User talk:TheRingess/Archive 5

• through February 14
• through February 24

Well, here you go...

I award this The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar to TheRingess for his tireless welcoming efforts.

Furthermore, you should consider joining the Welcoming Committee :-). JHMM13 (T | C) 07:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the gender mixup! I've made the change. JHMM13 (T | C) 07:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Random Acts of Kindness Award

For the countless welcomes (KC)

I have noted all your great work in building community and connectivity. Kukini 05:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Recent Behavior (Accusation of bad faith from a fellow editor)

Now, this isn't vandalism. This is just a comment about your recent behavior. Please stop and let it go. A majority of us from around the globe are tired of seeing you try to act like an administrator when truly you are just a user with bad faith. An example of your behavior would be editing David Quinn's article. --RedGlobeWalkerHim 04:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Please explain why I have acted in bad faith.

TheRingess 04:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • I am going to go ahead and reinstate this section. I feel it's vital, because I still don't understand why my edits are characterized as bad faith and wish to give my detractors an opportunity to present their case to the community at large, and if correct, then I can publicly apologize.

TheRingess 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Recent Behavior (Another accusation from same user about bad faith)

Now, this isn't vandalism. This is just a comment about your recent behavior. Please stop and let it go. A majority of us from around the globe are tired of seeing you try to act like an administrator when truly you are just a user with bad faith. An example of your behavior would be editing David Quinn's article. --RedGlobeWalkerHim 04:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Please explain why I have acted in bad faith.

TheRingess 04:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

...for your message, it was generous and not necessary at all. But I still thank you. No hard feelings · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 16:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Goddess in Progress

Cheers, thanks. Of course as soon as you did that, I went in and re-added them and it's fine. Perhaps it was just because they were wikified. Either way, cheers. Pacian 08:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!!

Thanks!! ^^ User:Visual planet (Talk 17:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello Ringess. I'm using this entry to add my own thanks for the welcome that you sent me. Sorry about your troubles with the David Quinn article, looks like a lot of fuss about nothing much to me. I hope Wikipedia stands its ground. ThomasL 22:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Message

Go back to the Quinn entry. I've left a note for you there. -DQ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.160.17.29 (talk • contribs) .

Just so you can see the lengths some people will go to. Here is a man who felt that his rights to privacy were violated and yet publicly publishes lies about myself and others. Here is the full text that prompted the rant that follows it:

--- begin quoted text ----

DELETE: YOU ASKED, I'M ANSWERING I have been involved with online communities since 1991, and I deeply respect the premise of wikipedia. That said, I have to question why so many strangers (Ringess, FCYTravis, RedGlobe, Trey, OlympicFlame) would care at all about my biography or this entry. I would hope that there is a more valuable use of your lives than the endless reverting of this entry (or the many hours some of you appear to have spent researching and documenting elements of my life). Here's a shout-out to Ringess: You have too much time on your hands.

I returned from a brief trip to California this morning (BTW, the Image Awards are a lot of fun, and I urge you all to donate to the NAACP). I came back to school to get some paperwork done and found more than a few emails in my box. Most are from students, but at least one is from a resourceful wikipedian who very simply searched the Edmonds School District website for our directory, then sent me an email, directing me to this page. Anyone who wishes to email me may, of course, do this as well. You can even get my phone number from the directory and call and leave me a message. I'm happy to verify myself.

That said, I really could (mostly) care less about what you all are doing here. I didn't create this entry, I think that it is a complete waste of space, and I find the behavior of some of you to be completely anti-intellectual and downright childish. I don't suppose that anyone had my privacy rights in mind when they created the first Quinn entry, but now that I'm here, I think you should all just stop it. I'm voting for a delete, mostly because I think that you should all spend more time reading and seeing theatre.

The protected version of my entry is mostly correct, but I still fail to see why an entry for me exists in the first place. I am a private citizen, albeit one who once had a career on television and who has a career as an entrepreneur. My life is private, which is why davidquinn.com doesn't exist anymore. The biographical information that is found on my corporate sites exists for a simple reason: it answers basic questions for investors and media folks. If I wasn't required to put it up, I wouldn't have it up. My life is primarily dedicated to education. Anyone who has read my bio knows why: I made a promise to someone, and I'm keeping my side of the bargain.

If you want to continue to waste parts of your life on me or this entry, I cannot stop you. But rather than continue this wiki-farce, I urge you to delete this meaningless entry and concentrate your time and karmic energy making the world a better place to live in. Rather than spend all night reverting my bio, why don't you spend all night sending emails to political figures so they hear your voice? Or to relatives, so that they know that they are loved? Or how about just get in your car and go volunteer at a soup kitchen or an AIDS charity? I'm sure that you all have favorite causes. They need your help. Go.

Me? I'm "peace out" of here. Peace out. I'm going to reply here. (btw, this is not in any way directed to Mr. Quinn, this is directed to the user(s) editing from the anonymouse IP address above).

-- end quoted text ---

My response:

Firstly, I feel that your characterization of my having too much time on my hands is irrelevant and inaccurate. But that's beside the point. You are correct, that there are lots of ways to help improve the world, but how do you know that in my spare time (which admittedly I don't have a lot of lately) I don't do those things. How could you know that I do or don't belong to and support charitable organizations or how do you know that I don't call my relatives a lot.

What gives you the right, to claim, on a public forum, that you have specialized knowledge of details of my private life?

Secondly, I repeatedly asked why some of the simple contributions I made to the article, were being repeatedly deleted without what I would consider a reasonable. Yes, yes, I realize that you might object to having an article, but how could I possibly evaluate whether or not that is true. All I know, is that certain users, were reverting the article and claiming knowledge of your desires. There is absolutely no way that I can verify that.

