User talk:Madcoverboy

thanks

thanks for your help highlighting problems with my sumbmission NCUK - new to this. Have tried to improve, but perhaps you could let me know the problem with my citations (at the bottom) - is it style-of or simply not enough of them? Thanks though, is appreciated.

--Mcvink (talk) 17:16, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

excuse me

is there a reason why your tagging everything i post for deletion? i work for this company and am not violating any copywriter laws.

edco0o (talk) 11:40, 1 july 2008

Hello

Thanks for the editing. I would like this page to rival some of the other ones on similar universities. Are you going to add more?

Deen Gu (talk) 04:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

List of NU Buildings

Hey, I wrote a few responses to your to-do list on the talk page. Just thought you'd like to know. Paradoxsociety (review) 20:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Intelligence and professional development

Let us assume that the article were on transesterification in organic chemistry, or the design of a communications networking protocol, or on isomorphisms in group theory, or on the mode of action of penicillin. Should these topics be in a "generalist encyclopedia" at all, because they require substantial prerequisite knowledge to discuss in any meaningful way?

I've largely given up on Wikipedia, and its contradictions. Write something with a flowing, active-voice style, and people complain it's a "how-to". Write something that seems to be "encyclopedic", and there are complaints that it's dry and not accessible to generalists.

Actually, I do appreciate that you recognize that it is not possible to provide sources for a great deal of material in intelligence. Still, I am also very tired of the general hostility to expertise and the rules against original synthesis, which, with a topic like this, either are going to be broken or the subject will be even more impenetrable.

At this point, I doubt I will make any further contributions to the general (i.e., not country-specific) intelligence articles here. If there was more of a critical mass of people to work collaboratively, it might be different, but the people I know with subject matter knowledge are reluctant to discuss these issues in this venue. I know that I have reached my endurance of comments about a subject "not being accessible." Let's put it this way -- I have a great deal of medical background, the sometimes subtle reasoning for diagnosis and treatment also tending to generate complaints of jargon. Avoid jargon and you get dangerous oversimplifications such as in mass media, direct-to-consumer drug advertising. My housemates tell me that I should not watch advertisements for prescription drugs, because a knowledge of pharmacology brings an increase of blood pressure.

So, if you think you can make it general and not lose content and nuance, be my guest. Recently, I've realized that if everything I ever wrote here was made a Featured Article, it would not make one iota of difference to me. I look at the "encyclopedic writing style" that is demanded, and I realize that my professional writing -- which variously can be comedy or highly specialized -- cannot risk shifting into the apparently preferred Wikipedia style.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Intelligence and professional development

Let us assume that the article were on transesterification in organic chemistry, or the design of a communications networking protocol, or on isomorphisms in group theory, or on the mode of action of penicillin. Should these topics be in a "generalist encyclopedia" at all, because they require substantial prerequisite knowledge to discuss in any meaningful way?

I've largely given up on Wikipedia, and its contradictions. Write something with a flowing, active-voice style, and people complain it's a "how-to". Write something that seems to be "encyclopedic", and there are complaints that it's dry and not accessible to generalists.

Actually, I do appreciate that you recognize that it is not possible to provide sources for a great deal of material in intelligence. Still, I am also very tired of the general hostility to expertise and the rules against original synthesis, which, with a topic like this, either are going to be broken or the subject will be even more impenetrable.

At this point, I doubt I will make any further contributions to the general (i.e., not country-specific) intelligence articles here. If there was more of a critical mass of people to work collaboratively, it might be different, but the people I know with subject matter knowledge are reluctant to discuss these issues in this venue. I know that I have reached my endurance of comments about a subject "not being accessible." Let's put it this way -- I have a great deal of medical background, the sometimes subtle reasoning for diagnosis and treatment also tending to generate complaints of jargon. Avoid jargon and you get dangerous oversimplifications such as in mass media, direct-to-consumer drug advertising. My housemates tell me that I should not watch advertisements for prescription drugs, because a knowledge of pharmacology brings an increase of blood pressure.

So, if you think you can make it general and not lose content and nuance, be my guest. Recently, I've realized that if everything I ever wrote here was made a Featured Article, it would not make one iota of difference to me. I look at the "encyclopedic writing style" that is demanded, and I realize that my professional writing -- which variously can be comedy or highly specialized -- cannot risk shifting into the apparently preferred Wikipedia style.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Possibly without realizing it, your point on treating intelligence differently than activities less practical to anthropomorphize goes exactly to some of the problems in reducing the topic for the arbitrary generalist -- as opposed to the one who knows a lack of knowledge and is willing to do the preparation. Let me approach that indirectly. First, there is a hackneyed but true saying in military affairs: "Amateurs talk tactics, dilettantes talk strategy, but professionals talk logistics," coupled with a British saying that most people believe it takes much experience to command a warship, but any fool can command a regiment.

