User talk:Milton Beychok

Milton Beychok

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5, Archive 6, Archive 7, Archive 8, Archive 9, Archive 10, Archive 11, Archive 12

 Where Milt lives it is approximately: 07:28

Just archived my last Talk page (Archive 6)

So things look a bit bare here right now. I don't think that will last long. Milton Beychok 05:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

NDOTW & AOTW

Hi Milt, sorry for causing confusion, and thanks for being blunt. The reason I did that was that the AOTW as visible on the Welcome page then did neither link to the approved version nor to the draft, it did not contain an image, and the "read more" started right after the text, with no space in between. Since I cannot edit approved articles, I did a temporary fix and thought I'd marked it clearly as such in my edit summaries. If not, please excuse, and I will pay more attention in the future. However, I honestly hope we can integrate the preparation for transclusion into the approval process (and clear the backlog for those approved so far). We are waiting for Larry to approve the proposed solution via a dedicated Transclusion subpage. --Daniel Mietchen 08:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Daniel, the real point is that all of us do not understand how templates are coded. So when a template is revised temporarily, the revision should be removed as soon as possible ... or an explanation should be provided as to how others can remove the temporary change. Anyway, I am happy that Caesar fixed it. Milton Beychok 18:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The Canterbury Tales

Hi, Milton, I fear you flatter me: I certainly do have the time, but the expertise is lacking. I never read much of Chaucer, nor of his contemporaries William Langland and the Gawain poet - they could perhaps be included, but wouldn't related articles require a lot of background on England in the Middle Ages? I'm no historian, but if there any concrete ways in which I could help out, do let me know. Ro Thorpe 13:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Specialist supporter

I thought it was a routine editing matter to change a vote of an Editor in a relevant workgroup to Specialist -- that's the essential definition of a specialist. In this case, since it involves a new Editor, he might not have known the distinction (an aside -- one reason why I don't think people should be Editors from Day 1). If it bothers you, it can move back. I suppose there's a certain level of proceduralism that makes me uncomfortable that we are more worried about appearance than content. Certainly, I think we've gone far beyond that when a minor edit suddenly makes it impossible for an Editor to do a single Approval. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I accidently saw this. Allow me to comment it: I did not add my name as a specialist supporter because the rules on the page say: "Add your name in the Specialist supporters column only if you are an editor who is an expert about the topic in question." It says expert about the topic. For me topic is narrower than "workgroup". When I noticed that Howard changed this, I assumed that it should be interpreted as "workgroup", when you changed it back I was puzzled and realized that the rules might be a matter of interpretation. (This probably should be clarified.) May I add that it is a rather minor and quite unimportant risk whether a new editor votes with his full power or not. (There might be other risks.)
On the other topic mentioned: It really should be clarified when an editor loses the right to approve an article single-handedly, in particular, since active editors seem to be extremely rare. I think that some contributing should be allowed. And one should be aware that suggesting edits on the talk page may have the same effect as editing the page directly. The criteria should be independent of such manipulations. Peter Schmitt 20:16, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

(fixed formatting) I hadn't thought about the topic vs. workgroup, since I had always read it as workgroup. Article/draft of the week are fairly minor things, so I'm not too worried, but the granularity of "workgroup" remains a problem. I remember a noncontroversial item a while back, in an article under the Religion workgroup, citing a news item about tear gas. When I simply commented on the talk page that neither the chemical or the grenade worked that way, I wasn't doing so as a Military editor. In like manner, any of us might be an expert on a specific topic outside a workgroup.

Joe Quick, I believe, has been thinking about ways to use outside experts simply as reviewers. This is one possible way to deal with the situation where there is one active Editor who is also the author. There are times where an Author Citizen is an expert on a particular topic -- I remember an occasion when I was writing generally about a piece of military electronics that another Citizen had operated and maintained. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with both of you that the interpretation as to the meaning of "specialist" (in the context of Article/New Draft of the week) is a minor item. What made me uncomfortable, Howard, was the fact that someone other other than Peter changed Peter's vote. I think that voting changes should only be made by the person who voted. I would not have been the least bit uncomfortable if Peter had changed his vote himself. Milton Beychok 22:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)