User:Tenmei/Sandbox/Okinawa/Niijima

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Himorogi in Japan are most commonly seen at construction sites, where they stand for a while before actual work begins. The zigzag-shaped paper streamer hanging from the boundary ropes are called shide (紙垂).

mrg3105

Common cause

Template:Hidden section top I'm contacting you because of one small excerpt from a larger thread:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Proposal to dismiss Nick Dowling as Assistant Coordinator of the Military history Wikiproject

Strong oppose - This is a joke right? You want someone dismissed as a coordinator because they disagreed with your position on an article's name????????????????????????? Heeheeheehee! Thanks for the laugh - I need it! And thought maybe he had done something really bad, like support me in a dispute on whether a Japanese DDH was an aircraft carrier or not. Whewwww! - BillCJ (talk) 02:29, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

BillCJ, no, I am not asking to dismiss Nick because he disagrees with the historical name of the article, but the way he is going about achieving this, by using a straw poll to change it to a fictitious name unsupported by references which is completely contrary to Wikipedia policy and community consensus on straw polls--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 03:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I wonder what you made of BillCJ's odd observation? I would have thought you found it obscure or otherwise inexplicable? No matter -- I can explain. I'm the one he was angry with in this sentence, not you ... or at least, I'm the one who had the temerity to add a one-sentence edit to Hyūga class helicopter destroyer and he didn't like it. In scanning the page where I found this trivial exchange, it was the "DDH" which caught my attention.

I stumbled into your further response only as a secondary matter.

If you're interested, I'll try to explain at least a tiny part of what you can't learn any other way, I suppose ....

What intrigues me even more than whatever is going on with BillCJ is your observations about Nick Dowling, whose words and actions demonstrate that he seems to espouse a non-standard disdain for WP:Verifiability.

Nick Dowling's unique notions about citations and references have caused me a great deal of what I would like to think of as otherwise avoidable difficulties; and it may be helpful to introduce myself.

Perhaps you may be able to help me learn more about this narrow aspect of your experiences with this difficult Wikipedia administrator. At best, something unforeseen may lead to something constructive?

In scanning your messages, I have to say that you sound like a bit of a loose cannon; but I fear others may describe me in the same way. I would have thought we were very, very different -- similar only in that we've both managed to blunder within range of Nick Dowling's highly-developed personal radar? Does that make us "peers" ...? --Tenmei (talk) 00:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC) Template:Hidden section bottom

Peers?

Template:Hidden section top Hmm, I'd have to thank you for calling me a "loose cannon" given my current project article is Artillery. :) I find reading you quite interesting. At a guess you are a very well educated citizen of the UK, right?

Actually I do not harbour particular ill feelings towards most editors I have come into conflict with, but I am particular about statements of fact. Your own predicament may have been resolved earlier if Nick and others had been pointed to the Moskva class helicopter carrier which is actually an attempt to marry a light cruiser hull with a function of an anti-submarine carrier, though the class did not exist in the 60s because helicopters had only been introduced in that role late in the 50s (I think), and mostly operated from conventional carriers. Militaries of course have agendas that reference works are not supposed to :)

I don't know how peer-oriented I am given that the first person I offered to cooperate with turned into someone who constantly uses any pretext to oppose me, and stalks my edits with a vengeance. What I found objectionable about Nick's behaviour is the way he pursued his agenda, or rather that of User:Buckshot06 who was the one to raise the straw poll.

The world of Wikipedia is far more complex than one supposes. Not sure how long you have been editing, but you see, what happened originally is that Buckshot wanted me to help him in his articles on the Russian/Soviet topics, and I was not prepared to commit due to my own plans. Further, I had the temerity to point out that what he considered to be a Featured Article had many failings, all largely due to his lack of knowledge of Russian, and access to sources. After that he went after me trying to rename ubiquitous "Battle of..." articles into their proper named operational entities, largely basing it on works by a former US Army Colonel whom even BS06 acknowledges to be the expert in the field. The argument: it seems that by doing so, I am trying to Russify the English Wikipedia, that the names are "too long", and that "people don't know what a strategic offensive operation" is. All these are of course his point of view unsupported by any Wikipedia policy, convention or guideline, the last of two which he holds to be "as policy" despite explicit references in them to citing sources taking precedence over use of "common English names".