One of the more common problems with effective intelligence might, indeed, be related to trying to make it more anthropomorphic and accessible to "the common man". There was no accident in both the reason I discuss failures in different parts of the cycle, very early in the article, and why a number of readers complained about those, equating them with a "blame the CIA" attitude -- when the CIA deliberately was not used in any example. No, the more illustrative cases are things such as Stalin refusing to accept things that didn't fit his preconceptions, or the U.S. establishment being so concerned about source security (and service parochialism) that the admittedly limited war warnings were not in the hands of Pacific Theater commanders in December 1941. In the article, I deliberately avoided current events, but, here, I will mention that Dick Cheney's assumptions about what intelligence on Iraq "ought" to prove led to creating Feith's Office of Special Plans to bypass the regular analytic process.

I don't know if you've looked at the article cognitive traps for intelligence analysis, as well as some of the quantitative decision science being used in real-world intelligence analysis. Ironically, some students in an intelligence curriculum were given class assignments to write things for Wikipedia, and objected when I commented that the specific methods they were describing, Heuer's pioneering work in the 1970s and the work of one textbook author being flogged by their professor, were not representative of current work in decision science. I got a huffy response that Analysis of competing hypotheses was neither formalized nor quantitative, yet I was able to produce a half-dozen or so peer-reviewed open-literature enhancements, in about an hour. Unfortunately or not, each of those enhancements required some background in fields such as statistical inference or formal logic.

If I've learned much about my own ability to learn, a key lesson is that subjects may have their own prerequisites, their own criteria of natural selection. When I was in high school, I was doing an honors project in biochemistry. It had to do with the competitive inhibition of an enzyme, and that mechanism,in general, is described by what are called the Michaelis-Menten equations. To make heads or tails of those equations, one needs at least a reading, if not a derivation, knowledge of partial differential equations. Since I was too callow a youth to understand that I did not have the mathematical background for such a subject, I spent hours at a library, picking up individual concepts from math, until I had that reading knowledge. Alas, the material wasn't accessible to generalists, but I did not feel insulted by it.

Some refer to discipline-specific knowledge as exclusionary jargon. In other cases, however, it is artificial language introduced to force precise definitions to be understood, and constrain the discussion. It takes wisdom to know which is which, but, again, one of my areas of endeavor has been the decision process in clinical medicine. Contrary to the assumptions of many laymen, understanding material meant for clinicians is less a matter of vocabulary than it is of both a theoretical background, and a "high-context" means of communications in which what is not said is as important as what is said.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Elderly Instruments

Hi there, I just wanted to drop a note to say that I'm taking your concerns about the article seriously. I don't have the resources today to investigate fixes (and I'm not sure it's wise to do so in the midst of all the vandalism the main page attracts) but I'd like to compile a worklist for future discussion. If you are interested, please let me know. --Laser brain (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

MIT article

Hi. Thanks for your good work on the MIT article. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 13:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

University rankings in lead

Just don't do it. They shouldn't be there. Focus instead on summarizing the rest of the article which should contain history, campus, organization, enrollments, research activity, athletics, arts, and alumni. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I think rankings are a perfectly fine thing to include in the lead. Like it or not, the U.S. News rankings play a role in the world of American higher education and can be a useful bit of information to include, especially in the lead. Yes, it's fine to be in-depth in a Rankings section, but merely including it in the lead is not necessarily equivalent to boosterism (certainly not any more so than including athletics championships). Esrever ^(klaT) 15:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

So what is "highly selective"? Is it 10% admissions rate? 20%? Does it imply a threshold for an average SAT score? Does it actually mean that tuition and financial aid are structured in a way to "select" only those students most able to afford it? It's the epitome of a weasel word and should never be used in the lead of an encyclopedia article, regardless of its prevalence in the practice of admissions or university administrivia.

Rankings are not useful at all and should never be in a lead. Space in the lead is too precious for summarizing everything about the history, campus, organization, enrollments, research activity, and alumni to waste sentences expounding on one magazine's problematic and POV formulation of an unquantifiable concept of prestige or quality. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I tend to agree with Madcoverboy that rankings generally don't need to be in the lead. A cited Rankings section should suffice. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 16:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This is summarized from my talk page: Sorry, while we encourage people to be bold, your actions go against consensus. As I wrote on the USC talk page (and other editors on other pages you've touched), you have been using your personal dislike of the US News rankings as reason to remove the mention out of various articles despite the fact that its been well established as acceptable practice. In fact, you should have noticed that UC Riverside and Duke were both Featured Articles, which show what this community considers to be exemplary. Rankings are considered acceptable in any college and university article as long as they are presented in a reasonable manner and cited. The list of articles you've touched include many of the nation's top schools. Unsurprisingly, your edits were already being reverted by custodians of those other articles. If you want to change Wikipedia policy, please be patient and go through the proper route. Starting at the College and Universities Wikiproject would be a good start. --Bobak (talk) 16:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

images and the Commons

Completely unrelated to any other discussions, I've noticed that you've uploaded a lot of great images, especially of Northwestern's campus. It's great that you've done that, especially considering that you've chosen to do so with a free license. Have you considered uploading future images directly to the Wikimedia Commons? Doing so makes those images available to all Wikimedia projects, not just the English Wikipedia. Not sure if anyone's mentioned it before or not. You might also consider moving some of your existing images over to Commons, too. Cheers! Esrever ^(klaT) 18:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

