Oliver is Lir II (Re: [Wikipedia-l] This whole Lir and Americanization thing)

[Ray Saintonge]

It seems that Jonathan's obsession about Lir has now turned into a 
criminal slander of Oliver.  

His so-called evidence that they are the same is nothing but speculative 
bullshit.  So was his previous accusation that Lir might somehow be 
responsible for a slowdown in the entire system.

Jonathan Walther wrote:

> Sorry folks, I got paranoid.  I went back in the mailing list, saw
> Olivers previous posts, and am not as sure sure as I was, but Olivers
> last post seems pretty strong evidence.  Oliver previously seemed to
> take the opposite stance to that of Lir on the anglicization issue.
> Lir being the role-player that he is, that doesn't necessarily mean 
> anything.
> But I much prefer this more intelligent and reasonable Oliver persona 
> to the
> Lir persona.
>
> The email I reply to below is like the old Lir come back, expressing his
> disregard for community standards in his nihilistic desire to be able to
> "do whatever he wants, and screw what anybody else thinks".
>
> Lir stated, ON THE WIKIPEDIA that the Wikipedia is just a dumping ground
> for information.  However much a few others may leap to his defense, the
> truth his, his ungrammatical edits filled with junk information have 
> caused
> more work for other people than was saved by his "contributions".  And 
> that
> is entirely aside from the social costs of the people he burned trying to
> help him.
>
> My reply below is a blow by blow account of why I think Oliver is Lir.
> I also refute the points he thought he raised.
>
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 05:51:00AM +0000, Oliver Pereira wrote:
>
>> I know that I'm just a newbie here, and you're a terribly important 
>> sysop
>> person, but Lir doesn't seem to be around right now, and I'm not 
>> going to
>> let that attack go undefended...
>
> If you are a newbie, how do you know the person you are replying to is a
> sysop?
>
> Why do you feel you have to defend Lir, given that you are a newbie and
> thus not familiar with the long-running history of this case and all
> it's particulars?
>
> If you are really a newbie, then you have no idea of the ones of work
> Wikipedians put into trying to help Lir become a productive member of our
> community, only to be slapped in the face time and time again, and our
> well-meaning advice not only ignored, but denigrated. 

Obviously Oliver felt that an injustice was being done, and saw fit to 
speak up.  It is not clear from the quote who the sysop involved was or 
if  the person even was a sysop, but that really doesn't matter.  Sysops 
are people who have been around for a while longer, and perhaps should 
be held to a higher standard of behaviour than the rest of us.  They 
should be putting out fires, not exacerbating the arguments.  Sometimes 
a newbie is able to bring a fresh perspective on a debate.

>>> Regarding banning Lir or not.  If Lir can't be bothered to speak with
>>> Jimbo, stop behaving childishly (name-calling, whinging, and making
>>> guerilla edits that result in non-NPOV articles), and work in a
>>> cooperative, collegial, manner, then a ban is in order.  The community
>>> has certain standards, and from what I've seen, Lir is as guilty as
>>> Helga ever was of flouting them.
>>
>> Judging by what I've seen, Lir is an intelligent person with much to
>> contribute. Childish, of course, but then I've seen just as childish
>
> You haven't seen much.  That childish behavior vastly outweighs whatever
> intelligence Lir has shown. 

I too have expressed concerns about the way Lir has been treated, but 
when Jimbo replied that he has been trying to work things out with Lir 
that satisfied me.  From that point I was willing to let well enough alone.

>> behaviour from some of the regulars and even (perhaps more so) from the
>> sysops. It seems that Lir is just more vociferous about it. There 
>> seem to
>> be a lot more complaints about Lir's attitude and over-the-top
>> pronouncements than about any actual edits, which surely should be 
>> what we
>> are most interested in here. If Lir's actions are to be the subject of
>
> Lirs edits, taken together as a body, are bad enough.  It may take us
> a year to recover.

Exaggeration for dramatic effec!  

> Lirs edits to Sumer are illustrative; why the hell did he insist that it
> was important to mention that "In Sumer, women did the weaving"?  In
> many societies at the time, women did weaving.  What was so unique about
> that fact that it is justified to be included in an encyclopedia article
> on Sumerians?  Lir refused to answer any such question, merely 
> maintaining
> that his edits were proper.

I can't see why the women's role as weavers is such a major issue.  If 
you say it happened in many societies anyway, where's the beef?

> Someone took a quick look at the "Wealth of the Nations" article and
> pronounced it "fine".  Excuse me.  Go look at any REAL encyclopedia.
> None of them have an article on a book that consists of a series of
> short quotations from the book in question, and NOTHING ELSE.
> Interesting as the quotes were, they were NOT an encyclopedia article,
> and illustrate Lirs attitude that the wikipedia isn't a thing of quality,
> but a mere dumping ground for information.

If you're so concerned about this article, and it's so important to you 
go ahead and fix it instead of whining about Lir's quotes from the book.

> Lir is like a magpie of information; he picks up cheap shit information
> as well as some real gold sometimes, and inserts it into the wikipedia
> on an equal opportunity basis.

Sometimes we all engage in such practices.  Why single out Lir?

>> Now, now, let's not descend into that sort of language. Lir has a 
>> point. I
>> personally would be quite offended if English-speaking people were to
>> rename *me* "Oliver Peartree", simply to make it more "English". I would
>
> Go to the Philippines.  Try as you might, you won't be able to stop them
> from calling you "Joe".  "Hey Joe!".  Whatcha gonna do about it?  Guess
> you'll just have to learn to cope, huh?

Nothing in Oliver's post suggests he plans to visit the Philippines. 
 The baiting sounds like a little kid saying "You can't make me do it."

> You seem to be arguing that one language cannot modify the things it
> borrows from other languages to suit it's own needs.  Now THAT is an
> arrogant, paternalistic attitude.

What he says and what you interpret that he "seems to be arguing" are 
not the same thing.

>>> Should Paris have a note in the title that says "pronounced Paree, you
>>> morons"?
>>
>> I'd quite like to see that, actually. :)
>
> And thus I conclude that you are Lir.  You are showing a similar lack of
> taste.

The conclusion is a non-sequitur.

>> It's not about political beliefs; it's about giving articles (arguably)
>> more accurate titles. I hope I've laid out some of the arguments clearly
>
> Don't be a twit.  No matter how much HTML may have advanced, and
> browsers now support Unicode, URLS are NOT unicode, they are ascii, and
> many browsers break if the urls are anything BUT ascii.  Making the
> Wikipedia unusable over some obscure and unsatisfying point is the
> height of lunacy.  Not to mention your idea of "accuracy" really is not. 

The discussion was about article titles.  How do you get from that to URL's

>> Phew. That's enough of that for one day. I think I really *will* go 
>> to bed
>> now... :)
>
> Yes, you do that Lir.  For a few minutes I had started to think you were
> prepared to share in the collegial spirit of mutual respect.  Alas...

More unfounded sarcasm.

Eclecticology