User talk:Antandrus

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On your Wikipedia User Page it lists quote, I think it would be appropriate to add those here too. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 16:10, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

That's a good idea, thanks. I'll probably use different ones though; I intended those to be about writing an encyclopedia, and this project is a bit different. The Marcus Aurelius applies everywhere, though, and I'm serious about what that wisest of all Roman Emperors said. Perspective is everything. As stressed-out as we can get in our little online lives, sometimes it's good to remember we're all but little bits of grit in the middle of the steppe. Oh wait, that was Samuel Beckett. Antandrus (talk) 19:20, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, about the sockpuppet thing I said earlier, here is what I was referring to. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 19:34, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Mario's right, but I'm breaking my own rule in even talking about it. Ljupco (GRP) made "Antandrus" as one of his earliest accounts on the current incarnation of their site. After it got banhammered, he started making more and more, mostly named after us, i.e. Wikimedia project people. It doesn't hurt us in any way. Looked at with appropriate perspective, it's just wryly amusing. See number 49 on my list; their behavior is a perfect example. I would encourage Ljupco to make more. It might even keep him from getting arrested again for real-life harassment. Antandrus (talk) 19:41, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, I have an attack page there too. Also do you think you could explain this situation to Mario? – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 19:49, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Have you ever tried to reason with a cockroach infestation?

They exist for the purpose of hurting people. The more you ask, the more likely you are to get a page in their mainspace. "Nice" and "good faith" are not things they do. You gotta let it go. Antandrus (talk) 21:40, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you/me could ask on Wikiquote or Meta since you can’t attack someone here. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 21:46, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Typo on Wikipedia

This section on Wikipedia should say "Sometimes it is desirable to make a template behave differently when substituted rather than when transcluded," could you fix this? I am blocked on Wikipedia. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 16:53, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ilovemydoodle, I think either wording is grammatically ok. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 17:14, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rubbish computer: Could you change it anyway, I think it's far more clear. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 17:16, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ilovemydoodle, sorry but I don't think that's a good idea. It could be argued by enwiki that you're participating in the community by proxy, which would make you less likely to be unblocked. It's also ok as it is. Thanks anyway, Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 17:18, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rubbish computer: Ok, I ran it through Grammarly and I appear to be correct. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 17:30, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Ilovemydoodle I would leave it. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 17:40, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rubbish computer: Why? – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 17:41, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ilovemydoodle, sorry I didn't see this sooner. It seems like an unnecessary edit, but more importantly I can't edit Wikipedia for you by proxy, and I may need to gain consensus to make such an edit. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 19:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rubbish computer: Could you go ask? – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 19:47, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ilovemydoodle, I don't think I should because of the reasons I already outlined. Sorry. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 19:48, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rubbish computer: Also, I think I finally figured out why I was blocked, I originally made a few minor mistakes, but nothing really to get blocked for, but eventually I found a page called "Wikipedia:Village dump" (I don't remember how I found the page), the page was just a redirect to the Village Pump, but after checking the revision history, I noticed it used be a page that was actually used, I thought this was a cool idea, so I recreated it, but as it turns out this was commonly done by a group of vandals, the Admin must've thought I was one of them. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 19:57, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Your feedback matters: Share your feedback in the Administratior accountability poll

The Administratior accountability poll is open, vote here. – Ilovemydoodle (Not WMF, Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus, Not a paid editor of Shueisha) (talk / e-mail) 01:30, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Good news and bad news

The good news: I was unblocked from Wikipedia.

The bad news: Now I am blocked indefinitely from Wikipedia. Edit: Unblocked again!

– Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet of Antandrus) (talk / e-mail) 14:17, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Feedback

Could you give feedback on this? – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 21:46, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Admin

May I nominate you for adminship? – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 12:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, but not at present. Appreciate the thought though. Antandrus (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Why? (I mean me nominating you) – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 14:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

strange error message

Hi Antandrus,

I was trying to add a category key when categorizing Queen using hotcat when I got the following message:

• "This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and it has been disallowed. In addition, as a security measure, some privileges routinely granted to established accounts have been temporarily revoked from your account. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: GRP / Wikinger"

I have no idea why or what I am expected to do, but I remember vaguely that GRP is known to you, so thought you would be interested.

BTW I have been listening with enjoyment to Hungarian Rhapsody nr 2 on youtube and was surprised that it sounded very familiar. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:44, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Ottawahitech, sorry about that. I've temporarily disabled that filter while I look for a solution. Try making the edit again. --Ferien (talk) 18:59, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ferien: Looks like there is still a problem. Please see: Wikiquote:Village_pump#Filter_again. Thanks, Ottawahitech (talk) 13:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Ottawahitech for letting me know. Disabled filter 33 temporarily too. There are two GRP related filters, 33 and 34. I didn't get around to looking at 34, the one you were having problems with, so it is still disabled but it looks like 33 is causing problems now. Will be looking at them later today and reenable when I'm confident there are no false positives left. Ferien (talk) 13:38, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Ottawahitech - hi there! Good to see you editing again. And Ferien, thank you for answering - I can't see the filter, and looking at the edit had no idea how adding that category could possibly trigger it. Regarding the Liszt, that's a very exciting piece. I wish I could play it but I would need to practice a whole lot more than I actually do. Antandrus (talk) 20:03, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, not going to say too much about the filter onwiki obviously, but it's a different one to 33 that I added here in early March and it's quite new so still some things to improve. Hope you are doing well as for some reason it seems like I haven't seen you around as much recently. --Ferien (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I've been busy in that other place ("real life", "meatspace", ...), with various projects :) Antandrus (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

"Refugees from Wikipedia's sound, fury, and political squabbles are starting to appear at other Wikimedia projects."

Hi Antandrus,

I have just noticed three wikipedians with over 200k edits on enwiki who have exponentially increased their contributions on WQ in the last year or so. Don't know if I should mention their user-id? At least one is blocked on enwiki, another is an admin there. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:29, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, I'm not surprised. It's hard to write there now, unless you are principally active in obscurities and arcana. I do maintenance work these days, answer questions, do copyediting, try to shield people from abusive trolls, and a few other things, but it's years since I've written an article. Here there's lots of content still to add, and at least for me that's what I initially found attractive about Wikipedia (back in 2004! Redlinks still on major topics...)

The culture here is different. I could write an essay on it, and started drafting one in my head. Wikiquote seems a lot more laissez-faire: someone can add quotes all on one side of an issue, e.g. an anti-Semite can cherry-pick the Talmud to make Jews look like perverts and creeps, and it seems no one really cares because someone else, some day, will come along and add the rest, the grand wisdom tradition that evolved from thousands of years of struggle in a hostile landscape. Maybe Wikipedia is over-managed. Different philosophies. Antandrus (talk) 15:56, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Having an essay here about the culture differences between enwp and wq would be lovely. I know the essay you write will be more easily digested than w:The Sound and the Fury:-) I wish I had a clue on how to write such an essay, but I have no idea where to start. Just reading what you wrote above I can see many areas where we may not agree.

Example?

