User talk:Dreadnought1906

Wooden spoon

Apologies. Having read Wooden spoon (award) and [1], and heard a friend from John's (very proud) testimony about how they possess the woooden spoon, I misassume there was only one spoon, hence wrongful deletion of your claim. Sorry for calling your claim spurious. :-) Qwghlm 12:42, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Mob Quad V Corpus Chrispi

Thanks for your update to Merton; I agree that it fits better with the parenthesis at the end. But that was a late insertion, and I think that the whole thing is getting rather un-encyclopedic... This ours-is-bigger/older/better-than-theirs-stuff with Cambridge is very undergraduate and must be deeply boring for most people.

Do you know of any definitive sources for the age of Mob Quad? My chief reference is Pevsner's Buildings of England series, but I don't have it to hand to look it up.

Even if we can't establish a firm claim, perhaps we can rewrite this whole para in a better way? Suggestions here?

best wishes, Thruston 22:22, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Corpus Christi page

hi; i've been noticing your edits (as well as many other people's edits) to this page, and as true as the information there may be, you may want to read Wikipedia:Verifiability, the official policy on these matters.. (this is what you are told to read every time you log in). so if there are published sources with this information, then it's probably a good idea to mention them, instead of "i hear people use this phrase all the time", or "i've heard the master tell this story on multiple occasions".. otherwise, the information has no place here.. Mlm42 12:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So what you are saying is that you disagree with the policy, and thus feel you shouldn't follow it? if this is true, you're going about it the wrong way.. the way to proceed is either 1) argue for a change in policy (probably extremely difficult) or 2) find a way to conform to the policy. everyone agrees that there is certainly a lot of true information on wikipedia that shouldn't be here.. in this particular case, it is not true, as you claim, that the topic is 'inhearantly unverifiable' [sic]; this is because the article doesn't claim the legends are true.. it rather claims that the legends exist - this is something that can be verified. in fact, i think i remember reading about some of them in a booklet published by dr. rackham? this may be a good starting place if one is looking for references. and i'd like to point out that the first sentence of the link you provided on my talk page is "This means that there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page." so even there it stresses verifiability.. it is one of the cornerstones of wikipedia and shouldn't be taken lightly. Mlm42 23:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at the risk of disobeying Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, i will press on.. mostly because i don't like false statements floating around on my talk page

Although the verifiability policy is likely violated in more places than one wishes to count, it certainly applies to everything. see Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check for an ambitious WikiProject to correct this.
footnotes are not a cornerstone of wikipedia, but verifiability is. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for the relevant guideline.. there is much disagreement about the specific format of the references section.. what there is virtually no disagreement on is that there should be references.
you should read the first few sentences of Oral history to see why your 'oral histories' argument doesn't work..
wikipedia is not a repository of casual knowledge.. again, just read the policy in a nutshell at the top of Wikipedia:Verifiability.

okay, so i agree that errors in uncited and unverifiable information would probably be ironed out 'in the long run'.. but one of the reasons for the policy is to make wikipedia a reliable encyclopedia as soon as possible, and this means having standards for the information that goes on it. another reason is to settle disputes.. say i were determined to remove some of the unverified claims on the corpus page (which, at the moment, i'm not), and you wanted the claims to stay. the only way for you to 'win' is to cite a reliable source.. same goes for any article.

i guess at some point one has to accept that a lot of people have thought for long and hard about the policies and guidelines; and without going through all the reasons oneself, it's probably best to take it on faith that they are likely what's best for wikipedia.. and move on. and i think one of the key steps in getting a 'good reputation' on wikipedia is an extremely good understanding of the policies and guidelines, and generally how things work.. something i know i'm still working on myself. Mlm42 16:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hmm.. well, i disagree with 70-80% of what you said in your last message (you really pile the rhetoric on thick sometimes; as a mathematician, i'm not so easily convinced).. but i feel like i'm not going to get anywhere arguing; in any case, one of the beauties of wikipedia is that these things will naturally get ironed out.. so i suggest you continue to add things you feel are worthy to articles (i'm not being sarcastic.. see the Be Bold guideline), and if it shouldn't be there, it'll eventually be removed.. i guess i'm just warning that if there is a dispute, you'll never win if you argue the policy is wrong, (unless you have consensus within the community (very unlikely)). happy editing :) Mlm42 11:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

archives discussion

you may be interested in the discussion here.. comments there would be welcome. (but remember to read the whole discussion before commenting); cheers, Mlm42 07:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]