User:Dr Zen
This page is a wiki. That means anyone can edit it
Dr Zen is my online identity wherever I roam. I'm an editor by trade so I'll probably be contributing most by copy-editing anything that catches my eye.
Encomia
So, I'm not the only one who thinks Dr Zen is a troll. RickK 23:41, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
The kind comments about my POV make me realise that I shouldn't give up Wikipedia as there are actually reasonable editors around. Ta bu shi da yu 00:37, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Not popular enough to be a "cabalist". Everyking 23:15, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You seem to do very little but cause trouble or get in the middle of trouble that others have started. Slim 00:51, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your kind and thoughtful response. I'm very glad we've put ourselves on a better footing. And you've also given me new faith in Wikipedia. Maurreen 05:19, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Dr Zen, I do not think you have understood why Wikipedia exists. dab (ᛏ) 09:47, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Consensus
Do not tell me this place is about consensus. It is about pushing your POV as hard as you can; ganging up on those who do not share it; but ensuring that when you abuse people you are careful enough to do so in the politest terms.
Watchlist
Dr Zen will not be keeping a watchlist. If you are currently engaged in trolling or attacking Dr Zen, he regrets that he might miss your comments, and directs you to his talk page.
From my talk page
I believe that the ideal is a solution that has taken account of all views, that has persuaded or tried to, and is acceptable to all.
What, I wonder, is so wrong with the suggestion that rather than summarily listing an editor's work on VfD, as was done with textfiles.com, where the editor in question is a user of good standing, that one might write to the editor and ask them to discuss its notability? Are we in such a hurry to delete pages we don't approve of that it hurts to allow them an extra day. Build. Don't destroy.
Constructionism
I am a constructionist. I agree that Wikipedia is not paper and can include much more than a bound encyclopaedia. I believe encyclopaedias should be fascinating.
I believe in the notion of consensus, working together to build a great encyclopaedia. I think we should at least try to be civil in that pursuit. There are good, well-thought-out policies that can aid it.
However, there are many editors, it seems, who hide behind the policies and guidelines in place of engaging in discussion. Do they not know that yelling "you are not being civil" is in itself not being civil! I engage these people as far as I can, in the attempt to sway them to a more agreeable position, but there are limits. We are advised to walk away from conflict and I do, because ultimately it is not constructive, and I am here to construct, not destroy.
Summary: Build. Do not destroy.
Worth considering
"Why shouldn't there be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly crosslinked and introduced by a shorter central page like the above? Why shouldn't every episode name in the list link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia? Why shouldn't each of the 100+ poker games I describe have its own page with rules, strategy, and opinions? Hard disks are cheap. Anon
- I agree with this one completely. --Jimbo Wales"
Me too.
The sum of all that's fit to print
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
These words are inspiring.
"I doubt if it would ever make sense to have a firm policy on how often things can be proposed for VfD"
These aren't.
The standard of notability
Will it become unnotable when the old folks die?
A village no one calls home is more "notable" than a school that has educated thousands.
A character that is mentioned in a Harry Potter book, but does not make an appearance at any point.
Dr Zen's template for school votes
{{User:Dr Zen/keepschools}}
The ZEEFSTEW test
Dr Zen applies a test to all articles to check whether they should be included in a great encyclopaedia. I call it the ZEEFSTEW test. All questions answered in the affirmative score 10 points for an article. The nearer the score to 10, the better the case for keeping the article.
Questions A/ Is it a school?
On the issue of schools
Although it remains my belief that a great encyclopaedia would include all schools, I cannot be bothered voting to include them all any more. Those who want to make a slightly bigger, slightly worse Britannica will probably win in the end because Wikipedia will always be a magnet for those who have a greater sense of their own importance than is strictly merited, and those guys just will never get the idea that an encyclopaedia need not be particularly restrictive to be good, because it would deflate that sense.
Of course, that does mean that the dream of a tremendous edifice of learning -- a wild dream to begin with, given the burdens of POV pushing, a bureaucracy that feeds itself (never, surely, part of the wiki concept -- I can't see how it's particularly constructive to spend hours, days and weeks burning witches -- why not just empower Dave Gerard et al to kick out whoever they disapprove of, which with the broad interpretation of blocking policy some use is already becoming the case, and not bother with the kangaroo courts? Just let the deletionists rid us of whatever irks them rather than pretend that we don't like trolling while having a page that invites it to the max) and outright fuckwittedry that it has to shoulder -- is sacrificed to the smallminded, limited vision of people who are labouring under a rather antiquated notion of what's important (peculiarly, many Wikipedians strive to make it a modernist masterpiece, like Britannica or OED in their realms, rather than understand the great attraction and promise of it as a postmodernist wonder -- still, I suppose that many are "scientists" and few "artists" and the former are very much stuck in the modernist idiom).
BJAODN
Beauty is the phenomenon of hedonistic experience, through the perception of balance and proportion of stimulus.
Go-go boots are a type of boots which originally was created in the 1960s with the intention that they should be used for dancing.
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Argon was the fourth child of Fingolfin, High King of the Ñoldor in Beleriand.
User_talk:The_Fellowship_of_the_Troll
Revision as of 11:23, 3 Nov 2004 LGagnon (Talk | contribs) revert; deleting someone else's comment is rude
I've seen the talk page; stop poisoning the well and attempting to insert POV -- Jayjg. It is POV, apparently, to note that we are linking to a statement by the Israeli deputy PM and not POV to pass him off as just some guy.
There's no doubt that Cyprus is not geographically European and as Europe is a geographical body ("Europe is a continent") Cyprus should not be mentioned as a country in Europe (eventhough they are a member of The European Union). A new page on European culture or European civilization would perhaps solve this dispute? Moravice 22:31, 2004 May 7 (CET) (Dr Zen's emphasis)
This, to me, is why sane folks need to be working on VfD Old. I don't do it -- can't undertand how -- but I'd be damned tempted to ignore auto-keep and auto-delete votes, to disregard any votes that didn't have a rationale. Geogre 03:19, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
--user:Ed Poor wrote on Nov 5, 2004 (UTC): " While I personally side with Israel and tend to agree with the idea that all terrorists are Islamic I try hard NOT to imbue my edits with this perspective." (the self-proclaimed least-biased editor on Wikipedia explains his "perspective")
On 2/3rds, the objective is to have "consensus", and the consensus on Wikipedia is that "consensus" is roughly equal to 70 or 80 percent. --—Ben Brockert (42) 04:06, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
"I think it's about time we got rid of Anthony." -- →Raul654 22:52, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
"Thus, hypothetically, if Cheese Dreams had said Jesus was born in 100 BCE, and Steven had insisted it was 4 BCE, the mediator would have insisted that they should both compromise and say that Jesus was born in 52 BCE." Jayjg shows that he doesn't understand that NPOV wants us to state both points of view as points of view.
Wikipedia is not paper
Stable articles. A paper encyclopaedia. Privileged editors. Review. Less is better. I don't want 1.0. I want Wikipedia. Evolving, growing, profuse. No vanity. No ego. No names on the cover.
Reviewing Wikipedia
We don't need review. We have review.
"Who ever cited an encyclopaedia?" Wise words from Ta bu shi da yu
To do
- Fix the New Order page
- Erm... there will be more...