User talk:Jeffq/2006a

This is an archive of inactive discussions. Please do not edit it. If you wish to revitalize an old topic, bring it up on the active talk page.

Stamps

Please give an example of when it would be OK to use an image of a postage stamp. The wiki policy statement makes no sense. Wahkeenah 06:54, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't create the template. You might want to post your question at Template talk:USPSstamp. But the license maintains that one can use a USPS stamp in an article or a section that discusses the stamp itself, but not in an article or section that is about the subject, using the stamp as a picture of the subject. In other words, the Postage stamp article could use it, and perhaps a section of Little Orphan Annie titled "Postage stamp" (that specifically talked about the release of the LOA stamp) could use it, but it couldn't be used as an illustration of Annie herself. I suspect this is because the US Postal Service itself only has a license from the creators (or illustrators) of Little Orphan Annie to use the image for postage and philately. That's the problem with restrictive licenses. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see why anyone would want to discuss "the stamp itself" without discussing the picture on it. Without the picture, the only thing worth talking about is the denomination and/or the stamp's value to collectors. That certainly sounds like a rule invented by a committee. If I were you, since I didn't invent the template, I would let those who did invent the template be the ones to take the illustrations out, and otherwise leave them alone. Wahkeenah 15:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying that a stamp discussion in the article makes sense. The point is that the license says it can't be used to illustrate the subject, only its use on a stamp. Don't shoot the messenger. If you want to argue the point, take it up with the people who created the license tag, or with the US Postal Service, who probably crafted the copyright license on which the tag is based. Proper image licensing is taken very seriously on Wikipedia these days. And I shouldn't have to point out to an experienced Wikipedian that the entire wiki philosophy encourages people to take action when they see action that needs to be taken. I happened to come across Little Orphan Annie during other work and discovered this license violation, so I removed the image and commented on why I did so, so that interested editors could address the problem. (This is in contrast to so many other editors who seem to feel their actions are so self-evident and self-justifying that they neither bother to add an edit summary nor post an explanation or justify their actions on talk pages.) Someone did come up with a resolution (although they failed to explain it), and although I am dubious about the action, it seemed to be at least nominally within the license, so I commented and got out of the discussion. But if you still wish to discuss image licenses with me, I would suggest you first read the current policy articles, starting with Wikipedia:Image use policy. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:57, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, not trying to shoot the messenger. What this tells me is simply that there is virtually no practical situation where a postage stamp can be used in wikipedia that's of any value. I've tried to read the "fair use" writeup, and it's mostly gibberish, so I try to stick with photos that I took myself, and then no one can yell at me, other than for it being a poorly-taken photo. My standard approach is to try to add and correct facts in articles that interest me, and let the "fair use police" (of which there is no shortage) deal with image issues. As far as archiving goes, I don't know how to do that, but I might just delete all of it and let it start over, since it's mostly inane junk anyway. Thanks for your help. :) Wahkeenah 17:06, 7 January 2006 (UTC) P.S. Has anyone ever actually sued wikipedia for copyright violation? Since they are supposedly non-profit, it would be the proverbial "trying to get blood from a turnip".

Not sure if I did it right, and not sure why anyone would want to read it, but I attempted the archive process. :) Wahkeenah 18:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Your quotes, etc.

The above was a postscript, don'cha know. That's why I didn't repeat the signature. :)

• Thesis: "A true rationalist cannot state that everything can be explained rationally..."
• Antithesis: "Science doesn't have all the answers. It only has all the answers known to be true."
• Synthesis: Everything can be explained rationally. We just don't necessarily know what that explanation is!

Wahkeenah 18:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

• I DID sign it, and then put a postscript after the signature, just like in an old-fashioned letter. Feel free to re-add the redundant signature to avoid confusion or irrational explanations. :) Wahkeenah 18:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
  • And just like old fashioned letters, ours "crossed in the mail". :) Wahkeenah 18:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

re:editing tips

Awiting discorporation, eh? Well I always say it's always good to be morbidly pessimistic. That way, all surprises are good.

Yes, I got your note about editing tips, and right you are. And, thank you for helping me be a better editor. Yes, I have finally disciplined myself to (almost) always use edit summaries on articles, but often not on talk pages -- but I can, and I will. And right, I usually do use the + key, and I may have missed it this time. Yes, section edits -- I totally see your point, about how it is useful in the history, right.

Yes, poor Toby777. I never would have found him if, in addition to writing the vanity, he hadn't also inserted a spamlink to it in another article. Also when first looked at the article, I wrote and and asked him if he had any verification for the claims in the article, and he was pretty snarky. But after I finished with it, he put it up on AfD... only to learn that all his base belong to us. I must admit a mortal sin, though: I felt just a tad gleeful about the whole thing. I suppose that means I'm going to hell. Carry on! Herostratus 03:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi JEFF :)

From none other than 0waldo 23:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC) Jeff, I'm not going to comment on this one ;) Hi. I'm a mostly useless member of society.... Ouch! Quit hitting me, jes kidding me friend :) 0waldo 00:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for editing the List of Veronica Mars episodes that I made. I'm new to making articles in Wikipedia. And you're right, I did copy-and-paste from Angel episode pages. And thanks for setting up categories, which I'm still unsure about how to make. alliterator 10:37, 01 February, 2006

Format

thanks for the tip -- Piersmasterson 15:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Answer to question

Could you explain why you reverted my correction of the spelling of "Anti-Semetism" in the eponymous section hading of Talk:Carnivàle? Thanks. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

That was an accident. I guess I added my comments to a page I looked at in the "history" section rather than the CURRENT discussion page. Sorry about that. I'll put yours back like it was. I was not even aware I had done that. -- JeffStickney 01:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Please check your WP:NA entry

Greetings, editor! Your name appears on Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. If you have not done so lately, please take a look at that page and check your listing to be sure that following the particulars are correct:

1. If you are an admin, please remove your name from the list.
2. If you are currently interested in being considered for adminship, please be sure your name is in bold; if you are opposed to being considered for adminship, please cross out your name (but do not delete it, as it will automatically be re-added in the next page update).
3. Please check to see if you are in the right category for classification by number of edits.

Thank you, and have a wiki wiki day! BD2412 T 05:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Buffy capitalization

Hi Jeff. I thought I'd give you a heads-up as I moved your capitalization piece to Wikipedia:WikiProject Buffy/General Xiner 06:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Montesquieuian gauntlet

Montesquieuian gauntlet has been proposed for deletion. I moved it from PROD (quick-delete) to AfD to give you or anyone else a chance to defend it. It has zero Google hits so it will go down unless there is some source that can be cited. Discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Montesquieuian gauntlet. Herostratus 08:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Aleta

Please do not add additional meanings of "Aleta" to Aleta Ogord. That was the whole point of moving Ms. Ogord to her own page and starting a disambiguation on the main Aleta entry.--StAkAr Karnak 13:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

If I read you right, you're unhappy with the addition of the "fictional heroines" category. I did not add that category; I had merely fixed its capitalization. From the article history, it appears you should talk to Dimadick, who added Category:Fictional Heroines initially, then added the correctly-capitalized (but apparently undesirable) Category:Fictional heroines tag after you removed it. I hope this helps. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The Saga of the Concrete Hippo

Hello Jeff: Thank you for reminding me of that requirement. The page history totally slipped my mind. I've pasted it at Talk:Walsall/Concrete Hippo. Teaches me to be more careful in the future! Thanks, and cheers, Bratsche^talk 03:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

"Browncoat" and Serenity profit postings moved to separate section, Serenity profit, below