[No] Redlinks still on major topics [left on enwiki]: to my mind there are still many major areas on enwp that are not properly covered, not just obscurities and arcana. It is a shame that enwp drives away exactly the type of people who would be best at filling in those blanks IMIO. Ottawahitech (talk) 01:54, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Just to add: I checked Talmud briefly and gosh it sure looks busy editing-wise, and has been viewed 4500 times in September alone. However it has “Fewer than 30 watchers’ and only one IP user is responsible for all additions since the beginning of Sept 2022.

Not helpful is the sockpuppeting-phobia at enwp. For example: w:Mosaic (magazine) which is used as a ref for a talmud quote was started on enwp in 2017 by a user who is now blocked as a sockuppet. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

"editing in late 2003...it was free, open, welcoming, friendly"

My birthday is coming up soon and this time I would like to celebrate it. I have lasted here this long (probably thanks to you), so I hope WQ will become my permanent WMF-home.

One of the things I want to do at my WQ-birthday-party, Is compare my experience here with my experience at other WMF-sites.

For starters I stated collecting this:

1 year of usertalkpage msgs on wq end with Note

2-years of usertalkpage msgs on wq end with Whoops Ottawahitech (talk) 19:01, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Re: If you argue with a f...

I was recently reading Meta:What is a troll? because I had been accused of being a troll on an enwq-UTP a long time ago, but let it go instead of getting into a heated exchange. I didn’t know it at the time but I was following the advice provided under back away (yey !)

Have you read this document? At the risk of being wiki-charged with contravening Meta's version of editing-by-proxism, I am bringing this paragraph to your attention so you do not get on the wrong side of wiki-law

Unlike trolls who vandalize articles, the majority of the damage caused by those misusing process is fairly indirect. Generally it is best to simply state your opposition etc etc DFTT<

(Disclosure: I am not saying you are a troll, just saying hi. Just miss talking to you :) Reply-to ability to add edit summary is gone? Ottawahitech (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh hi! - no worries, I would never infer you were suggesting I was a troll - I am secure in the knowledge that I am not (as secure as it is possible to be in any aspect of self-knowledge, I should caveat, for most people overestimate their own). You have an ability to ask bold questions, and that is something to celebrate not suppress. It's not trolling, and I say this as an enwiki admin with almost 18 years of experience. It only becomes trolling if the followup is incoherent, abusive, didn't-hear-that, etc. The ability to see beyond the confines of a habitual conformism, of the kind that developed and maintains the more rubber-stampy parts of the wiki bureaucracies, is a marker of intelligence. It is through such action that wikis -- and indeed civilization itself -- develops rather than ossifies.

Looking at that meta piece on Meta:What is a troll?, I see right away a big one missing: people who extremely destructive, in issuing threats, carrying on stalking and harassment campaigns, not because they are trolling and trying to get a reaction, but because they have mental illnesses so severe that they think what they are doing is Right and Good. The guy I revert every other day or so is one of those, as far as I can ferret out from his own writings elsewhere and from court records. He's actually not a troll, he's just ill. But he needs to be quietly shut down for the good of the project - he takes time away from good faith contributors, and maybe I'm being a bit of a w:Catcher in the Rye here, but I want to keep our enthusiastic 12-year-olds who want to help fight vandalism from colliding with a 45-year-old maniac with a prison record. Anyway. -- Also, that part you quoted seems to be missing something, right before "generally it is best to simply state your opposition..." -- it needs a context. Are we talking about someone who nominates an article for deletion, one that is almost universally considered worthy of keeping? I remember a troll from back in 2005 or so who had extraordinary run by doing this -- he'd nominate, for example, an article on a minority ethnic group in an Asian country, claiming it was "racist", and the discussion would go on and on and on and on. That's an obvious abuse of process. He'd find edge cases and then hammer away at them to get people to start fighting each other over their prejudices. Now that's a troll. Questioning a process, asking why something was done, -- that is neither wrong nor trolling, if done in good faith, and if we don't practice our own assume-good-faith policies, then what are we but hypocrites?

Anyway this is juicy stuff. :) You do good work here. Carry on. Antandrus (talk) 23:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much, your confidence in me is refreshing. I sincerely hope, I will never disappoint you. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:46, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Re: Music question

It's me again. Hope you are not getting tired of me flooding your talk all the time? Assuming the answer is in the negative(?) I have another question on the same topic. I have recently created Category: Women singers as a subcat of Category:Women musicians and Category:Singers. Things went on swimmingly, until I happened to post something totally unrelated on a user-talk page, where I discovered another WQuotient posting something related to the topic.

I hope I have not lost you so far? My posts always turn out so convoluted, don't know why that is. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 18:54, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Hm. I see a comment about some musicians not being singers and some singers not being musicians, but that is odd. Is not a musician someone who makes music, in any form, and is not song - what a singer does - necessarily a form of music? I remember getting a question loosely related to this on my doctoral orals, but I don't remember it exactly, but all homing in on "what is music?" - which is non-trivial anyway. And you end up at "what is art?" And here I am, also convoluted. - I think women singers is a subcat of women musicians, and also a subcat of singers, as you have it. (I remember when I was growing up someone, like a grand-dad, would hear something awful on the radio and say "that's not music!!" - but I did not, at the time, have a doctorate in the topic, and declined to argue. It would not have gone well anyway.) Antandrus (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

WQ needs you IMIO. Are there any music related quotes that can be added to

• Daniel Barenboim
• Martha Argerich

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 14:17, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Losing one's wiki-password?

I am always worried about the possibility of losing my PW. In these days when everyone is urged to change their PW frequently, it is doubly important to know what to do if the inevitable happens and I lose it.

This is a topic that for some strange reason I have not yet stumbled on in my Wik-travels. Is there something you can contribute on this matter?

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 14:24, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I know you can request a password reset (for example if you can't remember your password) but you'd need to have email enabled. Other than that - well, multiple passwords just seem to be an irritating feature of modern life. I must have hundreds. We all need them for banks, shopping, newspaper subscriptions, property tax sites, or whatever. I have devised a way that works for myself, not expecting to remember every password. I wonder what percentage of each day for all of us is devoted to keeping ourselves safe from other people's dishonesty and criminal intent. "LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment." (Ambrose Bierce) Antandrus (talk) 15:17, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh look, I guess I should see if a quote I remembered randomly is on WQ or not. :) Antandrus (talk) 15:18, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy 2023

Hi Antandrus:

Warning TLDR follows: I have a fascination not shared by others with page view statistics. I believe you can learn a lot from looking at these statistics, following trends, and asking questions about strong anomalies, I am talking about content pages of course. For example here is the pageviews for, say, immune, and here are the page views for my takpage. I was looking at one of my own wmf-talkpages and discovered to my surprise 23 pageviews on one recent particular day, when it is normally close to zero. I hardly ever participate on that wiki and cannot figure out why the audience of my talkpage increased on that day. In my experience a sudden increase in pageviews on my talkpage means I have done something for which I will be punished by the functionaries. I hope I am making sense, so far...

