Wikipedia talk:Missing Wikipedians/Archive 1

message: Image:Opera house.JPG
Does somebody know Isis ? Or know something about the picture of Opéra Garnier (Paris) he downloaded : I would like two know if there is copyright on it, for french wiki. (Sorry, my english is very bad !). Mathounette 09:06, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I've read, Isis uploaded a large number of images that are likely copyright infringements. I wouldn't upload it anywhere else if I were you. Guanaco 22:17, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Isis

message: Whenever I go through "Recent changes" these days hardly any of the contributors is familiar to me. Where are all the old hands? Some, it is true, have announced their retirement or semi-retirement (sadly, Fonzy is among them), but what about the others? In this context I am still wondering if the list of "missing Wikipedians" is any good: Lots of people, it seems to me, have really really departed but have remained undetected; others may inadvertently have been encouraged to throw in the towel after finding their name on this list and concluding that they have already been written off anyway.
To me, Wikipedia seems to have become a revolving door, with people coming and going much faster than they used to only one or two years ago. This is fine with me of course, but I do notice, and I am happy about, people like Ortolan88 returning after more than a year's leave.
I am sorry for those who, on joining Wikipedia, had big plans, long to-do lists and a lot of enthusiasm but who, after only a short time, vanished into thin air, often leaving behind unfinished work to be completed (or reverted) by others. Some even caused upheaval by introducing major (unnecessary and/or disruptive) changes before buggering off again. I do hope that those with serious intentions had some fun contributing to Wikipedia, despite the short period of time they were around.
It has been pointed out countless times—and it has been a major reason for many to leave this place—that Wikipedia seems to be teeming with people whose egos are too big, who cannot work in a team, and who cannot compromise. This certainly seems to be true. On the other hand, there are lots of great people working here—this is a talk page, remember, no need to be NPOV here, is there?
So again, where are all the old hands who, fortunately, have not made it onto the missing Wikipedians list? <KF> 21:48, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
:Wikipedianism is not a lifelong activity. Derek Ramsey, the top contributor of all time, has been gone for almost a year. I personally regret the disappearance of spelling champion User:Maximus Rex, and some other heroes are sadly missed.
:There is a precarious cycle where perfectly good editors are drawn into adminship, controversy, troll- and vandal-warring and policy matters. Someone should tell newly adminned editors that they should keep on contributing to articles, particularily ones that do not attract controversy. I have had my share of bickering over Judaism articles, warred with some trolls and have had "JUDE JUDE" plastered over my userpage, but always had the benefit of being able to fall back on medical subjects, which are rarely POV battlegrounds.
:I would certainly recommend a retaining policy for good editors. While granting more privileges would be unwise, it might be nice to form a content conference or another clique of highly experienced editors who do not care for administrative tasks and rather sink their teeth into something more substantial that does not involve vandals and that nice [rollback] button.
:Apart from the above, a much tighter "mood pollution" policy may produce some results. Some ideas: 1. Every personal attack is a bannable offense, 2. The three-revert rule is enforced as strictly as possible, 3. It must become easier to ban editors from articles they edit war over continuously. JFW | T@lk 23:50, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards - this is a lot like what I was suggesting above. JFW | T@lk 18:08, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Where are all the old hands?

message: *You posted this picture a little over a year ago, but you haven't included any sort of copyright notice with it. -Litefantastic 13:24, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Flag of [[Syldavia]]

message: This page states:
* Wik: Last edit May 21, 2004. Returned under the username Gzornenplatz
I was just wondering if this had been established as fact somewhere, or if this is someone being deliberately controversial? -- Francs2000 | Talk  11:42, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  User:Wik 

message: to all concerned, please do not use the edit summaries as a vehicle for dialog. please use this talk page instead. also, please review Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot, if you haven't recently. Kingturtle 01:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  avoiding the potential edit war 

message: Users, please stop reverting the edits on this page. Actually yes, about 12 days without an edit does makes a user missing and there's nothing wrong with that and that doesn't mean you can remove them all. How are you gonna stop me from restoring them? -- Mike Garcia | talk 21:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Mike Garcia|Mike Garcia]] still does it 

message: this edit ?  He hasn't made any edits since June 1 when he speedied his user and talk pages.  It's not clearly any of our business (perhaps clearly NOT our business).  Is there any relevant policy or guideline?  -- Rick Block (talk) 03:38, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
:Yeah, it's very disturbing. I'm not sure what to make of it. It would have been nice to see his user page prior to that, but unfortunately, the history is deleted. --Deathphoenix 17:08, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Using my all-seeing admin powers, there are only three deleted edits to the user page in the history: he moved User:BillCook to User:BillCook/Archival and then blanked it, and then it was deleted.  The history is all at User:BillCook/Archival. Still slightly disturbing nonetheless. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  did anyone notice 

message: Should there be some sort of minimum for an individual to qualify as a missing Wikipedian? User:Pietro, who was recently added only had 223 edits according to Kate's tools. BlankVerse ∅ 14:01, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedians? 

message: Xiong has put up a goodbye message and presumably left in the aftermath of several heated discussions. The talk page as it existed is at: . Xiong had set up an email address; if it has not been reset it can be reached at Special:Emailuser/Xiong -- one could also try xiong@mochamail.com.  22:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  User:Xiong has left (presumably) 

message: I removed him from the list because his "last edit" was yesterday.  Let's wait a few weeks before adding him, and hopefully he isn't gone. --Idont Havaname 15:24, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (He has since stated on his user page that he's on a wikibreak and will be making fewer edits than usual.  So it was definitely premature to add him.) --Idont Havaname 02:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wait before adding a user (re: [[User:Aranda56]]) 

message: * User:Greaterlondoner
* User:Louis23rd
* User:Edward
* User:iwishpeoplewerenicer
* User:Shadez
* User:Realshadez
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Iwishpeoplewerenicer (talk • contribs) 
:Note: This message was the first edit by User:Iwishpeoplewerenicer.  User:Realshadez has six edits.  User:Shadez has 15 edits, mainly to user space.  User:Louis23rd has 18 edits.  User:Edward has a pretty high edit count (from checking his contributions just now, at least 1000), but he last edited two days ago, so he shouldn't be included.  User:Greaterlondoner has several hundred edits, but as the top of this page indicates, he'd probably need at least a thousand to be included here.  We've had a lot of people leave the project, much more than we can list here, so there needed to be some boundary edit count to decide who to include.  1000 edits is a criterion a lot of editors have used for voting on requests for adminship (see also Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards), and most people with 1000 or more edits have been here for several months, so that's probably why the criterion was picked. --Idont Havaname 22:12, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  these people seem missing 

message: I think this user is notorious enough to be included on the list, and the 75 were only a small proportion of the actual edits she did. She edited one theme, not one article, and has an article as Constance Cumbey, SqueakBox 19:37, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cumbey

message: 2 edits makes a wikip[edian. I don't think so and assume it was some trollish attempt to say wikipedia sucks, hence removed, SqueakBox 14:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: High Hopes