I have changed the link

Hi Jeffq. Your edit to Flight 19 changed a direct link to a pertinent reference, into a link to virtually nothing. That's the reason I have changed it back. Cheers. Moriori 01:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand your change, but the markup as it stood caused technical problems with the article, as bare-link numbering is shared with footnote numbering. I've reverted back to the fully-footnoted version. The original URL is still available in the footnote, with the addition of a proper citation of the source (instead of just a bare link). Please read my justification for this format at Talk:Flight 19#Footnotes and Navy report link if you wish to discuss this. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Serenity profit

Oh, and it's also nice to find another Firefly fan (Browncoat?) on Wikipedia. Did you here about the Serenity (movie) making a profit? Hopefully, we'll be able to see some more episodes in the future. Bratsche^talk 03:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to Browncoat, I'm definitely one (by the second definition, of course). I don't really frequent the fan sites, except to try to find WP-quality reliable sources (and to find an image suitable for printing on a T-shirt). Speaking of the former, do you have a source for the film making a profit? It'd be worth mentioning in the article if we could source it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's one from Slice of Sci Fi, and another from Newsarama. Now the first one is a blog, which really isn't too much of a good source, and the second looks a little better. What do you think? Cheers, Bratsche^talk 13:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I did some research on your links and their related information in an attempt to track down reliable sources of data:

• Newsarama: WP-unreliable (Alexa = 5K, but source is discussion board); links to Whedonesque thread and intriguing but irrelevant Slate article
  • HOWEVER, Matt_Fabb, the initial Newsarama poster, included some WP-reliable sources (see below).
• WHEDONesque: WP-unreliable (Alexa = 25K, but source is discussion group); circular reference to Newsarama; lots of user calculations of unsourced and possibly sourced but anecdotal (sample) data
• SliceOfSciFi.com: WP-unreliable (Alexa = 223K and source is discussion group); calculations based on Newsrama data and claimed but unsourced VideoBusiness data
• VideoBusiness.com: WP-reliable (Alexa = 42K); couldn't find sales figures either with site search engine or Google, but direct link included in Newsarama post (see below)

My initial review showed mostly circular rererences and lots of opining without bothering to cite specific source material — par for the course of discussion groups. The only set of meaningful sources I found came from the first Newsarama poster:

• Box Office Mojo:
  • Serenity domestic gross $25.5M thru 2005-11-17
  • Serenity international gross $13.3M thru 2006-02-19
  • Serenity production budget $39M
    • NOTE: better link is BOM Serenity summary page, which includes domestic, international, total, production budget, and opening weekend data, with tab-links to details
  • WP-reliable (Alexa = 3K)
• VideoBusiness: Serenity $9.19M revenue in DVD rental thru 2006-01-15; WP-reliable (see above)
• Serenitymovie.org: "Estimates - DVD sales figures in dollars" discussion thread: quick review suggests potential faulty assumptions about consistency of weekly box office numbers; estimates are based on other films' best weekly rankings year-to-date coming from multiple magazine reports, a complicated set of inequalities to parse correctly from a conceptual, not just algebraic, POV; WP-unreliable site & thread, anyway
• TVWeek.com, "USA Gets Broadcast Rights to 'Virgin'": TV deal "with an estimated value of $26 million", whatever that means (worth to whom? NBC Universal Television? the studios? the distribution companies?); WP-reliable (Alexa = 65K)
  • moreover, Newsarama poster's assumption of Serenity split of deal is unsourced and highly speculative, especially given the kind of math used by Hollywood (see "Gross Misunderstanding", the aforementioned intriguing Slate article)

Other than the first two sources' raw data, virtually everything involves a lot of original research by unidentified folks at WP-unreliable sources, making it hard for a WP editor to evaluate the value of the material except by doing their own original research to double-check.

I got this from about an hour of link tracking and quick-reading, so it's conceivable that there are bits of sourceable information buried or linked to in all the discussion jabber. But this amply demonstrates why it's so important to get reliable sources. These discussion groups and blogs feed off of each other's inadequate sourced and therefore unverifable data, so who knows what wild ideas they might generate? Even when it seems well thought-out, as Matt_Fabb's material does, it can easily disguise conceptual errors (not to mention biases and hidden agendas) that are best left thrashed out by a respectable publication. I certainly hope the premise is true, but it's not WP-worthy if we can't make if adequately verifiable. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

A side note: I really wish these people would learn how to create proper web links. Whether they're raw HTML, discussion-board markup, or wiki external links, the number of links that say useless things like "this link" or "1" or "an interesting post" seem to greatly outweigh meaningfully labelled links. Just one of my pet peeves. (I appreciate your identifying the source names in your links above!) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Request for edit summary

Hi. I am not a bot, and I'd like to second Mathbot's request. I noticed that you do quite a bit of useful work, often in bulk, on Buffy episode articles, so the lack of edit summaries makes it quite a bit harder to track what's going on with these articles without laboriously diff'ing each change. I do a lot of bulk editing, too, and I know the summaries can be a pain while updating 144 articles quickly. Might I recommend opening a text-editor window with one or more prepared edit summaries that can be easily pasted? I've found that to be very helpful. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hiya. Yeah I know the edit summaries are useful when tracking histories... today I added infoboxes/images to all the Buffy/Angel eps that didn't have. I think adding edit summaries to what I've done today may have added a lot of time to the work itself. Nonetheless i will try to make more of an effort in future. Btw I have been updating this page Wikipedia:WikiProject Buffy/Episodes to record progress, and short-term tasks in need of completion for Buffy/Angel episodes. Thanks -- Paxomen 18:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Request for assistance

Hi, Jeff, I'm the mediator assigned to the "Humanist Papacy" argument. I noticed your note. Neither editor involved has gotten in touch with me. I was wondering if you could give me your take on the issues. Best I can tell, they seem to be in a dispute over whether humanism is with a small h or a capital H, and arguing about the influence of the organization HEU. I am new to mediation and to this subject, i.e., I'm an idiot, so I'm just learning about the process and gathering information. Thanks, Chandler75 03:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you've decided to get involved in mediation suggests that you may have already read more than I have in this debate. But I'll look it over as well and let you know what I think. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, one of the editors has made some comments at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-02-28_The_Humanist_papacy#Comments_by_others. It sounds like the issue is this HEU and it sounds like the capitalization issue has been settled. Apparently one is trying to say it is the organization everyone follows, and the other is saying it's not compulsory and not everyone follows it. I don't know why something like that just can't be stated. I'm flying by the seat of my pants, so I am inviting other comment.Chandler75 00:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Chandler75"

I appreciate your input. My feeling is that the mediation cabal, which is an informal branch of wikipedia, is probably not going to be able to help in this matter. We can't force anyone to do anything - I think they're probably going to have to go the full dispute route. However, if you have anything that will be of help, I would be grateful. But if you don't want to wade all through it, that's fine too. I'm involved in my own mediation which probably is going to be very minor at this point - but this one doesn't look like it's calming down, and I still haven't heard from Rohnik.Chandler75 09:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Jurassic Park Continuity Separation

Hi Jeff, I know this may seem highly nerdy of me, but I have put a lot of time, effort, and money into utilizing information from the Jurassic Park films and separating the canon for the movie from the novel and establishing what is movie canon and what is novel canon. The information I presented is sourced off of my own Jurassic Park website I spent three years in development time and another three years making it, despite thousands of countless viewings of the film to make sure whatever information presented was indeed accurate. If there is genuinely an issue in the explanation I would like to re-write it instead of eliminating it entirely from the article. Continuity separation between the movies, novels, video games, toys, and so forth are important as if you combine everything together it is inconsistant. I found this important enough that it really should be noted in the article. --Tyrannosaur 15:02, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