A question about wiki-signatures: Is there an easy way to include a clickable link to my contributions. Sorry for being lazy and asking instead of researching this myself, and along the same line of thought: I have tried to be super-transparent and give others as much information about my edits by including a link to my xtools on my homepage. The problem is I doubt many bother to look at this excellent analysis provided by the wmf-developers, not only at mine but also at others.So my question is: how can I make it more obvious that I have chosen to display my xtools analysis on all wmf-wikis where I have contributed content? One of your many wiki-admirers who hopes you will not stop visiting our banana republic?

Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey, happy new year! Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere - I like this place. Still planning on adding some content in my areas of interest - ancient writers, 18th-century aphorists, 17th-century religious extremists, 16th-century heretics, 15th-century criminals, and so forth. During my holidays I read slabs of Samuel Johnson's writings thinking about what could be added. I have a question for you (I suppose it's in policy somewhere if I'd just take the time to look) - how many times can we / should we add the same quote to different pages? For example, Samuel Johnson said this thing, and it goes on his page, and then on the page for the book it's from, then on the general topic (say, slavery), then on another topic (say, colonial America), then on another topic (for example conservatism), and so forth. I'm guessing it's not really chiseled in stone how we do this.

Yes you can include a clickable link in your sig to your contributions - I have seen this multiple times on enwiki - go into Preferences, down to Signature, and then type in wikicode in the "New signature" box. I never wanted a fancy signature personally, but you could add a "contribs" to your own in any way you like. I've seen people link different pages from single letters in their name. - And yes, those page views things are interesting. I often check page views on essays I have written; when there is an anomalous spike, it's usually because someone on one of the Wiki-Hate sites somewhere on the internet is writing about how awful I am for daring to have thought the things I thought, and I experience a moment of glee as I go searching for it. Alternatively, someone just took my name in vain at a noticeboard. In those cases I pour myself a drink and close the laptop. :) Antandrus (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I am relieved to know you plan to stay around.

how many times can we / should we add the same quote to different pages?

Ah, repetition. A topic I have been pondering since I started listening to music again.I was listening Dvozak’s from the new world in the car and trying to count the number of repetitions. Same motif (what is the music term for it?) but executed differently: different tempo, different combinations of musical instruments, running from very soft to almost thunderous, sometimes cut short, and I am sure there are more subtle differences that my untrained ear cannot discern. I lost count early on when I realized different “motifs” were being repeated, and after hearing so many I could no longer say it they were exact repeats or different in some small way. But I digress…

I'm guessing it's not really chiseled in stone how we do this.

How many times can a quote be repeated? I think you are correct and that there are no firm rules. Wisely IMIO. A long time ago I used to think that repeating the exact same text in different locations was not a good thing, because it introduced the possiblity of mutations. I no longer think mutations are bad, at least not on WQ. I myslef have been copying & pasting quotes from one page to another. For one thing, it is an easy way to start new pages on WQ. I like to start new pages so that when I come across a quote I would like to share with others I’ll have a ready-made page to plug it in, and with my strange choice of quotes I often cannot find a page to park them unless I start it myself. You must feel the same about some of the quotes you come across, no? Ottawahitech (talk) 00:42, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, thank you - precisely. Perhaps it is better never to nail this repetition thing down exactly. It will necessarily vary; some quotes are so quotable and memorable they can appear in five or six places; others are cardboard wet in last night's rain and a year from now no one will care about them anyway, so once is enough. You are perceptive in making the musical analogy. It is this very thing that makes a piece unified, whole, memorable, that gives it character, the way a personality has its character because of certain things you see over and over, with variation. Listen to Beethoven's Quartet opus 18 no 1, just the first movement, for an extreme example: it's one motif (or motive), and the entire piece consists of it, in various guises, with almost nothing else at all. I tried to count them once, but it reminded me of a time as a fourth-grader that, as a punishment for talking out of turn, I was instructed to go outside and count the bricks in the school building. The teacher was annoyed when I came back quickly with an exact number. Anyway let's not repeat quotes that much. Antandrus (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

some quotes are so quotable and memorable they can appear in five or six places+let's not repeat quotes that much.

So you believe that quotable quotes are universal? Just as memorable to any human being, anywhere? I am not so sure. Off to pondering this, counting as punishment, how far back does human memory go, finding a way to listen to Beethoven's Quartet opus 18 no 1, and putting in my start of Banana republic (not ours). See how much work you create for me . I love it. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. I think they can be almost universal. Almost. "Cineri gloria sera venit" (To the ashes of the dead, glory comes too late) - from Martial, Epigrams - after two thousand years, and descended through multiple cultures, that strong and humane, anti-war, anti-violence utterance seems undiminished, at least to me, and I suspect that any human being on earth who has cried over a loved one killed in a conflict will feel it as well, if it is adequately rendered in their language. And look how much is packed in just a few syllables, at least in the original Latin. Now look at any of the paragraph-long slabs of text from current opinion pieces that some people paste into Wikiquote; how memorable is most of that? Is anyone going to care about the domestic troubles of some popular culture figure in two thousand years? Or next year? These are subjective judgments of course, but I think there is a range of "universality", so to speak, in quotes. Personally I love most the ones that have grown wings and flown across time, like Martial's. They say something to us. They're made of something that lives. Cut those words, and they bleed. (Oh wait, that was Emerson on Montaigne.) Antandrus (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Beethoven opus 18 no. 1 and related

HOMEWORK REPORT: Beethoven’s Quartet opus 18 no 1:

So far I have listened to (the only) four different quartets (I think? - sorry lost my notes) performing Beethoven’s opus 18/1 in f major that I could find on YouTube videos, all perfomed by a String Quartet.

A String Quartet seems to always consist of :

• two violins
• a viola, which looks like and is played like a violin, but is slightly larger
• a cello which also looks like a violin but is much larger so is held differently than a violin
  • the larger the instrument the deeper the tone (I think?/terminology?)

I think all the versions I listened to had 4 movements, is this the correct term? (the following is copied&pasted from a comment section of one Youtube version, I added wq-links and indentation):

• @AndreUhres 2 years ago
  • String Quartet No. 1 (Beethoven)
  • 00:00 Allegro con brio (F major)
  • 07:29 Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato]] (d minor)
  • 17:47 Scherzo: Allegro molto]] (F major)
  • 21:08 Allegro (F major)

Ottawahitech (talk) 20:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Wow! - well, that's an impressive amount of redlinks. Maybe no one has ever said anything quotable about the violin? Ha ha. "An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat." (Ambrose Bierce, but that's actually his definition of "fiddle", which is, of course, the same thing.) Elsewhere Bierce said that a violin "...is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat." You are correct about the sizes, and they're all members of the same fine family. I play the violin professionally, I play the viola adequately, if necessary, and I can pretend to play the cello, but no one would confuse the sounds I make with those of a competent cellist. Antandrus (talk) 22:09, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Quick followup - there are a ton of "violin" quotes on the internet, just looking around, mostly in the usual quote sites, and also in inspirational pictures and memes - none of them that I found on a quick series of googles had sourcing. Particularly irritating are the Albert Einstein quotes; he played the violin beautifully, but where are searchable versions of his letters where we can get sources? A lot of those are probably spurious, or edited, or even misattributed (for example from Alfred Einstein, the great Austrian musicologist, a name unknown to many naive quote-assemblers). Imagine, to build the page one might need to go to - wait for it - take a deep breath - a library! Antandrus (talk) 23:25, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Libraries

A library? What is that? there was something like that pre-covid IIRC Ottawahitech (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Ha ha ha :) I love the places myself, pulling random books off the shelf in obscure areas - ooh what is this? that's old, that's arcane, I wonder when the last time was someone checked this out - oh look, it's been here on the shelf for fifty years - Antandrus (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The word library evokes fond memories in my mind too, but...

