User talk:MiamiVolts

Archives: Apr‑Oct 2007: User:MiamiVolts/ArchiveLink Oct‑Dec 2007: User:MiamiVolts/ArchiveLink

MiamiVolts's: Heroes Wiki contributions • IMDb profile • 9th wonders profile Help General Help Characters Editing Layout Naming conventions Style Sources Special Topics Caching Collapsible tables Disambiguation Images Interviews Int'l characters Portals Quotes Signatures Spoilers Tables of contents Templates Theories For more help... Contact an administrator Admin Level Radicell RyanGibsonStewart Or leave a message Administrator Portal If you have comments for MiamiVolts, please leave a signed message below. Thanks!

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administrators

• I just wanted to address the "administrator" reference with my last reply since if people read things about the administrators collectively they may start to believe that we have some kind of influence inherent to the position and then that can end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy where people don't present their views when someone who happens to be an administrator disagrees because they feel like the administrator is in some kind of position of authority. Even Lulu's comment about "asking an admin" is a sign that people may be confused already thinking that administrators are in charge of sections of the site or something. Anytime I see things like that I usually try to remind people that it's the consensus of the community that matters, not just what a few administrators think. Hope you're warming up, it's like 20 degrees where I am. Brr. (Admin 21:30, 3 January 2008 (EST))
  • Sorry if my comment was misleading, I'm one of those people who generally enjoy some sort of higher up confirmation before doing something. <_> -- Lulu (talk) 21:34, 3 January 2008 (EST)
    • Ah, that's the key though. We're not "higher up". :) The "higher up" is the community. So anytime you're looking for confirmation, just post to the appropriate talk page and solicit input from the community. That's all the confirmation you need. :) (Admin 21:39, 3 January 2008 (EST))
      • I'll try and keep that in mind. I guess you won't be wanting that pedestal I was going to send you. :] -- Lulu (talk) 21:43, 3 January 2008 (EST)
        • I'll take a pedestal, but I'll use it to keep ham sandwiches raised above flash floods. (Mmm... Ham...) I understand wanting the advice of somebody who might have a little more experience, and that's fine. But "administrator" does not necessarily mean "experience". To demonstrate, Admin does not edit the portals, and does not have as much experience with them. Yours truly really has no idea what's going on in the theory pages. On the other hand, MiamiVolts is not an administrator, but has terrific knowledge of dpl. Lulu has recently been writing some terrific crew member articles. And if I have a question about memorable quotes, I almost always defer to Ice Vision. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, our "pet" articles, and our areas where we might have a bit more experience....Now how about that ham sandwich pedestal? :) -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2008 (EST)
          • Sure, wouldn't want you to have any soggy sandwiches. :] -- Lulu (talk) 21:56, 3 January 2008 (EST)
  • That's a good point, Admin. I'll try to keep that in mind. But for Lulu's sake, I'd like to point out that the community only gets a say if it's at least a super-majority. That's what I understand consensus to mean for this Wiki. Otherwise, it falls to the administrators to decide and since historically the administrators almost always end up agreeing with each other, I can see why "asking an admin" might be a comment she would make (even though it is technically incorrect). It's not necessarily a bad thing to have like-minded administrators which vary mainly in skill, but imho the difficulty to dodge this perception is a consequence of it.--MiamiVolts (talk) 22:38, 3 January 2008 (EST)
    • I've thought about that very point you bring up about it being up to the administrators to decide. It may have been a mistake for me to claim that's how it works when it doesn't really make sense for it to work that way. By that logic every decision is purely up to me since I could always declare there is no consensus among anyone and according to my earlier statement the decision would then rest with me... and that's not the right way to do things. Really the way it should work is that if there is no consensus then it shouldn't necessarily fall to the administrators, but rather the status quo should remain until there is consensus. The caveat there is that the status quo, by virtue of being the status quo, should have some legitimacy through policy or guidelines. For instance if there's a new ability and the first person to make an article calls it "Blah" and it's clearly a bad name for it, yet there's no consensus (i.e. multiple opinions) on what it should actually be called then the answer isn't to leave it as "Blah". The naming convention comes into play here and allows us to name it "Soandso's ability" in the absense of consensus. It's tricky because when it comes to politics like this we're still rather young compared to say Wikipedia which has all these formal processes for things like dispute resolution. We're feeling things out and I think we're going to end up in the right direction. (Admin 22:51, 3 January 2008 (EST))
      • FWIW, I think the "ask an admin" mentality is worse at Wikipedia because things are not as discussed as much. We're younger, but my opinion is we're on the right track as far as that perception of "listening" goes. Also, DPL is an example of a new functionality where there was not set policy or guidelines. I'm still working on an in-this-Wiki help for it, and I think that may make clearer any further discussion on the portal automation issue.--MiamiVolts (talk) 23:02, 3 January 2008 (EST)
      • Just so we're clear, to my best memory, there has only been one example of a decision being "made by the admins"--the name of bliss and horror. I don't think we have formally discussed anything else externally. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2008 (EST)
        • Yeah, that's the specific instance that comes to mind and probably the one MiamiVolts was referring to. In fact, that was such a big deal that it spawned the naming conventions to help deal with such a thing in the future. So I think as long as we learn from our shortcomings and address them we'll be on a good path. (Admin 23:09, 3 January 2008 (EST))
        • And that's about the only time I can see consensus failing: when consensus breaks the rules. Even if there was 100% consensus that [[Peter Petrelli]] should be renamed to [[Princess Sparkle Panties]], it wouldn't happen--not because the admins disagree, but because as admins, one of our only functions is to enforce the few rules and policies we have--in this case, the naming convention.--Hardvice (talk) 23:10, 3 January 2008 (EST)

Cold weather

Sure Admin, it's 20 F where you are but you're used to it. Last night, it was forecasted 30s temp 20s windchill factor (what it feels like). The last time it got close to being this cold was 5 years ago as mentioned in that MiamiBugle article.--MiamiVolts (talk) 22:38, 3 January 2008 (EST)

• I wouldn't say we're USED to 20 degree weather. :) ...but, yeah, we're used to generally lower temperatures than say someone in Florida. (Admin 22:51, 3 January 2008 (EST))
  • Here's some "extreme" cold, Sacramento Valley style:
    last winter, we Californians experienced a big freeze in the middle of a LOOOOOONG dry spell. One day during the freeze: Clear with the ol' North Wind blowing, high of about 45. The wind chill that Day: about 14. the lows averaged about 20.
    a few days before Christmas, 2005: we were locked clouds/fog. the high the day the fog never lifted: 38
    for perspective: Normal highs (winter) = ~55. Normal lows = ~35
    --SacValleyDweller (talk) 00:16, 4 January 2008 (EST)
    • For perspective, the average low in Miami as of last night was 62 F. The actual low in Miami was 39 F, but the big sticker is the humidity which makes it feel "colder" with the wind. Unlike California or New England, Florida is surrounded by water on 3 sides. Tonight it is 67%.--MiamiVolts (talk) 00:33, 4 January 2008 (EST)

DPL and archives

• Do you know if there's a way to get DPL to iterate throught the section titles on a single page and then output them as a formatted list on another page? I'd really love to be able to automate the archive summary like I use on my talk page instead of having to copy and paste each section title from the archive each time I create a new archive. (Admin 19:19, 5 January 2008 (EST))
  • Funny you should ask that now, I was already working on it with an initial coding draft template here. It's already working on my talk page somewhat and I'm still debugging.--MiamiVolts (talk) 20:00, 5 January 2008 (EST)