My edit was not meant to denigrate your efforts to establish canonicity of Jurassic Park materials. The problem is that Wikipedia does not allow original research. Wikipedia is a compilation of information that is already published or recorded by other primary and secondary sources ("reliable sources" in the Wikipedia vernacular), and those sources must have a reputation in the world at large (not just among fans of the publication or website). Determination of what constitutes a reliable source can be contentious, but one principle is fairly clear: editors cannot use their own outside writings as sources unless they themselves (or their work) meet the notability requirements for inclusion in Wikipedia, and recent events have strengthened the onus against Wikipedia:Autobiography writing about one's own work. But even if you just got this material from a Jurassic Park fan website, it would probably not qualify for inclusion in a Wikipedia article. However, if you disagree, you are welcome to bring this up on the article's talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I understand the no original research policy and I concede to your point about it; however, I wish to present as much factual information to anyone that is curious. Don't people come to read Wikipedia in order to seek factual information? Of course, I recall that being the purpose of this site, or more accurately they seek information without going through the extensively daunting research procedures that discourage many. In order to prove the research is factual and unbiased I have a group of peers, the site's staff, to help check any research done. I would like to invite you to also check over the information in order to help futher the research accuracy. I feel it is of upmost importance to have correct information to anyone who seeks it. I do not do this in an attempt to seek notoriety. My research is to share and be as correct and unbiased as possible for anyone who seeks to know more about the subject. My site is currently the only place online or off taking information from the original source materials and transcribing it for the sake of giving the public accurate information. --Tyrannosaur 21:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The opening statement of Wikipedia:Verifiability is:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources. [emphasis in original]

Please read this critical policy page for an explanation of why this must be. In short, Wikipedia editors are not in (and aren't expected to be in) a position to confirm the truth of its sources, which is why the Foundation insists on using reputable published material only for sourcing. Wikipedia has no system to determine the accuracy, depth, or objectivity of your (or anyone else's) website and research. It uses the marketplace of ideas, in which writers must convince respected publishers to vouch for their material, to winnow out the vast number of websites, vanity presses, and other means that humanity has these days for communicating individual thoughts and opinions. Again, this is not a judgment of the accuracy or utility of any particular source; it's just a necessary threshhold to set to avoid having Wikipedia turn into a global blog. I hope this helps explain the rationale. I really do recommend you read these policy pages; many thousands of people-years have gone into forming them. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Ok. --69.232.218.27 04:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know that you can copy and paste from the policy, that's real great. Glad to see you mastered the ctrl+C and ctrl+V technique. I believe it is the the Editor's job to make sure things are indeed correct. With "original research" aside, anyone can sit there watch all three films, read the comics, read both books, play the video games, and ride the rides and notice they belong in their own canon. So, instead of striking something from the article, why don't you make sure these things are correct? After all, you said yourself, you want verifiability there is indeed a number of verifiable sources, very published sources, with numerous differences to indeed warrant a seperate continuity for all the media in the Jurassic Park film series. The only thing I did was translate these verifiable sources and then my unbiased peers on my site reviewed these with the same copies of the books and other media to satisfy the claim. There are all these other pages on Wikipedia who only reference other websites and information that hasn't been published outside the movies, books and television shows, the only published information is the movie/book/show itself. Are you going to find all these pages and cut their, although factual, not otherwise published material? After all, if you wish to get picky about one you should get picky about them all. There are numerous amounts of information on these numerous subjects with pages and pages of information. Does that count as original research when it's just pulling information from the book/movie/show and putting it into a wiki article? If so, then most of the information in reference to films, television shows, and books and such should be pulled as you said yourself, it is not verifiable and is considered Original Research. --Tyrannosaur 16:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I was curious, if the point of this encyclopedia is to have verfiable information, but not truth, then whats the point of the encyclopedia?

Everything this guy is talking about--Tyranno--is true. I've been to his site. He's was part of some of the most respected if not famous Jurassic Park research teams ever, and he's now gone off, used that information and created a sort of encyclopedia.

The Encyclopedia is constantly open to debate and because of this, certain ideas are grown and changed and become more correct.

If anything, I'd rather go to his site for JP information than here because this website tells me almost nothing except for outside information, nothing really about the story, nothing about anything except for who paid for what. If you watch the movie, or know anything abotu it, his information is verifiable.

Its interesting that your information has to be verified because most people I know don't bother even checking wikipedia because its usually wrong. If you're trying to go for verfiable over truth, it would seem you've succeded becuase no one takes this site seriously.

One of your external links, the one with the flubs, has several "flubs" on it that are not: ie, the cars turning around which is explained in the script that they go through a visitor rest area loop; the t-rex cliff which is actually a different part of the fence then the part the rex came out from among other innacuracies...

Oh, and btw... Jurassic Park doens't have two musical themes. Most of the public knows only two of the themes from JP, but there are at least 5 seperate and identfiable themes.--Voyager1 18:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Tyrannosaur and 70.118.81.116/Voyager1, you seem to be under several misapprehensions:

• I am not "the Editor". I am one of more than a million editors (including yourselves), and have no special authority over anything in Wikipedia, including the Jurassic Park article.
• I have not added additional "correct" material because I do not have any to add to this specific topic. I merely removed material that had no cited source. If "there is [ sic ] indeed a number of verifiable sources, very published sources", citing them would go a long way toward ensuring your material stays in the article. (Of course, like any other material, these sources would be subject to being verified.) No editor is under any obligation to add material. Each is only responsible for whatever edits they make, and should be prepared to justify their actions should they be challenged. I have done so here, but it is more appropriate to have such discussions on the article's talk page. I have therefore started a new topic there which I invite you both to participate in.
• Claiming you or any group of people are unbiased is pointless. Everyone claims to be unbiased. A successful argument from authority requires one to be an established authority, which is the very point of requiring reliable sources. If Tyrannosaur and his/her peers and website are an authority, they should be able to cite evidence of this, not just make claims.
• One of Wikipedia's founding principles is the evolution of articles by the individual attentions of millions of editors. At any given time, there are thousands of articles that don't completely meet Wikipedia guidelines. This is not a reason to excuse any one article for doing so. The whole point of having millions of editors is that each tackles whatever editing challenge, large or small, that they have in front of them.
• Incorporating information from reliable sources does not mean copying and pasting exact text. That is copyright violation. Editors are required to use their own words for the majority of the material, with only limited, credited quotations from other sources. This is standard writing practice throughout the world of publishing. (There are many blogs, user forums, and other websites that shamelessly and illegally copy vast tracts of information without attribution. This is only one of the many reasons such sources are not considered reliable. And please don't misinterpret this as a criticism of Tyrannosaur's website. It can't be — I have no idea what that site looks like because Tyrannosaur has thus far not named it or provided a link to it.)
• Complaining to me about other potentially erroneous material in the article is pointless. The correct forum to bring up accuracy issues for Jurassic Park is Talk:Jurassic Park, when you will reach the appropriate audience of readers and editors.
• Wikpedia is not engaged in a popularity contest. It is what it is. Anyone who believes "its [sic] usually wrong" need not visit the site. However, with a current Alexa rating of 20, I respectfully suggest that the opinions of Voyager1 and "most people I know" are not shared by the general web-browsing public.
• Insulting me ("Glad to see you mastered the ctrl+C and ctrl+V technique") will not enhance your case, and is against the Wikipedia policies (no personal attacks) that you appear not to be interested in reading. I haven't quoted policies for my own amusement; this has been a good-faith effort to help you understand the actions I took. (In fact, I usually quote policy because there is so freakin' much of it that it can be a real challenge to find the specific points that are being discussed. It's my way getting to the point.)
• Above all, participation in Wikipedia is completely voluntary. If you don't like its policies, you are under no obligation to stay. In fact, the MediaWiki Foundation is happy to provide anyone with a copy of its MediaWiki software. This allows anyone to create their own global encyclopedia without all the annoying restrictions.