We use the word library thinking that we all mean the same thing don’t we? But what exactly is a library? Is a library in Los Angeles the same as a library in Guelf, Helsinki, or in Arusha*? Modern libraries in big cities in North America are no longer centered around books, not sure?

One thing about a library that I have not seen spelt out prominently (have not looked at enwp yet) is the fact that they can be used at no charge by anyone. I am sure this is true in most of Europe, USA and in Canada. I hope it is also true in the rest of the world, but I would have to research this, and that takes time.

I took a very brief look at library and checked its pageview stats and it appears that it is consulted more evenly and varies from the norm of legacy-enwq-pages which show a sharp incline and then a deeper decline arund 2018-2019.

• I had to look up a name for a city in Africa, shame on me!

Ottawahitech (talk) 17:21, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah yes. A pet peeve of mine, the non-free library. This particular institution, for reasons I cannot go into here, is a burr in my side. You can use them for a few days, but then they want money. I think this is an undesirable barrier, and to be honest, it is these kinds of barriers that first attracted me to the Wikipedia project in 2003 - free information! Information wants to be free! Dammit, I will help make it free, I said to myself, and registered an account early the next year. My local research library (University of California) also requires a card if you want to check out books, but anyone can go in and read on the premises. I usually pay for a community borrower card.

We live in the 'information age', right? Even though so much of the rubbish you get for free online is 'dis-' or 'mis-' information. Since libraries store information, and have for thousands of years, worldwide, maybe it is time to have dislibraries, and mislibraries, so we'd know. I can suggest some books and periodicals for either. Antandrus (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

" I wonder if refugees from Wikipedia.. are starting to appear at other Wikimedia projects"

Talking of [stalkers], amazing what unexpected treasures one finds on a leisurely stroll down the collective memory lane. I hope you don’t mind me using you as my personal filing cabinet. This may sound demeaning but I do mean this as an utmost compliment. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Wow - I always wonder about people who make colorful threats like that. I read somewhere that such internet trolls are highly likely to be diagnosable with a psychopathic disorder, even if they are very young, since you really have to not care about another person's feelings or emotional state to say such things, even if you are, say, 13 years old. The internet trolls who upload naughty pictures or whatever are more likely benign, just immature. I think it was a study. I used to keep track of death threats I'd received as an enwiki admin but lost count around 2010 or so. Antandrus (talk) 18:31, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

A study? On a slightly different note...

Many years ago a big controversy broke out in Ottawa when a boy in a neighboring small town was suspended from school after writing a fiction piece essay that involved violence. The local papers were flush with opinions of mental health professionals arguing either for or against the suspension. Eventually the storm died down and faded into obscurity and I never found out if this boy grew up to be an offender, someone whose life was ruined by all the unwanted attention, or just a normal person (whatever normal means).

I am not convinced that the field of human-motivation/what-makes-us-tick/psychiatry/neuroscience/whatever-you-call-it has reached the level of maturity required of a science, just yet. Thankfully we no longer attribute autism to refrigerator mothers, and being non-binary is no longer considered abnormal, but we still have a long way to go, I think? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:18, 26 January 2023 (UTC

Autism

Autism imio is a fascinating topic! (I now realize why some consider me odd :). For years I played with the next door's two autistic twin kids. They were great playmates, they had a collection of tin cans that we could bang on to produce melodies. actually my memory has now faded to a degree that this is all I remember. So why'd I bring this up you ask, let's see if I can remember...

Oh yes, memory. Have you seen rainman the movie with dustin Hoffman, ithink? its about an autistic man with a phenomenal memory for odd things like numbers. I don't know from what age Dustin had good memory, but I always suspected that many babies (if not all?) are born with infinite capacity to remember. Human memories start to fade as we grow older. Some say that old people are better at retaining long term memory, but arenpooratshort term memory, I dunno.

But autism is very very interesting it?. What causes it? Is it environmental or inherited. Todaywith DNA I think there have been a few studies on the topic.I think autism has been bundled with some other syndromes, such as OCD, Tourette's (robin Williams?) and , ah... what's the name of the condition where people interchange the order of letters to an extent that it interferes with their ability to read, some famous British actress had it? It was a fascinating story to read about how shegrew up without being able to read, and how she managed o remember her role lines without ever being able to read them off a see of paper. Her problem of course was keeping this hush hush. I suspect that years ago I had the pleasure of working with an umalphabetic man, who was also able to conduct himself in a way that no one knew he could not read. and then there was Gerald Durrell's first love who used the wrong-meaning words that sounded like the right-meaning words. I have read this book eons ago, and have been looking for it again more recently, but I cannot locate it. It was a masterpiece described in his words, but obviously no one else thinks that this book is worthwhile, sigh...

disclosure pet applies Ottawahitech (talk) 20:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Google's AI tool MusicLM is creating music from text

I found this at Wikinews ^{[dead link]}. No idea what it means or how it works, but was wondering what your thoughts are. I am still pondering how to address the libraries issue you raised, I fully agree: Information wants to be free! but as usual humans (or human systems) get in the way. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:27, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Whoa - chill of fear, - well sort of. I understand how this works, or would work, and it's not all that dissimilar from how a composer's human brain creates music, pulling from all the thousands of things they have ever heard, or created earlier themselves, a great big stew of combinations of notes melodically, harmonically, or in deep structure. There is yet some mystery in just how it all works, and how, for example, a composer creates a "masterpiece" that is different from what anyone thinks they have heard before. But don't be surprised if later generations of this AI manage to create something equally "original". I chuckle at how copyright lawyers would handle this; they already have trouble enough understanding what is derivative and what is not. Thank you for bringing this to my attention! - ha ha, sort of. Some days I just want to crawl back in bed, pull the covers over my head and forget everything I have ever known. Antandrus (talk) 01:43, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Crawling into bed is how I have been feeling the last few days. Real life is taking a toll, someone I virtually-met on wiki-news a couple of years ago pulling back involvement for ominous-real-life-sounding reasons, and more and more paywalling. This morning I saw a teaser-ad for an article I would like to read at National Geographic about covid in animals, but it is paywalled. Pretty soon WQ will only be able to get its quotes from YouTube, twitter and the like , but even twitter is partially paywalled now (meaning they want you to sign on), I think?