In any case, while all this was going on, I got involved in a defence of another "loose cannon" who was trying to edit the Battle of Stalingrad article by adding sourced statements who had been apparently battling bureaucracy for years, and having returned from a year's block was blocked again within a couple of days. One person who was explicitly against giving this editor another chance was, Raul654. Of course BS06 followed my participation, and Raul is also a member of the MilHist Project.

The editor who came up with "references" is User:Biruitorul who is a Rumanian editor whom I encountered in the dispute over the naming of Yassy-Kishinev Strategic Offensive Operation renamed to Jassy-Kishinev Operation, my primary arguments being that German names (Jassy) of Rumanian cities have no place in an English Wikipedia, and that one should be less ambiguous in the article title by using official names. You will note that although there was a flurry of activity on the article from Rumanian editors around the time of the protracted debate over the name of the article, it has since ceased despite the article being far from complete. The article was initialy brought to my attention because it had been renamed by User:Eurocoptertigre, also Rumanian, who renamed it into Rumanian because the two cities were (without a proper RM!) :) Note that Eurocopter is the editor who in the end renamed the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation into the "Soviet invasion of" on this occasion also. Eurocopter is also a Military History Project coordinator, but authors predominantly Rumanian articles with the exception of some Soviet articles where he had replaced me in assisting Buckshot06 because I suppose he also knows some Russian. Oh, Nick and Buckshot are very close through their co-participation on a range of articles related to Australian and New Zealand defence forces, Nick being Australian, and BS06 being from New Zealand.

Others present were User:Wwoods whom you probably met during the Hyūga class helicopter destroyer "discussion". User:Davewild is an admin who does a lot of article deletion, and doesn't seem to participate in military history, so I wonder what brought him to the article talk; Raul? And that's about it. So you see, all things are connected :)

Had I been more attention seeking and networked more, I may have put together my own "coalition of the willing" to counter the straw poll, but in any case, between them the other participants can call on about three dozen people, and one admin usually stays out of the poll to block anyone as an "uninvolved" admin as soon as there is any mention of "incivility", "trolling", being "disruptive" or "wikilawyering" in Wikispeak. The only one missing was Piotrus who represents the rather vocal Polish contingent in English Wikipedia. I have also had a run-in with a member of the former Yugoslavia brethren who calls himself a DIREKTOR (yes, in capitals) that almost immediately on me asking for sources in an article called it a "dispute", at which point BS06 appeared to offer him support as he always does. All the Eastern Europeans usually come in lots of 1/2 dozen, so I can only guess that Manchuria, seeing me isolated, was not a priority.

As for the endemic issues of Wikipedia, please email me on the subject and we can chat further. I do agree with most of what you have said in the AN/I, but prefer to stay out of there in case some enterprising admin decides to take an interest in my editing and I have to get into yet another "discussion" with someone who prefers "common" to exceptional quality standards.

Read your post again. I have to say that I really like the elegance of your expression. Wish I had it in me to emulate that, but alas. In any case, Verifiability is a huge problem in Wikipedia. I see that you mostly edit Japanese articles, so it may not apply, but in may subjects citations are drawn from what is available in GoogleBooks, which is not necessarily a bad thing, however I find that research by keywords means editors who do so do not bother to read the entire paragraph, chapter, and certainly not the book, or several books on the subject to gain subject perspective and context. The outcome is edit warring when someone discovers a Wikipedia article that offers far less than a reference article should.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 08:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC) Template:Hidden section bottom

ASIDE addressed to unknown, unidentified readers

Aside: This small bit is oddly addressed to anyone and everyone other than the one user whose talk page it is supposed to be. This was composed for those readers other than Mrg3105 who are studying these words: I encountered an unexpected response to the carefully drafted thread I sought to begin above -- a brash observation, not from Mrg3105, but from an unexpected, unsympathetic commentator:

Trying to rally others towards the same sort of disruptive approach to dispute resolution not only affirms the view I hold but is also unhelpful to the extreme.

