User talk:MZMcBride

From Strategic Planning

Welcome to the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic planning process. We appreciate your interest in taking part. You can start by reading our Community guidelines. Check out the links on the Main Page and find an area that interests you. Please feel free to ask me any questions, or you may leave a message on the Village pump.

-- Philippe 06:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!

MZMcBride -

The Original Barnstar
Thanks for all the hard work on the strategy wiki! Serita 19:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki clean-up work

MZMcBride -

You did a lot of wiki cleanup work overnight. Thank you, very much. Your expertise is much appreciated.

-- Philippe 12:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Email

Check your email, please.  :-) (No, nothing fun...) -- Philippe 22:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sysop

You're now +sysop on strategy.wiki. -- Philippe 21:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Thanks, I guess? Just means more to cleanup.... :P --MZMcBride 21:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have caught on to my nefarious plan! The more you do, the less I have to! -- Philippe 21:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I have a proposed system for creation of administrators at Strategic Planning:Administrators. It's loose, on purpose. No crazy policies needed, I think. Your input is welcomed. -- Philippe 21:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And you even moved it to the proper namespace! A man after my own heart, I see. I'll take a look in a bit and make some adjustments / comment on the talk page. --MZMcBride 21:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm slow, but I can be taught :) Feel free to make suggestions on the main page. It's just a proposal. -- Philippe 21:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Input, please

Hiya - could you read User_talk:Juliancolton#Categories and provide some input into that? -- Philippe 03:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question

If I can't transclude based upon category membership, can you give me a suggestion for how to display them? -- Philippe 14:40, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dynamically? Not really sure, off-hand. --MZMcBride 21:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What about statically and automatically updating daily or something? -- Philippe 22:41, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, maybe. Not sure I still understand the purpose (unless the purpose is to create pages that take a long time to load). --MZMcBride 22:46, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciation

The Original Barnstar
To one of the people who made it possible. -- Philippe 04:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! :-) --MZMcBride 04:12, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your "helpful guidance" on Talk:Main Page. It's been a week since I laughed that hard. :-) --Eekim 02:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Proposal:" prefix

I don´t like hideprefix="on", because this will lead to a lot of proposals without the prefix. Maybe I´m wrong, time will show it, but if I´m right please redo it. --Goldzahn 03:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Welcoming Users

Hi, just wanted to drop a note to let you know that User:Mwpnl configured a welcome bot for us - there shouldn't be any need to welcome users manually any more. But watch for a malfunctioning bot, just in case, and block it if it's being bad. It's User:StrategyBot. -- Philippe 19:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category bot

Hi, can you please re-add the Category:Proposals to all pages of the subcategories? It was incorrectly removed by many proposals (it's required by the template, and although this is not our general practice it's the standard adopted here, and it's useful to have also a central list of all proposals without external tools). Nemo 10:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First convenors resolution

MZMcBride, have a look at First convenors resolution, edit if necessary, and please sign if you do agree. Dedalus 09:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Subst:Impact?

Hello, MZMcBride. I've noticed, that your bot writes template Impact with substitution ([1]). Is it correct? --Rave 19:43, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Rave. I've disabled the bot for now. The template has been substantially rewritten and appears to no longer be compatible with EdwardsBot. Thanks for the note. --MZMcBride 19:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Next Steps