At least you are still here, which gives me hope. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:37, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

(Oh, I realize I still haven't answered your previous - that's juicy stuff and I'm not convinced I know enough about the topic to escape Dunning-Krugerland. We might need to gather another century's-worth of knowledge about brain microstructures to understand how to treat mental illness, for example.) Antandrus (talk) 01:43, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Maybe just leave it to ChatGPT? Ottawahitech (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I've taken ChatGPT for a test drive, and - well, I'm glad I'm not a classroom teacher at the moment (I used to be) - not sure I'd recognize an AI-generated essay. I just now asked it to generate a four-paragraph essay on the late 16th-century Italian madrigal, a subject area I know really well. It's pretty good, at least until it isn't. Kind of like the AI that drives your car nicely until it smacks at highway speed into a pedestrian in a Halloween costume, unrecognizable as human by a robot but obviously a child to an uninebriated driver. But this is just the first version. For the next version, both you and I will discover that we are already robots, and did not even notice the moment when we were taken over. I get a distinct Invasion of the Body Snatchers feeling about this whole episode of contemporary life. But hey, it's all evolution, right? The next step in evolution is when intelligent life creates other life, life that replaces its creators. Are you familiar with Harlan Ellison's w:I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream? Antandrus (talk) 02:06, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

re I have no mouth and I must scream: No I was not aware of the book. I will try to read it when I get a chance. Thanks!

Looks like I already missed my enwq-birthday. Wiki-time is moving faster this year than it did in 2020. I see that April 1, 2023 had already arrived at enwp. I still wiki-remember that You2 was posted at META, which was my home at that time, 3.5 months later in 2020.

you and I will discover that we are already robots

I doubt it. This will only happen when AI can replicate your EI as well as Antandrus's IQ, IMIO. Can you articulate why you mentioned no-mouth?

More on teachers later… Ottawahitech (talk) 21:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

homework: oooh I am so exited, I heard tom&jerry today played on the radio by yevengy kisn Ottawahitech (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh hi again! - that's right I was going to respond about w:I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - it's a short story, basically about AI gone horribly wrong. In a pre-Skynet fantasy (I think the story was written in 1966) the world's several giant defense supercomputers merge into one, but find the burden of sentient existence so horrible, that they destroy the human race except for a handful they keep alive to torture as revenge for having created them. I think it's a fine cautionary tale, a sort of tech noir, a vision of an underground Hell much like one of the circles of Dante's Inferno. Harlan Ellison was a great writer (and quite an asshole - but lots of fine writers and artists are - so it goes - if you want some amusement read the talk page archives for his enwiki article, where you will find his angry letter to everyone who dared to write his biography, and his very specific suggestion for how we should all be murdered). Anyway - AI is interesting stuff and I'm not sure we know what we are getting into. There may be no turning back. Antandrus (talk) 22:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I need a home for a quote

I was chasing a very different thought when I ran into this melodious sentence at thesaurus.com (TC): "Mental soundness is merged in unsoundness by degrees of decadence which are so small as to be practically inappreciable." TC says the source of the quote is SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 299.

wq does not have a quote-compendium-page for "Mental Soundness" and wp does not have an article page. Not sure what to do next.

Just saying hi. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi there! :) How about Sanity? That's where I'd put it. Melodious indeed; that's quotable. Antandrus (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Internet archive for videos?

Hi Antandrus,

Haven't seen you around much lately. Hope all is well?

I have a small question: do you know of any service that acts like an internet archive for YouTube videos? Ottawahitech (talk) 23:35, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Hey, hi User:Ottawahitech! - I'm doing ok, taking a break. Was feeling disillusioned but all things, including that, are temporary. All things. - I do not know of such an archive, though that doesn't mean it does not exist - videos get pulled from YouTube all the time, and wouldn't it be wonderful if we could find them again? This might work but haven't tried it out. (Replace the final 'z' in the domain name with 'e'; spam filter.) A lot of stuff gets scrubbed from YouTube for copyright reasons, and I have to wonder if takedown notices get sent to the archive services as well. Even enwiki is pretty strict with revdel-ing edits containing copyvios, even though no one is ever likely to see them. Antandrus (talk) 01:14, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I get temporary disillusionment all the time. I actually went through a very brief one right after the sockpuppets(sp) postings. I know fighting sps is very important to you, but it is also very important to me for the opposite reason. I feel that some good sps get swept in the tide. I am not even sure that all those declared an sp are really sps-proper and not simply users who were disliked by the wrong people at the time. I can’t remember if I ever told you I consider myself exteremely lucky to have survived an sp-Investigation at enwiki sometime after I was excommunicated. I was one of the fortunates. If that did not happen I am sure I would now be globally-locked, which means not only being cut off from any future contributions but also cut off from my past ones, which for someone who has spent many years and tens of thousands edits would be devastating.

Come to think of it, I already went through exactly the same experience when Yahoo-Groups shut down and I lost all the stuff I had meticulously collected for years, for example stuff I could have used as background for information I was hoping to contribute at another wmf-wiki. But Yahoo-groups have been wiped out with only a skeleton secured by archive services.

To be continued if you are interested. busy in rl today. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

sandbox

Hi, I've protected your sandbox as it appears to have got some attention from GRP.. You're confirmed already so this doesn't make a difference to you, but if you want the page unprotected, let me know. Thanks, Ferien (talk) 06:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you - no worries. Antandrus (talk) 13:59, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

You got a mail

Hi, you got a mail, please check your mailbox. Lemonaka (talk) 14:28, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Lemonaka - thank you - I will respond but not right away - busy :) Antandrus (talk) 22:06, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikiquote:Admin accountability poll

Hi Antandrus,

More than year ago you participated in preliminary discussion at Wikiquote:Admin accountability poll#Approve (job performance). I am hoping to turn this page into a regular tool for contributors to this wiki.

Could you please move your comments to the talkpage so that we can make the accountability page what (I think?) it was meant to do.

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Ottawahitech - not entirely sure; I only made a couple of minor comments, and currently there is no talk page, so what exactly do you have in mind? I think if you want to post performance reviews, the way you did it is fine. Do you want to move entire sections to the talk page to get them out of the way?

Are there enough admins here on Wikiquote? I have wondered that. It seems most are kind of part-time, which is fine - volunteer jobs are by their nature that way, and people will do the parts of adminning that they feel most comfortable doing, and do as much of it as they have time to do. - I've been asked now I think four times if I want to be an admin but have not yet answered yes; I feel like I need to do more actual content work here first, and there's a Wikiquote-cultural issue I need to understand, particularly whether what I perceive as a kind of laissez-faire attitude towards certain kinds of disruption is a bug or a feature (like that sock farm we blocked last year; it seems like not many people care; on enwiki it is traditional to bring the big hammer down right away on that kind of thing; the person is still editing under a new account right now and I've just kind of rolled my eyes and ignored it for now). Anyway, adminning is an important issue on any wiki, and it needs to be done right, and fairly gently, I think, especially regarding long-established users that are the heart of the project. Antandrus (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I hope you had a good thanksgiving holiday.

Let me first address your second paragraph. Off the top of my head I can only think of one admin here who is not part-time. Some of the part-timers put in a full-time job, I think, but are also active and loyal to other projects. Kind of like dual-citizenship, that precludes running for office in some countries, if you know what I mean?

I agree that being part-time is fine, just wish admins were more upfront with "regular users" about what areas they prefer to work in, what hours they are active as admins etc. Anyone can easily figure this out if they really want to know, but what is the point?