Aside: On one hand, I don't know how to respond to this distinctly unfriendly writer, but I've no doubt that simply re-posting these poorly-chosen words becomes a response of sorts. If I can somehow juggle the flow-chart reasoning needed here -- what happened is that I posted a message for Mrg3105 on this talk page; and my words were then copied and linked within the body of another message posted somewhere else by someone else. So, does that mean that in responding here, I'm acknowledging in a forthright way that I got the message? I did read it. I did think about it. I don't understand -- not yet.

Aside: I can't be alone in recognizing that this talk page represents a unique venue. The often strident prose in most, if not all of the threads which stretch out ad nauseam above is impossible to parse without knowing much more ..., but I'm guessing anyone can take the measure of the headings, including:

• 2 Insulting people
• 5 Discussion at AN/I
• 6 Editing restriction reminder
• 30 Formal warning
• 33 AN/I discussion
• 56 Civility and inappropriate accusations
• 66 Blocked
• 77 WP:Civil
• 92 Blocked (2)
• 93 Editing restriction
• 97 Ban
• 98 Common cause?
  • 98.1 Peers?
  • 98.2 ASIDE addressed to unknown, unidentified readers
  • 98.3 Focusing attention towards a constructive objective
• 99 Ping

Aside:In this demonstrably non-standard talk page, I would have thought it well-established that "rallying" Mrg3105 to adopt a more measured, thoughtful approach to anything and everything within Wikipedia's ambit deserves approbation, encouragement, applause. I don't think that's what the writer meant -- no, probably not.

Aside: I will continue to try to fathom the depths of whatever it was I was supposed to have known a priori; but I just don't "get" it. In the meantime, I don't want to delay reiterating a sterling phrase:

" ...Trying to rally others towards the same sort of disruptive approach to dispute resolution ...."

Aside: If the problem isn't so much what I wrote, but rather that I had the temerity simply to contact Mrg3105, that would seem like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut -- an apt simile. Perhaps it will ameliorate misunderstandings by explaining that the genesis of the idea to contact Mrg3105 is suggested by imitating BillCJ and Nick Dowling. Imitation is a form of flattery, I know; and I wouldn't want this to be taken that way. Nevertheless, I do recognize that these two are "established users" in ways I wouldn't have even imagined before chance intervened; and I admit frankly that I wouldn't have thought of this on my own. --Tenmei (talk) 03:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Focusing attention towards a constructive objective

Template:Hidden section top Mrg3105 -- The odd, awkward, voyeur's context above was not created by you or me, but what is to be done except to acknowledge it. In light of that intrusive audience, do I need to say frankly that I disagree with a great many things you've written? Do I need to announce that I'd not be willing to endorse much of what I've read on this page? What matters most is this: even if you were wrong, wrong, wrong in all sorts of ways I can't even begin to enumerate, that would not affect my belief -- my near certainty -- that some of what you've alleged is credible, not proven or demonstrated, but plainly credible.

Separating wheat from chaff becomes a labour-intensive chore ... but I'm persuaded to invest in that winnowing in order to protect the other opportunities which attend participating in the Wikipedia project.

I can only guess about the issues implicit in the Aside, but it seems undeniably dark and only obliquely related to WP:V and WP:NPOV. On the other hand -- looking on the brighter side -- I guess we should have reason to feel gratified that our writing is likely to garner a much larger readership than I would have otherwise speculated. If the consequences prove ultimately beneficial, then the term "voyeurs" would seem less relevant perhaps? For an unsolicited audience, the following becomes a timely, wholesome rejoinder to what? I'm at a loss for words ....

Ian Hamilton, British India military attaché, in Manchuria with Japanese forces (1904).

Foreign Officiers and Correspondents, in Manchuria. (1904).

The range of your Wikipedia experiences is wider than mine; and the subjects which seem to attract your attention comprise a broader array as well.