I have to say that these 7 March postings, unlike the earlier ones, strike me as being more in angry reaction than careful contemplation of how to advance the cause of including the earlier material. I ask that, instead of arguing with me on my talk page, Tyrannosaur go to Talk:Jurassic Park and make the case there, where everyone involved in the article can consider the issues. (This is standard practice, done thousands of times each day for thousands of articles by tens of thousands of editors.) I also invite Voyager1 to assist in this cause which s/he is obviously very interested in, and not spend time insulting a single editor who is, after all, only one more among millions. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Buffy Checklist

Hiya, just letting some people who regularly work on Buffyverse articles know know there is now a checklist for non-episode articles in place to highlight articles needing work on, and articles coming into completion. It is available at the main project page, since this is where the 'WikiProject Buffy template' on the discussion page of all Buffyverse pages directs people:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Buffy#Checklist

It mainly discludes articles since they are dealt with at Wikipedia:WikiProject Buffy/Episodes

Thanks -- AnGeL X 16:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Religion

Dear Jeff, I am afraid your comment "I'd be shocked if other religions didn't have sex scandals. You can find sex scandals in any social group that frowns on sex and has authority figures who are human beings.)" actually reinforces my view. There is currently a spate of teacher sex scandals. They don't involve religion or frowning on sex. I suspect there are plenty of atheist sex scandals that we just are not aware of. Sex crimes are unfortunately a part of human nature regardless of religion or lack thereof. We call it concupiscence. Sexual abuse is not tied to religion, celibacy, or any such thing. It happens in all cultures. And btw we revere sex as a sacred thing. An anti-Semite would not be a good person to comment on Judaism. Likewise those who are anti-religious probably should not be editing articles on religious topics. Their POV is often so central they don't recognize it.

My desire was to simply balance things in a way that would actually lend credence to wikipedia. Covering only one part of the issue is just POV in disguise. You could have shown me how to do it by rewording the article rather then deleting it or you could have given me some time to do it. I have noticed other articles where POV exists and is defended. No one is permitted to edit them even if the article is factually in error. Also I have noticed other stubs or incomplete articles that are allowed to continue. This one got "special" treatment. That certainly raises suspicions. I think that no matter what I did or did not do the article was not going to survive. Wikipedia appears to be simply a forum not an encyclopedia. I think that should be made clear on the main page. Frankly after this I would not trust wikipedia as a source and if I were a teacher I would make it clear that students could not use it. I expect over time that will become the common consensus. This is a pity because it was a good idea.Cestusdei 05:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The reason I specifically said "social groups" is because I am agreeing with you that sex scandals aren't directly tied to religion per se. I am sure you're right that there are atheist sex scandals. However, you are incorrect in saying that the teacher sex scandals have nothing to do with frowning on sex. It is precisely because our society frowns on sex between adults and minors and between authority figures and their vulnerable subjects (two separate issues) that teacher-student sex is a scandal. My point was not to judge whether frowning on sex in any particular situation was good or bad, it was just to point out that sex scandals are a logical consequence of fallible human beings having taboos about sex.

One reason that experienced editors get impatient with newer ones is that the latter tend to argue points that seem to be primarily formed from their first impressions and not by the considerable contrary evidence known by the experienced folks. I will point out two of these inaccurate impressions that you seem to have:

1. When an editor doesn't fix a problem, it means they don't want it fixed. It may seem obvious to you that an experienced editor could quickly do the rewriting I suggested that you do, but this is not necessarily true. I'm a firm believer in not doing something unless I do it well. Not everyone sets this standard for themselves. I considered doing this work for you, the person most interested in keeping this article, as I have done for many editors in my 2-1/2 year Wikipedia career. It's a good gesture and provides guidance by example. Unfortunately, I make upwards of 50 edits a day on Wikipedia and often more than 100 on Wikiquote, so I must be very selective in what work I do. During the vote, I was using my precious WP time to vote on several dozen AfDs, each of which I investigated. I simply didn't have time to do a good job rewriting an article that could reasonably be done by someone else more interested in it. The reason I'm spending time responding to you now is that encouraging a new editor to stick with WP is ultimately far more important than resolving issues on any single article. (Articles can always be recreated, but good people lost to bad experience may never return.)
2. This article was deleted too hastily. The standard time between nomination and closure of an article for deletion entry is 5 days, which is just how long this one was given. (I spent a chunk of my limited WP time today cleaning up business with the other 40 or so AfDs from this day that I voted on, which is how I noticed your complaints after my last posting.) As far as I can see, it was treated no differently than R. J. Rummel (kept after reliable sources cited), Istory (kept after radical reconstruction from an unsourced commercial advertisement), Bob and Sarah V.S. Vietnam (deleted after claims of notabilty failed to be proven), ACPOC Syndrome (deleted after no one could find a source for the term, despite some really useful information in the article), and many, many others. Five days may seem like too short a time to evaluate an article. (I think so myself; on Wikiquote, I was the driving force behind the policy that requires at least 2 weeks to evaluate nominated articles.) But many years of experience have shown the WP community that most articles whose editors fail to respond to legitimate complaints about their content or sourcing won't do any better in a longer period of time. I believe this is because it usually takes a few months for new editors to get enough of a feel for how Wikipedia works to realize the right way to ensure their articles don't get canned. I think there is a conscious expectation that we will lose some editors who take the Wikipedia advice to be bold but don't also read up on practices — editors who will be understandably angry that their new article was deleted before it had a chance to grow. This is certainly regrettable, but it's a price the community pays to stem the tide of hundreds (thousands?) of truly junk articles that are created every day. (There's no objective way to tell what is "junk" and what isn't, so inevitably the drawn line will get rid of some useful stuff while allowing other useless stuff to stay.)

I hope this provides a little perspective that you may not have had in your time thus far here. I won't bother you again unless you ask for assistance. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I will be writing any further articles, so you won't need to bother me again. Any forum that allows, for example propaganda on the 911 section of the bin Laden article or seems to be indulgent in favor of or against certain groups, will not change because of me. I have seen it before on other forums. This one will inevitably follow. As I have said before, some POV's are more equal then others. I won't bother you anymore either.Cestusdei 05:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The Reality Dysfunction

Sorry if I removed the unreferenced tag without fully thinking it through, but ... I mea, come on, its a book article. That the information within comes from the book mentioned seems self-evident. On another note, given that you quickly, and apparently easily, put the correct reference in, why didn't you simply do that in the first place instead of placing an ugly tag on the article? Never mind! The article is improved, and Wikipedia moves on.Ppe42 05:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You ask an excellent question, kemosabe. Here's a hint: I completely forgot that I was the one who tagged it in the first place. I divide my work between a small group of tasks that each take hours to do properly, a larger group of tasks that only take me minutes to knock off, and a huge group of tasks each of which takes only seconds to do. Tagging unsourced articles is in the third category, and once tagged, these articles often get sources from their more involved editors, so my seconds of work pay off by encouraging interested parties to do required WP tasks. Some articles, however, cause editors to complain or refuse to cooperate. Such articles go into my middle group, where I must put a bit more effort into resolving the problem. It took me a few seconds to tag TRD; it took me several minutes to collect the reference information and add it. (It also spun me off into a side issue of learning the current state of Template:Cite book and fixing some related cite templates.) It is also taking me rather more time to explain my actions, but the dividend I hope to get is another Wikipedian who will henceforth add citations to articles. To borrow from a popular saying, I don't mind feeding villages, but it's even more useful and rewarding to teach people to feed themselves. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Tanya Hansen