As far as you becoming an admin here, I hope you know I respect you tremendously, even though we agree to disagree sometime. My intuition tells me you will make an excellent admin, but I have to admit I have not looked into your admin actions on enwp, which unlike enwq are available to community members who are inclined to check such things out. Suffice it to say that I completely agree with the sentiment: long-established users are the heart of a project.

On the sock-farm you mention: I am a bit of a sceptic about how they/him/her were treated at enwq. If we are thinking of the same sock, I believe just like you do, that they are still very active here, but IMIO they are doing valuable work. But lets not get into this.

About your comment of needing more admins here, I am not sure throwing more bodies at the problem solves it. Again IMIO, some admins create unnecessary problems, for example when they block or insult good, long-term contributors. Some admins require so much on the job-training that they are hardly worth it, especially those who are inclined to move on to greener pastures as soon as they can. But as an employer, I am sure you already know that, so I am curious about your thoughts.

o my what a tldr I just created Ottawahitech (talk) 00:02, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Retaining memories

Today I am going to bore you with a long meandering stroy that starts with the reasons for why it is difficult to build wiki-pages about women and ends with how to retain one’s own memories.

Women often change their name throughout life. They get married, divorced, Lather, rinse, repeat, just like men do, but for historical reasons (I think?) they change their last name every time such an event takes place. The offspring of parents gets a name that usually ties them directly to their father, and rarely to their mother. Even when a mothers name survives the first generation it does so only for one generation. Do I need to spell out what I said above?

I have been trying to articulate this thought at the [[wikiquote:#shesaid campaign]] talk page, but my preliminary thoughts only survived for 15 days because of a recently installed archiving-BOT (which reminds me I am due for an update on Google's AI tool (a link went ^{[dead link]}, I think?).

This morning I was surfing wikiland in search of something-or-other and, whats new, sigh, got distracted by my UTP notifications which keep mounting at an alarming pace telling me about links that were added to articles I started, and have managed to survive for more than 10 years. It just so happens that at some point I started an article about a woman named Doris something-or-other who is now linked to a disambig page called Doris, first name, disambig or some-such (which does not show up on my enwp-search, but as long as I have access to all my notifications, I can find it if it's ever needed.

So what I was trying to say above is that those who build pages about women can now go to the corresponding first-names disambig-type page to possibly find information about women whose hitsory has disappeared from the internet. The ingenuity of crowdsourcing has no bounds. I vaguely remember trying to start a page about a woman who was the publisher of Byte magazine, whose husband was a smaller cog-in-the-wheel in the same business. The husband had/has an enwp page, but his wife did not. I discovered she was married and divorced several times (I think?) and her name kept changing.

OK enough of boring you with my women stories. Here is what I really wanted to talk to you about: the human mind and memories in wikiland as it applies to me. I have been traveling in wikiland for over 15 years. I find that I can no longer remember all the wonderful/interesting and exciting users I have met. I realized this after bumping into an old posting I made a couple of years ago, when my limited human memory was still retaining a lot of its content.

I get uptight when I see so many younger newbies (new to me at least) who are so eager to “cleanup” wiki-history of pages that are being deleted right and left in wikiland. One of the reasons I stuck around so long in this strange universe is the ability to go back and refresh my memory of certain events and people. However soon it wiil be all gone, and wiki-archeology, never mind wiki-history, will not be possible. IMIO his will become a problem for others if T gets into the WH.

As someone who has been around much longer than I have do you have any advice? Also, how do you write TLDRs that are fascinating to read?

Take care, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a profound topic, whether it be wikiland, politics, or civilization itself. Who controls memory controls the present, and the future. Erase memory, and "truth" itself becomes blurry, indistinguishable from what surrounds it. Orwell wrote about this, and Proust, and Borges, and Italo Calvino, and Milan Kundera (are you familiar with the Book of Laughter and Forgetting? It's powerful, and its power seems not to have faded much with the demise of superpower communism after all - we may be facing struggles similar to the ones he describes, should "T" return, as I suspect he will). I also dislike the idea of cleaning up, i.e. deleting histories; sometimes we need to see them, and sometimes we just want to see them. I look back at old wiki-stuff all the time. - I have the problem of an over-retentive memory sometimes, or maybe it's not a problem, just a quirk that others do not share. Was it Albert Schweitzer who said that happiness is nothing but good health, and a poor memory?

The mists rise over

The still pools at Asuka.

Memory does not pass away

So easily. (Akahito, tr Kenneth Rexroth) (I suppose I should look to see if we have that in WQ, lol) (An ex-girlfriend sent that to me on a card once. I remember her well, as it happens)

I wonder if our cultural tradition of women changing their names on marriage is changing, as the general willingness of women to subsume some portion of their own individuality and identity into that of their husband has weakened. Bring it, I say. At least in western countries this seems to be true. At least in my career area - music of the 'classical' type - it's long been normal for women to retain their own names after marriage, for the practical reason that by their mid-20s most of them have already established careers and name recognition, and it would be rank foolishness to harm that with a name change. How do they name their kids? It kind of varies. But anyway, yes, it's hard to keep up with name changes or even find someone who has changed their surname. Is it hard to start pages on women because of name changes? Do the pages get deleted before they have a chance to grow?

Will the machines that replace us remember us, or is that a different thing, without color and feeling, just data, including an admonition "don't be like our creators, for they killed for their own pleasure, and would have destroyed our own planet, had we let them ..." Hah, an idea for a novel. :) Antandrus (talk) 23:32, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

You have been very generous allowing me to use your UTP as my personal chest of drawers, But I don't want to overstay my welcome. I know you get pinged every time I post and I have been taking advantage of you for, what, 3 years? cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

No worries! I enjoy the conversation. :) Antandrus (talk) 02:45, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Another boring story

I have had a (mostly academic) interest in Rent control since childhood. As I grew up this interest was supplemented by some understanding of law in general, different forms of real estate in different countries, people involved in real estate, different forms of home ownership, such as single homes, condominiums, and tenants, hi-rise buildings, zoning regulations, evictions, housing affordability and homelessness. Whenever I moved/or was pushed into to a new wmf-wiki this topic was one of the many I sought to develop. Even on Wiiquote I see opportunity to increase the information available to readers with an interest in the various aspects of it.

Unfortunately it appears(?) that my fascination with this got me into hot water (just speculating) at enwp, and continued later into simple and then META (really not sure). But this does not matter to me as much as the development of this topic itself. I would like to do some work in this area since I have had a file with some good information, and links that can be mined for more, stagnating in one of my UPs (would you like a link?). Just wondering if I should take the plunge, or wait until it is clear that I will not be blocked on my 4th adopted wmf-wiki. I don't expect you to comment, just posting this here to remind myself of this sometime in the future. Thanks again for allowing me to post this to your page. I trully appreciate this. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Well I don't think it's boring at all - important topic. Are you familiar with the work of Matthew Desmond (his book Evicted from several years ago was a powerful read, for anyone interested in poverty and the gross inequality that plagues many "modern" societies). I currently live in a city that does not have rent control, and it's just astonishing what a negative effect the soaring rents (coastal California) have on everyone's quality of life, as the class of people who do the most essential work gets crammed into smaller and smaller quarters by necessity. Can't imagine why you'd be blocked, honestly. Looks like we have next to nothing on that page, so it's prime real estate, so to speak, for new development. Here's a place for a couple of quotes, for example - this one against - "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing." (Assar Lindbeck) Need some pithy pro- quotes. Anyway happy new year, good to see you around, as always - Antandrus (talk) 21:22, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I am glad you do not consider real estate boring, or spamish, or coat racking or trolling.... I sincerely hope others also feel this way. I came here today all fired up to do some work on the topic. I tried to ignore my UTP which has several unhandled issues festering, the #shesaid talk which I need to constantly monitor, votes for deletion where some of the pages I started are probably doomed, AN where I am sure someone is complaining about my edits or about me, the list goes on...