If there's a way to tag it so a bot will do it automatically, then by all means proceed. For better or worse, I only have an account on english Wikipedia and have no intention on changing the manner I go about my contributions to suit the needs of the bureaucracy especially since it's a CC license so people can come and take and use whatever they want. If I'm wrong on that last point let me know and I'll just release them into the public domain. Madcoverboy (talk) 06:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

No, the license you've chosen works fine for this purpose. Putting the images on the Commons just means that other Wikimedia projects can link directly to the image, rather than having to upload local copies. Cheers! Esrever ^(klaT) 12:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Image:Mit charles river.jpg

A tag has been placed on Image:Mit charles river.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image licensed as "for non-commercial use only," "non-derivative use" or "used with permission," it has not been shown to comply with the limited standards for the use of non-free content. [1], and it was either uploaded on or after 2005-05-19, or is not used in any articles. If you agree with the deletion, there is no need to do anything. If, however, you believe that this image may be retained on Wikipedia under one of the permitted conditions then:

• state clearly the source of the image. If it has been copied from elsewhere on the web you should provide links to: the image itself, the page which uses it and the page which contains the license conditions.
• add the relevant copyright tag.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[ Talk:Image:Mit charles river.jpg|the talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Kelly ^hi! 17:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Image:MIT dinghies.jpg

A tag has been placed on Image:MIT dinghies.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image licensed as "for non-commercial use only," "non-derivative use" or "used with permission," it has not been shown to comply with the limited standards for the use of non-free content. [2], and it was either uploaded on or after 2005-05-19, or is not used in any articles. If you agree with the deletion, there is no need to do anything. If, however, you believe that this image may be retained on Wikipedia under one of the permitted conditions then:

• state clearly the source of the image. If it has been copied from elsewhere on the web you should provide links to: the image itself, the page which uses it and the page which contains the license conditions.
• add the relevant copyright tag.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[ Talk:Image:MIT dinghies.jpg|the talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Kelly ^hi! 06:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Don Stevenson page

I was trying to develop a small page in relation to the long-time drummer for the band Moby Grape, Don Stevenson. I had just started it, with one reference, and the page ended up being selected for speedy deletion. One problem perhaps is that I didn't identify the page as "Don Stevenson (musician)" but only "Don Stevenson". How do I get the page back up? Wait for the original to be deleted and then set up again as "Don Stevenson (musician)"? Writing to you because you are one of the contact names listed in terms of the speedy deletion and I am not previously familiar with this process.

Dreadarthur (talk) 20:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

My concern is that while it may be that in some bands, the individual contributions of certain members might not merit an individual page, Moby Grape was somewhat unique in that all band members were singers and songwriters, as well as musicians. Don Stevenson was particularly uniquein that he was able to both overcome the band's severe setbacks (overhype, plus two members ending up challenged by schizophrenia) and develop a successful business career thereafter. I am limited as to how much time I can devote to individual page creation, so I was hoping that by having a Don Stevenson page with some indications as to his contributions, others might then move it forward. He wasn't "just the drummer", though my initial brief effort may have had that tone. If you could leave it up and give me a couple of days to get more on to it, that would be appreciated.

Dreadarthur (talk) 20:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

1/4 birthday

Since you accidentally made a second AfD for this at the same time, is it okay if I tag your extra AfD for speedy deletion per housekeeping? There's really no need for it since you created it accidentally. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 01:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

My bad. Go ahead with speedy. I'm still learning the ropes with Twinkle. Madcoverboy (talk) 01:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: AfD related discussions

Hey there, yep I have a tool and it's based on Twinkle. It isn't perfect (I think it's missing a few AfD categories). You can find it here: User:Jayvdb/Deletion sorting tool. Happy sorting! --/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 04:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Many scientists

Hey. You can go ahead. I found a way to skip over the redirect page. Sorry for the clutter.Mage1028 (talk) 14:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Shannon Whisnant

I removed the speedy deletion tag for Shannon Whisnant because the article did make some claims of notability and included some sources. I recommend you take it to AfD. Karanacs (talk) 14:54, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

G11s

Sometimes the article can be rewritten to make it informative. I did this for 2 of your speedys,where I though the subject of the article was actually important enough to be worth the trouble Not saying you did wrong to tag them necessarily, but an alternative is to tell the author about see our Business FAQ and ask them to rewrite in accordance with our style. DGG (talk) 19:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

CSD A7

Just to let you know, A7 only applies to people, web content, and organizations. Things like El toro handrail, while they should be deleted, are not elligible for A7-ing. Please use {{PROD}} or AfD in the future. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 20:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

SarekOfVulcan RFA

Thank you for !voting on my RfA. If you supported, I'll make sure your confidence is not misplaced; if you opposed, I'll take your criticism into account and try to adjust my behavior accordingly.

See you around the wiki!--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)