Please forgive my narrow-mindedness, but I think I need to admit a priori that I've not much interest in Russian or Soviet subjects. I can't easily recall having made any contribution to Russia-related subjects, except in minor edits to Sergei Witte and articles about other Russian negotiators who hammered out details of the Treaty of Portsmouth. In fact, what little attention I've even given to Russo-Japanese War -- other than the treaty which ended the conflict -- has focused only on the Western military attachés serving with Japanese armies: Herbert Cyril Thacker, John Charles Hoad, Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, etc.

When you think about it, the fact that our interests are so divergent could be a good thing. It might help limit and focus what we might be able to work through together. In varying ways, we both seem to have stumbled over issues and consequences flowing from WP:V. That alone won't be enough of a fulcrum to leverage anything worthwhile, but it's a start. I've only scanned your talk page threads, not studied them; but sometimes, maybe -- not always -- I think you're trying to get a handle on issues or topics that I'm trying to grapple with as well. I don't have any suggestions about what to make of whatever we might have in common, no plans yet; but if we could figure out how to manage something both small and constructive, the effort could be worthwhile.

There's no particular reason to rush, of course; but I'm eager to try something new. I'm guessing that you generally move along faster than I do sometimes. You might be more impulsive than I am. So what?

Time is an unknowable element in whatever we need to do. It is inherently impetuous to propose inventing something different from tactics and strategies which haven't worked nearly well enough thus far.

Changing tone a little bit: I wonder if a couple of coincidences are worth mentioning:

1. When I read what you had written above, the first and only Russian who came to mind was Sergei Witte, which caused me to think of his Japanese negotiating counterpart at Portsmouth, Komura Jutarō. As it happens, Baron Komura's family comes from the region of eastern Kyūshū which was once known as Hyūga province ... and, as you know, I only happened to notice something you wrote because BillCJ mentioned 16DDH (Hyūga class helicopter destroyer) just before a contribution you made to a tendentious and ineffective thread.

2. When I re-visited Talk:Sergei Witte, I was reminded of a trivial incident I'd forgotten about entirely. An anonymous reader had posted a plausible question about Witte's official government title in Russia; and another editor had simply endorsed the question as a seemingly valid one. The short thread focused on one of the very, very few aspects of the article in which I actually had something to offer. At Talk:Sergei Witte#Relevant?, the question has to do with whether Wikipedia should or should not identify Witte with what seemed like an Americanized title -- assuming his position was just like that of the American Secretary of State? Obviously, a thoughtful question with easy-to-parse ramifications ....

What pleases me has nothing to do with Witte or the answer -- rather, it's the reasoning which underlies this trivial contribution in April 2008. As you can see for yourself, I posted:

• If the term "Secretary of State" is an error in this context, it's at least an error which we can attribute to the New York Times in 1905. Does this help, perhaps, to better focus this discussion or perhaps to move it forward constructively? --Tenmei (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I could have typed out in April 2008 (as I did in July 2008) --

• Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth — that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true ... which, as you may know, is really nothing more than the first sentence of the official policy page explanatory text.

I could have drafted wiki-jargon in April 2008 (as Bellhalla did in July 2008) --

• Also, I want to add that the policy is verifiability, not necessarily truth. NYT meets All three sources meet the WP:RS standard. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Again and again and again over the past month, I've witnessed this kind of salutatory reasoning rejected, twisted, ignored, blocked, etc. I don't have an adequate vocabulary to describe what I felt about the combination of stonewalling and disingenuous spin and who-knows-what-else. In July, I found myself on the fringes of an odd "event" which still feels overly-orchestrated in retrospect. Although I tried my best to pay attention, my participation -- even as a passive witness -- was ineffective.

In contrast, finding this thread from last Spring feels like a refreshing drink of water on a hot day.

What an odd chain of lucky links: Your introductory exposition/narrative mentioned a number of Russia-related subjects ...; and THEN that inspired me to think of Sergei Witte ...; and THEN that caused me to check-out the talk page ...; and THEN I chanced across this helpful illustration of something small which worked out nicely .... It's good to be reminded of something good. I don't know where to go with this, but maybe we can manage to work together towards a modestly encouraging start. What do you think? --Tenmei (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)