User talk:Haus

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Thanks

For fixing the ISO-639 new image. It did originally display correctly then suddenly it didn't. Much better now. Mjroots (talk) 10:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings!

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Wilhelmina Will (talk) 20:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for MV Mariam

On 5 September 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article MV Mariam, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

— Rlevse • Talk • 00:04, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Great work, Haus--I'm just riding your coattails. Drmies (talk) 04:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of navigational stars

Hello. I noticed that you removed a column with light year distances from a table in this article per WP:COATRACK. I don't see though how such a column would've been coatracking. De728631 (talk) 23:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. It wasn't that it created a bias, but that the distance is not germane to the stars in terms of their use in navigation. I'm attempting to nudge the list towards a second FL candidacy, and while rewriting the background section, it became clear that including distance felt forced. Do you have a different opinion on it? Cheers. Haus^Talk 23:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I don't see anything wrong with including the distances. Someone might want to look that up and our articles are supposed to appeal to a broad readership, not only to experts on the topic. That's why I have restored the distances column for the time being. De728631 (talk) 23:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be interested in adding a paragraph to the background section which explains why this is a useful statistic to include in these tables? I'm at a loss. Haus^Talk 23:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not even necessary to include a rationale for it, it's statistics and it doesn't hurt. And the topic is also related to astronomy after all. De728631 (talk) 23:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll suggest deleting the column as I go through the FL process, and we'll see what other editors have to say. Cheers. Haus^Talk 23:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, that's a fair solution. Cheers, De728631 (talk) 19:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

site gCaptain.com

I would like to discuss the blacklisting of our site gCaptain.com. We are very interested in the quality of our links and have no interest in distracting the conversation here at wikipedia. We are all mariners and consider the work you have done to promote maritime issues on wikipedia important. I very much wish to talk to you both about the blacklisting and about how we can help promote your goals here on wikipedia. Thanks, John Konrad - coFounder - gCaptain.com admin@gcaptain.com - Phone +1.805.456.8644 --Gcaptain (talk) 20:44, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note. I've watched your site grow and it's a very useful source for mariners. What I'd like to do is point you to a couple of guidelines/policies in preparation for a more in-depth conversation. There's a naval saying that I hear once in a blue moon on merchant ships: "The book of safety is written in blood." or, less dramatically, the rules may seem silly but they are here for a reason. The main two that apply here are WP:ELNO and WP:SPS. Two others that may or may not become relevant are WP:NOT#OR and WP:NOTNEWS.

Wikipedia could benefit greatly from a few more active mariners. Off the top of my head, I'd be surprised if 20% of active U.S.-flag civilian ships have articles, and most of them are not very useful at all. Some, though, are a goldmine of information for the sailor joining the ship for the first time. Additionally, improving articles on the business of shipping such as The Jones Act, Seafarers International Union, and American Maritime Officers would help mariners and Wikipedia.

The hard part for mariners on Wikipedia is this: it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you can prove. I could singlehandedly put out an E/R fire, but I can't write about it here unless its covered in a WP:RS. The essay WP:TRUE is a useful read on this subject.

All that said, I'd be happy to be a resource for you and your readers while I'm on the beach. Cheers. Haus^Talk 21:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We can certainly work to have our readers help populate articles, they are passionate about sharing information online which is why a few of them probably went overboard with the links... but is that reason to ban the entire site? I don't know. The guidelines on external links is an important reference, should we (gCaptain editors) be policing the use of our domain as external links? That being said I do believe we are a reputable source as our blog is continuously referenced by the large media outlets, most recently the NYTimes, LA Times and NPR (among others) and we are not entirely self-published either as I currently am writing a book based on my blog posts about the Deepwater Horizon for HarperCollins. So what is the next step for us to both get off the blacklist but also to make sure our readers don't abuse wikipedia's policy's in the future?--Gcaptain (talk) 05:10, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, I've been following the discussion at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#gCaptain.com. I'm sorry to say the outcome was kind of predictable. I would underscore part of Dirk Beestra's response: "...when you need the blog as a reference, you can suggest the specific link here for whitelisting. Still, note the existence of Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Reliable Sources and Wikipedia:External links .. all of which this site likely to fail..." This presents a possible route to move forward, but it may, in the end, just be frustrating.

Wikipedia's bar for reliable sources has been steadily rising for the past couple of years. One similar example I can point to is Uboat.net. In the past, it has been used as a source for numerous featured articles, a strong case has been made for its reliability by a prolific editor, but recently it has been questioned, and arguments for its reliability have ended in a stalemate. The place to make an argument for reliability for the site in general is here and for a particular citation is here. My sense is that the former would not turn out well.

You mention above that the site has been mentioned by "...NYTimes, LA Times and NPR (among others)...". I tried a couple of times to find links using Google news, but didn't have any luck. If you could provide links, there's a possibility that the site itself meets the notability guidelines for web sites and could merit an article. If the links could support an article, I'd be willing to write it. In this scenario, the right thing to do would be to write the article and immediately submit it to articles for deletion to determine a consensus on the site's notability.

In the spirit of "thinking outside a box," there is a way to generate links to your site that is universally encouraged: by donating images that could be useful in articles to Commons. It works like this: if a user clicks on an image, they see information about it, including its source. I've never seen an objection to tastefully mentioning the origin of the contributing site in an image description.

Cheers. Haus^Talk 17:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Haus, many thanks I am still trying hard to get up to speed on wikipedia's policy, and I admit it is something I should have done earlier. I appreciate your help to that end.

Links are not an issue, we have plenty of traffic to our site, and I would be content with every link posted being permanently removed from this site. The problem is that adding us to the blacklist hurts our reputation and puts us on other blacklists throughout the internet, a penalty I don't think we deserve. So I would be more than happy to include images (One of our guys was linking to a photo of the Deepwater Horizon's BOP when he found out about the blacklist) but I do not seek to do it for recognition... the truth is I truly do appreciate the work you do in getting the maritime industry visibility on this site. It was not long ago that I felt the need to expand the first Chief Mate entry here and today countless maritime topics are populated mostly through the hard work of people like you.

As requested, here are a few of the links to articles about both me and gCaptain: Popular Media: Publishers Ready Books on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill After Another Close Call, Transocean Changed Rules Foreign flagging of offshore rigs skirts U.S. safety rules Book based off gCaptain blog posts 1 example of our syndication on WSJ posts about the BP Oil Spill NPR - Maersk Alabama Incident And our earliest mention Ship strayed from course before spill Industry Media: NOAA Mariner's Weather Log Council Of American Master Mariners Power and Motoryacht

Also, and I am not sure it will help and I certainly don't want to swat the hornets nest, but our friends at ReadWriteWeb pointed us to this post about their difficulties with the blacklsit Why Wikipedia's Policy to Blacklist Blogs is Outdated and Wrong.

Again, I appreciate the validity of your point and your continued help. gCaptain is committed to doing "the right thing" here. --Gcaptain (talk) 18:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]