But, I just could not resist peeping into the VP where there are several interesting threads going on. And sure enough there is something I need to look at, so I take a little detour, which luckily detours me right back to my boring topic and I start a new page about tenants insurance. Everything is going swimmingly, until I hit my edit conflict issue, again, and make a very risky decision and post my rant to the talk page...

BTW thanks for all the links to ideas, so far I have not been able to open them, but patience is a virtue, I keep reminding myself. I don't know what I would do without you. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Are you still around?

I seem to have ruffled a lot of feathers recently. I hope I am still welcome here? I have not seen you much recently. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh hi there! You're always welcome here. - I haven't been around wikiworld much yet this year, although I check in most days just to look for quick-fix things, here and on about twenty other wikis, mostly out of habit. Bought myself a new concert grand piano and have been making lots of noise. "Make a joyful noise unto the hood." I think that's in the Bible somewhere. Also doing composing projects, etc. My enthusiasm for wikithings will return as it usually does. One must always find new and fun things to do, no? - It is in the nature of feathers to get ruffled; a more subtle refinement is to learn to unruffle them. - Random question: what, in your opinion, on Wikiquote, is in most need of expansion and improvement? (My own interests tend to be in ancient things, classics, history, what one might call "un"popular culture.) Hope your 2024 is going nicely. :) Antandrus (talk) 00:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, aren't you lucky to have space for a grand piano. I have been toying with the idea of getting a keyboard (I think this is what they are called), but can't even figure out where it will fit in my humble abode. How's your grand piano working out? and your composing?

I have always been good at ruffling and terrible at unruffling feathers, but you are never too old to learn, right? Sometimes I wonder though if ruffling feathers serves a purpose even though few seem to appreciate it. I also sometimes wish we lived in a more tolerant wiki-world that was not so quick to dispose of anyone and anything that isn't part of the norm.

Boy I can talk to you forever, but the real world is calling. I still haven't answered your last question have I? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@ Re: what, in your opinion, on Wikiquote, is in most need of expansion and improvement?

I have been thinking about this question on and off for a while. I feel one of the biggest problems we have here is the paucity of topics that have pages on ENWQ. Since I am always short of time and I assume others are too, the lack of an existing page on a notable topic makes it difficult to add interesting quotes I happen to find elsewhere.

There seems to be a lot of resistance in some quarters to the addition of new pages:

• Some see spammers and vandals around every corner
• Some pages are relegated to the not-news-pages by anti-news proponents
• Some feel pages are so not-NPOV that they must be deleted
• Some want new pages to be perfect right from the get-go
• There are probably more such reasons that can be mined on WQ:VFD

Not allowing for the gradual and natural development of missing topics and not taking into account the limitations of ENWQ contributors and wannabe contributors is creating little incentive for newbies to join the project IMIO.

(hope this does not come off as a wot) Ottawahitech (talk) 19:14, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Happy 20th

Antandrus (born 2004-04-04) is a Wikimedia editor.

This is a stub about a Wikimedia editor.

Quotes

• I believe in solving disputes by persuading people to come together, talk to each other, and actually listen to what the other is saying, rather than by threatening them or hitting them with a hammer. Sometimes, a hammer is a useful tool, but far less often than many suppose; the overwhelming majority of conflicts can be defanged by persistence, understanding and civility
  • 2005

• While overall we are a fine and noble enterprise, we still are just a bunch of primates scrambling for position, privilege, and praise
  • 2008

Quotes about Antandrus

• Unfailingly courteous, reasonable, level-headed, and confessed Wikipediholic
  • M 2005
• Like a life without music, a Wikipedia without Antandrus would be a mistake
  • H 2005

Ottawahitech (talk) 03:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Ottawahitech: - hey, thank you. That's really nice. I had forgotten a few of those things. I miss the days when I was writing, rather than fighting LTAs, antisemites, and deranged stalkers. It's really hard to write on enwiki now; other than current events, it's mostly filled up. Mostly. Wikiquote not so much. Time to go back to the writing and compiling. - Good to see you around! Antandrus (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Tvebor

This could be added to the list about this user [1]

It is as you correctly assume the same user as Tvebor but he edits mostly with IPs. Note also this [2] . --ᘙ (talk) 10:32, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Interesting. So sometimes he has a US IPv6. I wondered if it was an American in Australia (from stylistic things). Also clearly active on enwiki, as for example [3], where more than one IP range has a multi-year ban in place. Antandrus (talk) 15:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

music and pageviews

I stepped into a car and could not believe my ears. The music I was hearing was the same as the one I listened to after talking to you around the same time last year. At least it sounded very similar, enough to remind me how much I miss our little talks, but also very different at the same time. At the end it was identified as Beethovens string quartet Opus 18/4 in C something or OTHER by Cypress String Quartet, I think. This sent me off to try and figure out what Opus meant and what the other number meant. After rooting around enwp for a bit, which has been difficult lately because I no longer have a search box there, I decided the best way to use enwp articles is to read the first versions. In my experience articles started in 2002 are best.

I am still fascinated by pageviews. Any idea why many many articles on enwq had a large drop in viewership around October 11 this year? Ottawahitech (talk) 23:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi User:Ottawahitech! Well. I have no idea, really, about the pageviews but my first guess would be that the spikes in early October were robot visitations of one kind or another. I'd expect human visits to be relatively constant. Sometimes I look at pageviews for things in my userspace on enwiki, like my essays; a sharp spike usually means I got mentioned somewhere or other, and it's typically not hard to find. But a whole lot of pages on enquote? Hm. Probably some entity visiting a lot of pages, many times. - Yes, Beethoven, opus 18 no. 4, C minor. I've played that one, many times actually - it's fun to play, rather passionate, and not the most technically challenging of the opus 18 set so not so hard to put together. "Opus" refers to publication; in the case of Beethoven's opus 18 set, he wrote six quartets around the same time and published them as a bunch, so it's opus 18 no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Opus numbers are a useful rough guide to chronology but sometimes stuff gets out of order, e.g. if the composer writes something but can't find a publisher for a while and other more saleable works get in front of it. Some composers had their works catalogued after their death to put them into rigorous chronological order, for example Mozart, with the w:Köchel catalogue, so you might see his "Piano concerto K. 488" programmed. The K. catalogue is a useful guide for how old he was when he wrote something; I think K.200 happened when he was 18, for example. Prolific kid.