Hi, I searched at Norway's two biggest tabloids and found these (in norwegian): 8th most searched on Kvasir in 2005 [1], in court for a bankrupcy [2], [3], [4] and [5], something regarding a rap video [6], eh it too much, the searches are Dagladet and VG. I believe she has retired from porn now, though I'm not sure. Eivind 09:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:SI multiples

Hi, I just did exactly the same as you did and didn't see the fractional units on the side of the table. I think the template needs to be changed to be more visable. What are you thoughts? Fosnez 11:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding; I let this issue fall between the cracks. I agree we need to change this. I have a proposed change that I will recommend, but I'm waiting for a book from which I can cite a compelling reason to do so. I'll probably post my recommendation before the end of March and take action (unless a good counterproposal is made) within a week after that. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:13, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, keep me up to date and I will vote for the proposal if that is nessary Fosnez 11:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Religious & mythological motifs

You should probably go back and mark the Ark of the Covenant, the True Cross and the Holy Grail with [[artifact (fantasy)|magical artifact]]. I primarily edit religious entries, and without getting into a protracted argument about it, there are adherents of the Finnish indigenous religion who would take just as much issue with your assertion as Jews or Christians would take with the aforementioned entries being labeled "fantasy". Sampo is a historically attested religious motif derived from the Kalevala, not an artifact from "role-playing games and fantasy literature" as portrayed in the inadequate link you are insisting upon.[7] --WeniWidiWiki 04:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I must confess that I made a mistake in not examining the two articles in question, Artifact (archaeology) and Artifact (fantasy), before reverting your edit to Sampo. I hadn't realized that the "fantasy" article has nothing to do with mythology and is completely inappropriate for all four of the articles mentioned. On the other hand, not one of these supposed artifacts has ever been proven to exist. I might be tempted to create a third article, Artifact (religious-mythological) (or something like that; it's hard to come up with a simple title that won't raise hackles), that would include legendary but undiscovered artifacts. There is still the matter that the archaeology version is supposed to be human-crafted, and Ilmarinen is an immortal, but I won't argue the point without a more specific article to point to. I apologize for my too-bold action. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem. There definitely should be a category or something for such objects, as they are pretty much universal and the inherent symbolism is often integral to the religions from whence they derive. For example, the True Cross is obviously represented by the Crucifix and Mjolnir was historically used as a symbol of the indigenous Norse religion. If you create a new entry, let me know and I'll add to it. Thanks for not being territorial :D - many editors flip out if you question their edits. --WeniWidiWiki 05:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to be pretty hypocritical to flip out — I recently suggested to another user that editors are "responsible for whatever edits they make, and should be prepared to justify their actions should they be challenged". I try to avoid such egregious mistakes as not reviewing a disputed link (even one I didn't create). This was a disappointing but necessary reminder that I'm quite fallible. [sheepish grin] ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Removing non-printing space in articles

Please do not remove non-printing spaces and blank lines in articles, as you recently did for Youngstown, Ohio. [8] There is no compelling reason, either stylistically or for conservation of bytes, to do so, and there is a very compelling reason to add such space — to make it easier for editors to edit. I see that you have attempted to make the argument on a related issue that the source text of an article isn't as important because "the vast majority of Wikipedia readers aren't reading the source code". This is a very bad philosophy to base tiny changes on, because one of the key features that distinguishes Wikipedia from other encyclopedias is that it is easy to edit. The tendency of many editors (often with computer programming experience) to treat blank space as a sin hurts the effort to make articles easy to edit. (I say that coming from both a programming and professional writing background.) If anything, I would encourage you to add such spacing, not only between headings and image tags, but also between bullets and indentation colons, because (A) such markup is much easier to spot when spaces are included, and (B) many bulleted lists in Wikipedia article sources are so crammed fully of text without spacing that they are extremely difficult to read, let alone edit. Of course, you should not do these edits, either to add or remove spacing, except as part of more significant edits, per WP:AWB#Rules of use, but you probably know that already. Thank you for your cooperation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Since you seem to be up on AWB, I'll assume that you know that AWB removes excess space automatically as one of its features. Given that "remove all excess white space" has been a feature of AWB for as long as I've been using it (which admittedly hasn't been years and years) I'm taking that as a good indication that many editors feel there is a compelling reason to remove unneeded spacing as part of broader edits. (My argument above for the use of nonbreaking space doesn't relate at all to what you're talking about here and so I'll simply ignore that part of your note.) As for the edit you mentioned, comparing the source of the two revisions side by side, I'm having trouble seeing what your complaint is. Aside from the GM-related edit I mentioned in response to someone else (above), the major difference between my edit and your previous edit is that my edit has a single space after periods while yours has two. This makes it harder to read and edit? You commented about using a space after bullets. If this is important to you, why did your edit of the article you cited not have spaces after the asterisks in any of the sections of neighborhoods, external links, etc.? And for that matter, I did not remove any spacing in this fashion, so I'm not sure why you feel it necessary to lecture me on this point.

And as for the AWB rules, yes, I'm familiar with them and no, I'm not doing spurious edits simply to remove space. In my current run, I'm avoiding redirects as described above.

With all due respect, I'm just not seeing the egregious edit I made that compelled you to issue a virtual cease-and-desist order on my use of an integrated feature of AWB. I hope you aren't similarly addressing everyone who ticks that box in AWB before making their edits and that you've simply singled me out raandomly. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 13:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Tsunami

Might I ask you to consider reinstating the anon-editing restriction on Tsunami? Within hours of your removal of the block, the vandalism parade resumed. The article has been hit 8 times from 6 different networks in only 16 hours today. I have no idea why this article is so popular for vandals, but it appears to need longer-term protection. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:49, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's give this a little room to breathe for a few days, maybe. I have noticed that it gets a lot of...attention...but the number of vandals editing isn't all that high when you compare it to the kinds of things that usually earn articles a temporary semi-protection. One of the problems (a deliberate feature, actually) with WP:SEMI is that not only does it lock out all IPs, it locks out all new editors as well, so there can be collateral damage to enthusiastic new editors, who are a key resource to the project. At the moment, it's been about 16 hours since the last edit, so it wouldn't be in keeping with policy or practise to instate a pre-emptive semi-protection. I'll add it to my watchlist and see how things go. -Splash^talk 19:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Jeff

Where's my garbage pail lid? 0waldo 16:27, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Punctuation issues

Jeff, thanks for the guidance. It's really the best way to learn these matters in Wikipedia (though less efficient for others). I must admit, however, that my misinformed activities regarding dashes is taken directly from Wikipedia's own style directives. As for comma placement, I am still not clear on what specifically I did that you refer to. Usually I keep the comma outside a quote that would not be a part of language (such as a title). Otherwise, I hardly ever make a correction on this issue because I know there are multiple accepted styles. Feel free to set me straight. Thanks again for your help. SidP 19:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Please forgive me for not citing the specific edit that caused me to comment. I normally include the links to make my points clear, but my failure this time, combined with your rapid editing, made it rather challenging to identify the article I had a problem with. I was thinking specifically of your otherwise excellent edit [9] to Firefly (TV series). The particular problems I saw were moving a comma inside a quoted phrase ("Earth that was"), and unnecessarily changing Unicode en-dashes (–) into their equivalent HTML character entities (–).

