appreciate your imputs that you made recently. The first link of mine is of a rather non-committal acknowledgement of comments made. Secondly I was trying to mention a democratic activity of people in Davis and also the democratic document that interests them. There must be a better way to do this. There must come a point that enough is said in the right way (not necessarily right wing) about democracy that Democracy will merit a page. —bh
On indexes and themes
(also a specific edit discussion:
2010-12-23 08:52:52 I thought the old page name was better, because the themes are really mostly reflected in the names as opposed to the street itself like with Henri Court. We could maybe say that Village Homes looks kind of like Middle Earth, and Stonegate looks like a bunch of yacht club members, but its kind of a stretch and I'm not sure what other examples there are like that. Henri Court has an actual street theme (christmas lights), thats not reflected in the name. —NickSchmalenberger
2010-12-13 10:34:18 I think you might be over thinking the idea of categories. Keep in mind that the wiki isn't a database, and is poor at being forced to be one (there are great database solutions out there, like Yelp, Foursquare or Google Places). On the other hand, it deals really well with fuzzy and human information. That's why there's never been a real push to create the indexes that you are working on. Wiki links tend to promote serendipity and support ad hoc perceptual or subtle connections that can't be fit into categories at all (especially since they might represent a concept with a population of one or two). When that population of a concept increases, a nexus page is created (the "list pages" you're focused on). But that's not the same thing as creating a top-down, unique set of categories that represent all concepts on the wiki, which is what you seem to be aiming at doing. A force fit to that kind of structure would not only be limiting, it's of dubious value given the ability to search plus the web of wiki links that already connect related concepts and are flexible enough to change over time. There are some pretty good essays on the subject (what makes a wiki different than a database, and how to use those capabilities inherent in a wiki model to their fullest extent), but I don't have any links handy at the moment. One general name for the ideas is "Wiki Way", although the term encompasses a bunch of things these days. Keep in mind that this is my take on things — there's no one way to do anything on the wiki, so just take this for what it is: trying to explain a different style of editing that might point to why there isn't much enthusiasm for the indexes you are focused on. It's certainly not an absolute, nor the only way to view things. —JabberWokky
Briefly, I'm still considering jw's comment. I still think there's a place for an index. As you are starting to see, Verizon was only for a single reseller from the beginning; that's why I renamed it as the reseller and left content totally intact. Of course the new page needs help. -bh
2011-01-10 22:34:06 Hey, so I wanted to address a couple of points. It can be hard to impart tone across the interwebs, so just to be clear: I'm trying to explain what seems to be kind of a disconnect between editors. I hope this doesn't come across as an attack or anything like that.
Station has a different problem, to my mind. I don't understand the purpose of the page. Again, going back to the practical approach: what function is Station supposed to fill in a resource for Davis? I don't see any connection, aside from the word "station," between gas stations and post office stations or train stations—much less stationery. Whereas Tunnel seems to be a rename and some content building away from becoming an interesting (potentially) page about the wide variety of subterranean tubes to be found in Davis, Station seems to be purely ontological—and therefore not really within the scope of what Davis Wiki does. —TomGarberson
Bruce, you just wrote on ARWENNHOLD's profile, "You did some editing on "University Departments." I was wondering if you thought a page on department names such as I mentioned at "University Departments/Talk" would be useful or a good idea." You do realize you are not proposing a page about the department names, nor are you proposing a page that has anything to do with the actual departments... you are proposing a page documenting the wiki entries? Such a page would have nothing to do with UC Davis or Davis, but only be documenting the Davis Wiki itself. Do you see the distinction? ⁓ʝ⍵
But it is not related. You don't seem to understand that important key fact. That is what seems to be causing the confusion. ⁓ʝ⍵
The list you created here is a page about page names not about department names. We already have a list of department names. This is a page about the way Davis Wiki labels pages about departments. It's like making a new page called "Front Page List", listing all of the panels on the front page. Why why why would we do that? It doesn't tell anyone anything that isn't just as easily determined by looking at the Front Page (or in this case, the University Departments page). There is truly no content here whatsoever about Davis or anything in Davis. Maybe there's some small amount of purely academic appeal in describing "Here are the ways Wiki editors have named different University Departments", but don't you see how that's completely different from describing something in Davis? On the Davis Wiki, people are concerned with things in Davis, not things about things about things in Davis. It's like the difference between writing a mystery novel, and writing a book about writing a mystery novel. Or maybe it's writing a book about writing a book about a mystery novel, depending on how you view it. —TomGarberson
I don't think we should create such a page, and I think that JW and TG have both given very clear explanations as to why we should not. —CovertProfessor
Bruce, did you actually read what we're all saying? This stuff isn't about anything in Davis and doesn't have a place on Davis Wiki. —tg
Bruce: again, page names aren't things in Davis, they're on the Davis Wiki. The Davis Wiki isn't about the Davis Wiki; it's about Davis. The things you're cataloging here belong on a Davis Wiki Wiki—a Wiki about Davis Wiki. To recap: University department names = relevant. Page names = irrelevant. Because they have nothing to do with the departments, or the department names, or anything else in Davis. They're how the information is organized on the Wiki, which is a meta-issue and has nothing to do with the content of the University Departments page. —tg
Thanks. That's interesting about "meta-issue." I'm signing off now. —bh
I think part of the problem here is that it isn't clear what this talk page is for. Is it just to characterize each department page? If so, why? Talk pages aren't usually used for that purpose. Or are you proposing changes to all or some of the Department pages? (In other words, are you making the sort of proposal that Talk pages are generally for). I think that's what most of us assumed. But then since most of us don't see a problem with the pages as they are, and since it seemed like you were proposing grand sweeping changes to all of the Department pages without such changes being necessary, we got concerned. —CovertProfessor
The purpose of the Davis Wiki is to document Davis. It doesn't exist to document the Davis Wiki. There's no real reason, as anybody can look at what is on the wiki using the actual departments list. Creating a new list means that people will have to keep it up to date... and honestly, it's easier just to look directly at the entry than to look up the list and then double check to see if the list is out of date. This doesn't add anything to the body of information about Davis, and it creates yet another "for editors" list to toss atop the dozens of out of date ones that already exist. Such lists might seem like a good idea, but in practice, they aren't. ⁓ʝ⍵
On the disambiguation pages you kept creating/altering:
2011-03-25 20:22:37 I don't think that word means what you think it means. (disambiguation). If one were creating a disambiguation page for Disasters (which would be wrong because it is plural) it would be providing links to pages about disasters that have happened in Davis. You used the disambiguation template, but you used the page like a topic hub. —JasonAller
2011-03-26 16:58:45 "Disambiguation" involves removing the ambiguity from a term that is ambiguous—that is, on its face it has multiple meanings. "Disasters" is a category with multiple examples but the meaning of the term is not unclear. Now, if there were a band in Davis named "Disasters" then we'd have two different local meanings for the word, and a disambiguation would be useful— Disasters (Band) and Disasters (Events). —TomGarberson
These are come blurbs it took me less than two minutes to find on your user page. There's quite a lot of links to specific edits. And this was all from your userpage: there are dozens of similar contents on talk pages that have spawned discussing your edits. Also, notice you frequently mention you don't have time to finish a discussion because you must go, or couldn't respond because you were gone. There are actually more mentions of that on the dozens of talk pages, but they're more difficult to track down. (It was a lot easier to just look at your userpage before you deleted all comments).
I'm not trying to make you feel bad about it; I just wanted to point out that many people have discussed edits, and even I have done it more than the one mention you give me credit for. I think part of the reason people keep reverting your user page is because they feel that you are either refusing to acknowledge this, or feigning ignorance.
-ES