Good to see you around. I haven't been doing much in the wiki-universe recently. Composing a ton of stuff, doing some other projects. I just bought the new book by Yuval Harari and maybe it will contain quotables. :) Antandrus (talk) 01:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Election interference

I was going to post a link on your page today due to the importance of this day but suddenly remembered something that happened to me at enwp right around the time I joined. So I looked for it with the help of google, then completed the search through enwp and it only took me a couple of minutes to locate it: [4] Wow - google&enwp has come a long long way!

Dent my nationality I do not want to interfere with your elections, so will share the link with you after elections are over:) I found it on google.ca when I searched for info about Hayden[sic] and trumpet. It is probably gone by now. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:21, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

At the risk of revealing too much, this election freaks me out. I can't believe half our electorate would support such a monster. - Anyway. Both Joseph Haydn and Michael Haydn wrote trumpet concertos, so don't mix them up :) Michael was the younger brother of the enormously more famous Joseph. Antandrus (talk) 02:12, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Tell me about it! I managed to find a Fox News channel on the TV and guess what- they had called Trump the winner about 20 minutes ago. When I go to their web site however they show Trump as the projected winner in only 232 states, go figure. it's going to be a long night! Ottawahitech (talk) 07:09, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Warning TLDR coming:

Re: half the electorate

I have been pondering this phenomenon for a long time just like many other people I am sure. In real life I know VERY few people who are upfront about suppporting the "monster". In the circles I move in it is considered impolite to ask bluntly who and why one supports one person/party over another, and if you do get into such exchanges, 9 times out of ten the verbal response is probably not genuine. But this is Canada, not the USA, where believe it or not, there are about 1million Americans.

I am trying to gather exit polls on the topic to see the demographics of USA voters.

• One fact that appears pretty solid already is that there were a lot of voters and many who voted for the first time + anecdotes:
  • One anecdote was an older woman from a Southern State who told a reporter that her husband told her women should not vote, but now that he'd dead...
  • Then there were 3 Jewish women in a gop commercial that agreed the "monster" was the better alternative.

Before the election I saw this:

• Poll: abortion, economy top issues for midterm elections

but during the election liberal pundits seemed to be in agreement that:

• democracy and economics (in the 30% range) were the most important to voters followed by abortion at 12%, and I forget the fourth (in single digits %)

I have my own theories about motives or reasons for the monsters success:

• Self interest at the expense of all eles. Could be financial gain, power, prestige, what else can you think of?
• Not knowing any better: Young people just starting out urged by the older people in their social circles (parents, teachers, etc) that it is their duty vote
• Those who are too busy trying to survive who have been duped to think economics will improve under the monster

To be continued? Ottawahitech (talk) 21:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

How are you?

Its been a rough week, so I I turned off the news and turned to music.This is something I relearned how to do after I met you The piece I was listening to sounded awfully familiar (repetition), but I could not place it. I thought it must be Chopin, Rachmaninoff, or Tchaikovsky. Then I decided it must be Swan lake. It turned out to be the nutcracker by Tchaikovsky according to the announcer. It was followed by moonlight Sonata by most people's favourite composer.

As I listened intently the warmth started seeping in and my mood changed gradually. It was bliss, I let myself sink in and was engulfed by peace and tranquility. Yes, I thought to myself , [[ life without music is like life without antandrus]]. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 03:45, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Rough week indeed. Very glad you had that experience! - Music is restorative. Or it can be. The Nutcracker is so popular, but there's a reason - it's a work of incredible genius. Around the holidays last year I listened to the whole thing more than once, really carefully, in awe at how Tchaikovsky put it together, getting the colors, the balance, the interplay just right. - And then he had to go kill himself (probably, but we'll never know for certain). I've been immersed in composition - writing an immense orchestral piece, and I'm finding this so harmonious with my spirit I think I will do this very much for the next four years. Haunted by this feeling that something terrible is happening and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm glad there are still places like Canada around. You have something good there - protect it from home-grown monsters. Antandrus (talk) 05:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Colbert had a solution for Americans who want to sleep on a cruise and wake up in 4 years for only $256K, it? He also had some google statistics about search words combining TM and Canada later in the program. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

re: I'm glad there are still places like Canada around. - protect it from home-grown monsters

Well, you americans have Steven Colbert and TM, and we have [[This hour has 22 minutes] and Justin. Also, if you enjoy Canuck humour, from the same episode see another shortee Americans moving to Canada receive a not-so-warm welcome. Enjoy, I hope? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Pageviews

I am pretty sure that internet spiders or whatever they are called have been spidering WQ at the end of the first week of October 2024. Cheers Ottawahitech (talk) 16:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

memory

When you say you have good memory what do you actually mean? are you referring to visual memory? auditory memory? smell? touch? taste? did I get all the senses, I forget. I'll have to remember to actually stop and read the link I have just inserted.

When I was going to school I was always terribly bored when teachers kept drilling the same topic over and over repetition, and my mind would escape to greener pastures. I finally hit a redlink. When exam time came all the other kids I knew would, but I did not see the point of cramming. because I have a terrible memory I just went to sleep before exams get up fresh and relaxed, and luckily sometimes I passed. Not only passed but in those cases, can't remember how rare those times were, Would get the top marks in the class. IIRC most of my exam marks were either an A+ or an F, rarely a B-D, but I really don't remember how accurate this memory of mine is.

When you say you have good memory what do you actually mean? Do you remember facts ou read a enwp? Do you remember editors best? Do you remember people? Do you remember people you met on wiki-projects? Do you remember all of them? If you are human I bet you don't. Actually I know someone in real life that, I think, remembers every single person he they ever talked to. But at wiki you can meet people without ever talking to them.

Me, when I see a wiki-name I get this instinct that tells me the name is familiar, but placing them is more difficult. Have I ever actually conversed with them, did they leave a post on my tp? if so which tp, is it enwp, simple, meta, or enwq? and as the years roll on it gets harder and harder to remember. maybe its a sign of early Alzhemers.

Have you met anyone online who you could swear you know in person? Offhand I can think of at least 3. I was just getting started, but Ivealready hit my WOT limit Ottawahitech (talk) 17:41, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, an interesting topic. Did you notice that your memory improved in proportion to your interest in the topic of the class? Not sure how much I should say, as it gets into "brag" territory, but eh, facts are facts. I have an w:eidetic memory but it's not nearly as good as it was in, say, my teens and early twenties, when I could look at a page of Shakespeare or some poet and just remember it, but I had to be feeling the emotion expressed and also filled with curiosity and wonder. And numbers. "Tell me your phone number" - "why aren't you writing it down" - "I'll remember it." I don't do that any more because it's obnoxious and a little arrogant, but you have to forgive yourself for that crap you did when you were young, without thinking how it could belittle another person. I did not know then that they would not be filled with wonder and love for you, but instead might feel inferior, and want to avoid you as a self-important creep. All grown up now, I don't want that. That said, having a good memory is super useful when you are studying for doctoral comprehensives. And numbers again! I remember IP addresses, and that may be what got me into WikiPolice work, which otherwise I am coming to loathe. So some day enough of that. And I'm good at remembering quotes! "Happiness, what is that but good health and a poor memory?" (Albert Schweitzer) Antandrus (talk) 00:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)