I also didn't provide specific links to the relevant policies, Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes). Taking another look at them, I can see the potential confusion with the dash policy at least, because it currently is somewhat unclear about the use of character entities. On the one hand, it says (in "Dashes and hyphens used on Wikipedia") to "use the HTML entity —, which the MediaWiki engine automatically converts into a numeric entity in the rendered HTML". On the other hand, in the intro section of the article, in bold, it says "Now that Wikipedia uses UTF-8, these can be entered directly into the article markup. To enter an em dash after your cursor, for instance, you can click the "—" link below the edit box". The confusion probably comes from someone adding the bold statement, once Wikipedia switched to UTF-8, without bothering to update the remaining text to reflect this change. (Worse, the first statement is now in error, as the MediaWiki engine now converts – to a UTF-8 character, not a numeric entity.) I've posted a note on the dash-policy talk page to ask that they update it. Again, I apologize for the lack of details. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your thorough and excellent reply. I will take a look at the comma usage documentation. It will hopefully clear up the problem you identified and my confusion. Thanks for the compliment, by the way. I am merely trying to help make W great. As for the dash documentation, I must admit that I have not recently visited it, so the edits and changes you mention are probably newer than what I have read. I rarely make the changes to a correct usage; however, when I do a global search and replace (it's a lot faster), what you describe can happen. It's much easier to see the html version of the dash specification as well. Nonetheless, I have already made an attempt to use the unicode version since you first brought this to my attention. Again, thanks, and I hope that your future reviews of my editing are satisfactory. (I trust you will let me know otherwise so I can continue to improve my efforts.) SidP 14:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Homepage edit

"hope you don't mind the homonym fix from an ugly American; love the quote!" No prob. thanks for the catch, I didn't even notice that mistake... its nice to know that someone else actually reads what people put on their page. I wouldn't even think of you as an "ugly American" after all I am part American so that would be a diss on me also.

Yea that quote is great I'm surprised that more people haven't heard it. Your comment even drove me to do create a list of various quotes that have grabbed my attention over the years. I've been meaning to do it for some time now but until your comment I never got around to doing it... Thanks... Oh well chat to ya later -- UKPhoenix79 10:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your guidence on my errors..

Thanks for taking the time out to help and give a "newb" (well to this site at least) a few tips. I appreciate it and hope to do more to help the project and site in general with my movie and televison knowledge. I think the project is a great one and one worth taking time to devote to so we can have the most vast knowledge available, done by the fans for the fans.

While intentions are good we also have to follow well established protocols and I probably should have realized before I got itchy with the finger on such a thing. There are still thousands of movies left to add to and we have just begun. It is a pleasure to be a part of the ever growing process and it's good to know that there are people who do care and take this whole thing seriously and give new people a chance to get it right when they do something that is against the pre stated rules that have established a unity here.

I can't say I won't make any more mistakes, as to err is human, heck I may even be doing this wrong by where I'm adding this at the moment for all I know..but at least it's one less thing to worry about doing wrong now. I hope you will continue to assist or be a lending voice of knowledge when I am unsure on how to go about something or have done something wrong not realizing I have done so. There are a lot of rules to read through. I tried to read a lot of them but I'm sure there are many more I have yet to learn. Anyway thanks again much appreciated. PantheraLeo 02:42, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry too much about making mistakes; anything we edit can be fixed if necessary. The traditional wiki way to learn is by doing, as suggested by the Wikipedia motto, "be bold!". (And you aren't kidding about the quantity of rules. That's why there are many places where we try to reinforce the idea that Wikipedia is very flexible, like the five pillars article mentioned in the standard welcome message above, and other helpful pages like Wikipedia:Simplified Ruleset.) As far as I'm concerned, you're already doing one thing better than most — using edit summaries, which are always a good idea, even for minor edits. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

fixing references in One weekend a month, two weeks a year

Great to see someone else actually going around fact checking. This is what we really need. I just found the reference for you. I did this using the The Way Back Machine. It's very worth checking this and the google cache when you find a broken link. Having found an old copy, you will then be able to use google to search for a phrase from the article and normally find the new location. This often helps in retaining important information. Anyway, I even put in a bit more specific related facts. There was actually a specific legal change of control with the removal of the governor's veto on deployments in the 1980s. I added a mention to the main United States National Guard article. The current title of this article, One weekend a month, two weeks a year doesn't mean much to anyone not from the USA. Maybe a merge with National Guard or renaming and expansion to something exciting like "Deployment policy of the U.S. National Guard"?

By the way, I'm a well known opponent of direct links and I partly agree with your "fix it or delete" policy, but please remember that people who provide such links are still in the best 10% (as verified by the University of Bartonia :-) of contributors. They are actually providing verifiable material where others don't. I feel we should try encourage and look after them. Please be gentle and try to help them see the benefits of proper referenced links with encouragement.

All the best. Mozzerati 15:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I apologize if I seemed too brusque about replacing the Week link (no pun intended) with a {{citation neeeded}} notice, or if you were (not unreasonably!) offended by the use of the phrase "weasel words". (I cringe every time I use that explanatory link. I wish it had a less offensive title, but some of the WP policy pages are a bit, shall we say, undiplomatic.)

As far as fix-or-delete, I try not to take such action unless I commit to (A) leaving a request for more info from the original editor; (B) monitoring the article for updates; and (C) making a time-delay note in my organizer to ensure I don't forget that I've started something that needs finishing. I'm glad to see in this case that you were able to resolve the problem quickly. And thanks for the tip on the Wayback Machine! I've seen it, but never actually tried to use it to find a broken URL. I'll check there first in the future to avoid putting more of a burden on other conscientious editors.

On the content/merge issue, I don't think I'll get involved, as I'm sure you and other concerned editors will do just fine without my input. This was part of my"drive-by" reference formatting and checking work, so I don't want to get bogged down in larger issues on my victim articles. (I once worked as a university library aide, shelving books. I was the worst employee because I couldn't help skimming through all the books I was shelving. ☺) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry; "no offense taken"; I'm pretty thick skinned and that wasn't even brusque.. It's just deletion of facts gets some people the wrong way, and I fear anything which might upset other editors who put in references :-) In this case, even though I seem to be the main contributor to the article (this surprised me) I was also just a "drive by editor". I think I found it on WP:AFD did the research to get a sensible deletion decision. Mozzerati 21:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Baklava

Thanks for your efforts on Baklava. --Macrakis 01:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Veronica Mars: Neptune, California

Thank you for the corrections and peer review. Not a problem on the advice, best way to improve. BTW, is it standard on Wikipedia to mark an article as needing clean up whenever a lot of new information is added (or it's brand new) our self or is it usually left for someone else to fix it if they decide that is necessary? I am thinking of tackling character pages next and that's going to mean starting from scratch. (Vectorferret 19:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC))

Not only is it perfectly fine to tag an article you yourself wrote for cleanup, it shows a refreshing modesty with which I'm afraid I am personally unfamiliar. ☺ You even used the currently preferred dated cleanup template, which shows more awareness of wiki practices than many experienced editors. I predict you will quickly become a well-known and respected editor here.