Next steps!
It's time to answer some questions! Would you check out the list of questions that were submitted by the community and others and try to answer some? -- Philippe 01:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sheesh, the bot is spamming itself too. Erik Warmelink 02:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Haha --MZMcBride 03:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
yes, INCREDIBLY funny. you could at least *react* when your bot spams everyone and their brother, instead of going to ground. on the other hand, this is exactly the way i expected the jimbocracy to react to their own fuckups. disgraceful. --user is still pissed and getting worse so because no answer is forthcoming.
What? I was asked by the person who runs this wiki to deliver a message to every registered user. It added a note to the bot's user page. I'm not sure why this is a big deal or worthy of note. "No answer is forthcoming" — what question have you asked? I'm perfectly willing to have a discussion with you, but, respectfully, you need to bring more to the table. --MZMcBride 05:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
i have not been, am not, and will never be a user of this wiki. i *still* got spammed. i am not amused. --as above
so, you're not only incompetent but also a coward. great work. --17:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
You're not asking questions or providing anything meaningful to reply to. If you aren't a user of this wiki, you could not have gotten spammed. It pulled the names of all registered users directly from the user database. What's your issue? --MZMcBride 19:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
gee. are you just playing stupid? i am NOT a user. the database obviously contains single user login names that have NEVER EVER used this wiki. am i making myself understood now, even by you? --08:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd be happy to check into this if you'll send me your username in confidence. Otherwise, it's very difficult to troubleshoot. You are the only complaint we've had of this particular problem. We can trouble-shoot, but not if you don't give us the data. For the record, we're likely to do similar spamming in the future, so this is your chance to help us make sure you're removed from those. -- Philippe 08:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously, someone who does not "use" this wiki, at least to the extent of reading it, would never have seen the message in the first place. Still, a distinction can be made between those who have logged in only as readers and those who have engaged with the community by posting a contribution. I don't see anything objectionable about sending passive readers this sort of invitation to participate, but I doubt its efficacy. One might consider targeting future broadcast messages to contributors rather than to all users. ~ Ningauble 15:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? Given that the point was to engage as many people as possible in the discussion, and to convert readers into contributors? -- Philippe 15:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
out of 8 people i asked on a german WP irc channel, 2 got spammed by the bot - the others may just not have bothered to complain. only reason i stayed anonymous here is to make my claim that i have never been logged in here verifiable. --22:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC) = de:Benutzer:snotty
Hi, user hiding behind the pseudonym Ningauble. In some countries, emailing people without their explicit consent is forbidden by law. Yes, I have read here, I have even given an email address to check my identity, but I have not (let me repeat not) solicited to get bulk email. I don't care whether some IRC-kid with a bot "was asked by the person who runs this wiki to deliver a message to every registered user", I got unsolicited bulk email, that is: I was spammed. Erik Warmelink 00:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did it email you, or was it simply a user-talkpage template? The former is spam, but the latter is precisely what talkpages are for - messages to people. I got the talkpage template but no email, and I'm a registed user. 02:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
By God, and you lived to tell the tale? I don't know if you have a valid point, but one certainly isn't being conveyed here. If you don't wish to receive e-mail when your talk page is changed, check out your user preferences. It's all clearly explained there. --MZMcBride 05:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do want an email when my talk page is changed by a human. I don't want an email (and often I don't the change either), when the change is done by the bot of an IRC kid. --Erik Warmelink 22:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Erik, with all due respect: in some states in the United States, it's illegal to drive with a gorilla in the backseat. Luckily for me, I don't own a gorilla, so it's not a problem. Luckily for us, the Wikimedia Foundation operates under the auspices of the law of the United States (specifically the states of Florida and California, variously) so the argument that "in some countries..." doesn't really stand. WIth that said, I'm sorry you were disturbed. I don't want that for anyone. I hope you'll understand that what we're doing here is attempting to encourage as many people as possible to participate in this very important process for the future of the Foundation. I can assure you that if the Board had elected to do the strategic planning without any opportunity for input from the valuable contributors to the various projects, that would be a greater concern than an email in your inbox asking you to participate.
In all United States of America, it was legal to invade a country and to genocide its inhabitants: that is why those states exist. The law of the USA allowed using nuclear weapons on civilian targets, it allows torture. It isn't my law.
My point is that asking far, far more time of others than you are willing to spend yourself is antisocial in any community. You did (ask MZMcBride to) spam. The mere fact that you needed a bot proves that you asked/stole more time than you were willing to invest. --Erik Warmelink 22:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please, rather than getting mad at MZMcBride (who, by the way, is not a "IRC kid with a bot" but is a valued contributor here, and to whom you owe an apology for that disparagement) see past the action to the meaning behind it: I asked him to run a bot to help us engage as many voices as possible in this discussion. Whether you like the action or not, I hope you'll like the reason for doing it. ~Philippe 17:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, how is MZMcBride not an "IRC kid with a bot"? And why couldn't an "IRC kid with a bot" be a "valued contributor"? --Erik Warmelink 22:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Next steps (again)

Hi MZMcBride,

Thanks for all of your contributions to the strategy wiki to date! The strategic planning process wouldn't be where it is today without all of your help. Even though you annoy me frequently... <grin>

We're about to move into the third and final phase of the process, and in many ways, this will be the most challenging. I'm hoping you will continue to be an active presence in shaping the movement's five year strategic plan.

Here are some concrete suggestions as to how you can help moving forward:

  • Help organize and improve this wiki! Starting next week (January 18, 2010), we're going to be encouraging many more people to come participate, and we want to make sure this wiki is as presentable as possible. A comprehensive list of things to do is at Strategic Planning:To-do list.
  • Invite people to participate! Encourage volunteers to discuss Task force/Recommendations.
  • Finally, we need to clearly describe what this final phase is going to look like. In particular, we could use feedback and discussion on Strategic Planning:Decision-Making.

Let me know what you think! Many, many thanks! ~Philippe 00:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]