Basically, cleanup tags are just one person's opinion about the current state of an article. Like virtually any other change to an article, other editors are free to remove it if they disagree, but other other editors (or the original tagger) can restore it, too. If there's some contention, or if one feels the cleanup rationale isn't obvious, the article's talk page is the place to clarify and discuss. You shouldn't feel compelled to tag your own articles., but it does call a bit more attention to interested readers, thus encouraging more effort in producing a better article. About the only thing you should do after adding substantial material to a stub is remove the stub tag, which you already knew. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Your post on my talk page

I have responded on my page. Respectfully, --Alphachimp ^talk 00:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Outrageously long signature

I noticed in your recent edit to Talk:SOL that your signature completely overwhelms your posting in edit mode. Might I suggest you review Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages#Important considerations, especially the section on "Length", for why this is not a good idea? If you simply must have such a ponderous signature, please consider reducing its size by some judicious editing. For example, the following text:

[[User:Turkeyphant|'''''<span style="color: #000064">T</span><span style="color: #010164">u</span><span style="color: #020264">r</span><span style="color: #03036D">k</span><span style="color: #040488">e</span><span style="color: #0505A3">y</span><span style="color: #0606BE">p</span><span style="color: #0707C8">h</span><span style="color: #0808C8">a</span><span style="color: #0909C8">n</span>''''']][[User talk:Turkeyphant|<span style="color: #0A0AC8"><sup><big>t</big></sup></span>]]

accomplishes exactly the same formatting, but in 25% fewer characters. You're still likely to get stomped by annoyed users eventually, but this may put off the day of reckoning. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me. Being new I wasn't aware what is considered acceptable. I had already read the guidelines for signatures, but noticed several long-time users with far longer signatures so deemed to keep mine. I have now made it about 60% shorter - does this satisfy you or should I endeavour to reduce it further? Turkeyphan^t 20:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't put too much stock in my opinion; I'm just an annoying person who likes to point out potential problems. ☺ That said, your signature doesn't look significantly different in display to my poor eyes, while being significantly smaller, so it strikes me an improvement. I've never been a fan of signatures that take even as much as a full line. In fact, I think my own (53 characters) is uncomfortably long. But I think you'll run into less resistance in the long run with this one. On the other hand, just to show how unpredictable such things can be, if you can be clever with a signature, you might get defenders even for long or complex signatures. User:Theresa Knott used to have a really cool GIF image that would magically transform from her name into an anagram of her name, like "Taste the korn". She seems to have backed off of that after a general uprising against images in signatures. I guess the moral is that policy and flair are always in conflict, so one should be both bold and wary. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

US pop 300million

I saw your comment in Talk:Demographics of the United States. Have you watched the counter lately? With the current pace pop should hit 300mn by October 22nd (see List of U.S. states by population which I'm continuously updating). Cool huh? Jack Daw 13:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Randi quote

I put in "personal communication" but I left in "cite needed".

Some POV-pusher put the original quote "I always have an out." I asked Randi about it, and I got an email from him on 1/2/06 in which he said that Dennis Rawlings left out the "I'm right" part. I put that in back in January, and someone has modified the paragraph since then. I asked Randi about it again yesterday, and he said that he has said that to a lot of people, including some TV interviews, but he doesn't remember any specific instances. He said that Rawlings was the only person who chose to twist it against him.

As far as reliable sources, this is straight from the source. It is "verifiable" - you can ask him. His email address is randi@randi.org.

The only source for the quote without "I'm right" is Dennis Rawlings, and clearly he isn't reliable. He published it in Fate magazine, which is certainly not a reliable source. Encyclopedia Britannica wouldn't use Fate for a source.

So the actual person's words as a reliable source, we certainly can't use what Dennis Rawlings said in Fate. So either we have to accept that or take the whole thing out. And I don't think the POV-pushers will stand for that.

I've seen "personal commination" used as a reference even in academic journals and textbooks. Bubba73 (talk), 15:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see the problem. Please understand that Wikipedia has a specific meaning for the word "reliable", which is why I provided the link to the policy page Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Other publications may use whatever sources their editorial boards may deem appropriate, but Wikipedia requires that its sources be, in general, respectable print publications, notable websites, and well-known (and accessible) audiovisual material. The two main reasons are to put the onus of accuracy on publishers with reputations to uphold, and to make it possible for Wikipedians to verify the supposed content of the sources.

Because of this, personal communications are not valid primary sources, although they can be cited if a secondary source (like a magazine or news program) mention them, but in those cases the secondary source is what legitimizes it. I was expecting that there might be some mention in Swift, which qualifies as a notable website. (Note too that discussion boards, even when they belong to notable websites, are not usually considered reliable, as their content is not approved in advance by an editorial board. Thus, the digression on the legitimacy of Randi's response to Kolodzey is likely to be edited out over time, as it's sourced from the JREF Forum.)

By these rules, Randi's quote, "I always have an out — I'm right!", in whatever form, probably should be removed. I'd added it (or readded it, I guess) when I decided to make the "Criticism" section less like one person's crusade against Randi and more like general criticism with cited examples. It's unfortunate that this concise example doesn't appear to have a reliable source, either for its original (mis)use or Randi's response. Unless we can source it properly, it should go. If the "POV-pushers" put it back in, we should treat it as any other unsourced material and re-delete. (Such vigilance is an unfortunate but necessary part of Wikipedia article maintenance.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

… Sheesh! I just noticed that I had a conversation with you about this quote several months ago. My memory is really pathetic. … ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

My memory is just as bad because I forgot this too! Unfortunately I don't know of any source for the complete quote, and Randi doesn't seem to know one either - just that he has said it to a lot of people, including some TV interviews. I believe that the selective quote is from an article by Dennis Rawlings in Fate magazine, which is certainly not respected as to being factual (and neither is Rawlings). Last night I did find the entire quote at www.blackvault.com, but I don't know about their reliability, and they may have gotten it from Wikipedia. I may try to get Randi to go on the record either in Swift or his weekly commentary on his website. Would that help? Bubba73 (talk), 22:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Getting Randi to say something in the official commentary would definitely help. It's fairly easy to make a case for it being a reliable source, given its 23K Alexa rating and obvious relevance to the subject. There is the question of bias, which may come up in trying to source the misuse, but that's a separate problem. Blackvault.com seems a bit obscure (Alexa rating 561K) and not particularly credible, featuring UFO discourses and being created by a 15-year-old (not many of whom are noted for their journalistic or editorial integrity). In all, Randi's official statement would be invaluable. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked him, and he said that he would do it if he saw a need to do it, but he didn't see a need to do it. So, could the article say "In private, Randi has stated that he actually said ... " ? Bubba73 (talk), 22:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. Private correspondence isn't considered a reliable source. The minimum requirement is that a professional publication do its own editorial thing and stake its reputation on the words it publishes, which can be argued is the case for Swift. Perhaps in the future Randi might find it useful, when addressing another issue in the JREF newsletter, to relate this incident, thereby killing two birds with one stone. Unfortunately, by the WP definition of "reliable", Fate magazine sounds like it might be acceptable. (It is not up to WP editors to judge the merit (or the looniness) of a professional publication; we merely provide the sources to allow readers to decide for themselves.)

It is conceivable that a clever Randi-phobe could cite the specific Fate article, thereby giving a truly verifiable source of the misquotation, while Randi-philes would be unable to counter it with Randi's statement from private correspondence. This would be most unfortunate, but I would expect Randi to understand this, as he has taken great pains to make public and legal his various endeavors (like the Challenge) so they might stand up to the blather from the "woo-woo" crowd. So far, these folks among the WP editors haven't been that smart (not exactly a surprise). But if it happens, perhaps Randi would consider an unassailable Wikipedia citation justification for Swift clarification (pun intended). Meanwhile, all we can do is delete mention of the incident so long as it's not properly sourced (by either side). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It is conceivable that a clever Randi-phobe could cite the specific Fate article, thereby giving a truly verifiable source of the misquotation, while Randi-philes would be unable to counter it with Randi's statement from private correspondence.

That's right. I suspect that the quote is in the sTARBABY article in Fate in 1981, but I don't know for sure. (See CSICOP and its talk page.) Bubba73 (talk), 02:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

This would be most unfortunate, but I would expect Randi to understand this,

I tried emphasize that I just needed him a quote from him "on the record" (either where he said it or even said that he said it), and that a mention in the online Swift would be enough. He said that he didn't feel that he needed to respond to "canards". Bubba73 (talk), 02:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I suppose he's right, as long as the statement is only published in the likes of Fate. It may never become an issue in a respectable neo-publication like Wikipedia as long as we do our work to keep unsourced claims out of the articles. This is no doubt a "cross that bridge when you come to it" situation for Randi, who is busy with quite a few active issues (not to mention getting fully healed). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Animated Series Batman

Hi, I just made this article, Animated Series Batman, which is kind of a stub only full of raw info that need some serious clean-up (just between us, it sucks). It's just a draft, not even close to what it should be.

My premise was: there is a Batman: the Animated Series page (like there is a Veronica Mars page), but there is no info about the character (like there is a Veronica Mars (character) page). The page links to a Batman bio with no reference to what he did in the animated series or how the producers designed the version of the character. Batman: the Animated Series article links to several characters appearing on the series, for example the Joker or Clay-face, which are mainly about the comics versions bio, but under a section called generally "In Other media" those include a reasonable amount of info about the animated series version of the characters which had different adventures and sometimes different origins. Then I reason, howcome the lead isn't getting a bio?

The profile of Batman is basically the same in its origins before he became a vigilante and his motifs and modus operandi are also very symilar, but both versions went throu completely differents adventures. The animated version even went through a symilar situation to the Frasier character, developing over a number of tv series. Contrary to the comics version, the animated version's life its followed unlit his last days, when he is very old. The animated version has his future as written as his past. In the animated series Batman Beyond, he is featured in a lead during his elder years . So it is logical that it can have an article Veronica Mars (character) style. Another line of logic i follow is that there at least be an article about the old batman, as a consecuense I can't avoid thinking editors will eventually complete to his early days.

To me it's all about what's been done with symilar situations. If I was to start from 0 again, how would you recomend me to create the article? Which info should i focus on. Which sections should I create. What are the guidelines I should follow?

Thanks for your time.

--T-man, the wise 10:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I could muster enough chutzpah for a username with the word "wise" in it, but I must give you credit for the wisdom of asking advice. I'm not interested enough in Batman to wade into the thick of this active discussion, but I'll make a few points.

• Always remember to link to an article that you're discussing. (I had to add the link to Animated Series Batman in your post.) But thank you for not linking it in the topic heading, as so many people do. (It makes edit summaries for section edits very messy, which is one of many reasons why it's against WP policy.)

• Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) (aka WP:FICT) is an overall guideline on fictional-character articles, although it doesn't really say much about content or cover your situation (multiple articles on a single character in various genres and instances).

• The name of your article is a bit of a problem. When you moved it from Batman (animated) (which is not unreasonable) to Animated Series Batman, you justified it based on similar titles, like Silver Age Batman and Golden Age Batman. None of these are in keeping with the general naming convention of placing the key concept ("Batman") and parenthesizing the qualifier (which is what you did originally, of course). I see that all of these variations have been either deleted or redirected to Batman, as they should. One problem with "Batman (animated)" is that it's not clear whether you're talking about the series or the character, but since the show title, sourced through IMDb, can be (and is) given as Batman: The Animated Series, this leaves your original title as a decent choice. The real problem is the concern over whether there should be a separate character article.

• As you have discovered, many Wikipedia editors find too much detail on fictional characters to be fancruft. This doesn't mean it isn't accurate; it simply means that these editors believe huge tracts of data on these subjects are more suited to fan websites than Wikipedia. I'm on the fence about this myself. My position has been to ruthlessly delete material that has no reliable source, which is a requirement for any information in Wikipedia articles, even about real-world people, events, and other subjects. This gets rid of a lot of fancruft. What remains evokes a variation of that oh-so-common argument, the content dispute. It seems you're already getting good advice on this. If you cannot get a consensus of active editors to agree with your content, I'm afraid you just have to live with not having the material in Wikipedia, at least for now. (Things change over time, so it might be revisited in the future.)

You mention Veronica Mars (character), presumably because you have observed that I've done some editing on articles about Veronica Mars, a topic I am interested in. However, much of my editing has been to remove unsourced speculation, correct basic style and content problems, establish and encourage sourcing, and even nominate for deletion articles I think go way over the line (see Balboa County, California). From my point of view, the best way to fend off the "deletionists" is to meticulously source everything you write, using formal citations. (See Satellite of Love (MST3K) for an example of how to do this. Wikipedia:Citing sources has more information on proper sourcing.) It will undermine arguments about fannish writing, although it won't resolve by itself the basic challenge of convincing others that the material is Wikipedia-worthy. Anyway, I hope you find this information useful. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This was a good response. Thank you for trying to help in this situation. I pointed him toward Veronica Mars largely because of your efforts to make it come more into line with Wikipedia standards. --Chris Griswold 19:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, althogh I kinda suck at adding info, and I always seem to be unable to avoid a fanruft tone, I admire a lot and look up to people able to type sourced relevant and interesting info, and that's actually what I always try to do (athough, then again, i suck at it, heheh). Wikipedia standards are a goal, but I'm just learning--T-man, the wise 20:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Mapping software

If you're still interested, User:Kmf164 offered her advise on mapping software at: [10]--MONGO 07:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, MONGO. I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment with Wikiquote and meatspace stuff, but I'll check this out. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Anne Hutchinson

I noted your question about the date of Anne Hutchinson's banishment on the talk page of that article. I have done what research I could, and have given an answer on the talk page. I have not made any changes to any articles, but I probably will, unless you (or somebody else) beats me to it. Logophile 16:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Marcel Marceau: WP:MOS (dates)

I think maybe you need to reread that Manuel of Style article:

Dates of birth and death

   * Charles Darwin (12 February 1809–19 April 1882)

• Locations should be included in the biography portion of the body article. For example, "(12 February 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England–19 April 1882 in Downe, Kent, England)" should be separated to "(12 February 1809–19 April 1882) … He was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England … He died in Downe, Kent, England".

David 21:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

David, I think perhaps you need to re-read the policy, too. The problem I had with Marcel Marceau is not with the birthplace, but the open-ended en-dash. The policy article specifically calls for "(born BIRTHDATE)" rather than "(BIRTHDATE –)". My inclusion of the birthplace, a practice that is seems much more common that the official policy, was simply an attempt at a surgical rather than a broad edit. As it stands, the Marceau article is using the intro paragraph as its sole statement of Marceau's birth, and there is no text into which to move "Strasbourg, France". Since you didn't like my solution, I invite you to figure out how to do this properly. Otherwise, I will, per policy, simply remove the birthplace and fix the hanging en-dash, which I'm sure will satisify nobody. (And please add links to articles you discuss on talk pages, as I had to because of your omission, but do so in the text of your posting, not in the heading, also per policy.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Jeff, done. Didn't realize that article links from user talk pages was appropriate, let alone policy. will do in futureDavid 20:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Date Linking

Thanks for pointing out the purpose of linked dates. The reason I did it in the first place was that I saw a bot delinking dates on various other articles and thought I'd give it a shot myself. The link you provided (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates containing a month and a day) was very useful. Wowbobwow12 23:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Firefly WikiProject

Howdy! Just wanted to let you know we've started a Firefly WikiProject! I know you've done a lot of work on the articles and would love your input! -plange 04:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge! We could really use your expertise on the project... I'm a relative newcomer to Wikipedia but am trying to learn all the guidelines and am a firm believer in trying to get our articles free of fancruft and in-universe writing...Seems like we see eye to eye on this...plange 05:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm really buried in physical-world matters right now, only occasionally contributing to Wikipedia. I'm reluctant to join any WikiProject until I can really devote some time to the work. (In fact, I've still got a 6-calendar-month backlog of individual article issues.) I hope I'll be able to free up some significant time within a month or so, so I can plow back into the thick of wiki matters. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)