Also, since certain users did voice their concerns on the talk page, I felt it only fair, since I had become so involved, to try in some way to address their concerns. Since I am not fully cognizant of all of Wikipedia's guidelines, I may have inadvertently given them incorrect information. So wherever possible I tried to direct them to the relevant pages that I thought might help answer their questions more fully. I even offered, in what little spare time I have left, to help one user to track down the relevant information and suggested a route they might go in order to find it.

At a certain point in time, both admins and users requested that I more carefully document the changes that I was making, in order to give them a chance to state their objections. It was also becaue I became caught up in "the heat of the moment" and started performing the exact same behaviors that I was objecting to (namely wholesale reversion of edits without explanation). So I did. I made small incremental changes, documented them in the edit summary, and on the talk page, and when I felt that I had done as much research as I felt I wanted, I stopped. What happened? The same editor who requested that I document all of my changes, did not respond to a single one of them, and went ahead and deleted all of them anyway.

Let me give you an example. It took me roughly 5 minutes to locate the "40 under 40" website and find the date of your award. I then added the date to the article and a link to the website (the link is for reference and is for anyone wishing to find out more about the award). Did it improve the article? Maybe, maybe not. Was it a biased change? Did it violate your privacy? Was it a non neutral change? I have now spent several days justifying that one small change and a few other small changes. Why? The simple answer is "I'm human", when someone won't talk to me, I get stubborn. So what? Who cares? Life is inherently not fair. In a few days, this will be a slightly unpleasant memory, very soon after that I won't even think about it. Life goes on.

As another example, one version of the article made a certain claim about your roommates at the Theatre Camp. At first noticing that there was no source cited for that statement, and feeling that it was somewhat unencyclopedic, I requested that someone provide a source. That was removed and replaced with a link to a web page that contained no information about the statement. Thinking that truly the only reliable, reasonable source would be the camps website, I visted there to see if they mentioned it somewhere. I didn't stay long, and could find no material that supported the statement. I then decided to go "live my life" and wait 24 hours to see if anyone interested would provide the reference. 24 hours later, no one had, so I deleted it, and explained my reservations on the talk page and in the edit summary. With the caveat of course, that anyone who wished to reinstate it with the source, could freely do so. After all, just because I couldn't find it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. No one responded. Yet, every reverted version contains this piece of information. Is it true? How would I know without a source?

The editors who continually revert the article, claim that the version they are reverting to, is the "correct" version. I contend that a "correct" version is a myth. I base this upon my own personal experience and limited knowledge of the history of science. At one point in time, members of the human race, believed that the "correct" version of the world, was that it was flat, and the sun revolved around the earth. That "correct" version was later replaced by a new "correct" version that states the world is round and revolves around the sun.

As pointed out, life is not fair, and this little dispute will probably have no larger effect upon the world. So ce la vie.

Perhaps, I obsess about things I shouldn't, but that's my problem, to resolve as I see fit, and not your concern.

Personally, the way I see it, when a person tries to prevent someone else from contributing, by deleting their contribution, in any forum, in any class, on any website, it's censorship, pure and simple.

To refuse to discuss rationally with a person your objections to their actions and instead to simply gang up in order to ensure that your version is the only acceptable version, is bullying pure and simple. Furthermore it shows an utter lack of respect for a fellow human being and also a lack of maturity.

Regarding privacy issues, it's my contention that the only way to guarantee privacy on the internet, is to ensure that all material on Wikipedia (and other similar websites) is within the public domain, has credible verifiable sources and maintains a neutral point of view.

If every editor, who ever created a biographical article, had to confirm that they had permission of the subject of the article and provide evidence that they did, no article would be written. It would be unworkable.

It would also be similarly unworkable if we automatically deleted an article every time someone claimed that the subject desired the article to be deleted.

All we can hope for, when an article's existence is questioned, is to discuss the issue, try to judge the accuracy and merit of the material and hope that we all respect each others viewpoints. We also have to be willing to change our minds and admit that we could be wrong. We are human, and though my previous statement describe lofty goals those goals are not always achieved and the methods are not always executed perfectly (just a subjective opiniont) because humans are not perfect (another subjective opinion). That's why there are guidelines, to help ensure that material is judged on its merit. Perhaps, that is one reason why the GFDL is very carefully worded.

Personally, when the issue came up, I originally thought the article should be deleted, because I thought that previous editors were claiming copyrights to the material, had made the edits in good faith without fulling understanding the GFDL. I thought the most reasonable course of action was to allow the article to be deleted.

I changed my mind. I'm human.

So sue me. You have implied that you are going to anyway.

As for me, the sum total knowledge of your life that I have comes from this article. Since everything in the article, now has a reference, and seems easily verifiable, I have no further interest in editing it.

Of course, only time will tell.

If you want to see what I do in my spare time when I am not "wasting" my time on Wikipedia, you can check out http://www.beautifulandes.com.

I also have plans to create a charitable organization that sends much needed school supplies to poor children in Peru.

Your points are valid. Thank you for at least giving me the chance to respond. I think that it is time to put my other plans in action.

That said, as one private citizen to another, as a person who is not even an admin, or a member of the foundation, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to summarize your argument down to one sentence. Keep in mind that this is simply one point of view, not very neutral, but then again, this talk page is not an article. Here, from me, a guy who doesn't know a whole lot, is my summary (and only mine) of your position:

This article should not exist because I said so.

Also, it doesn't work to try to revert another person's edits, claiming that you reject the GFDL. "My" edits are licensed. You cannot revoke that license for me, or for any other person for that matter.

Try to keep in mind that everything is all right, and everything happens for the best.

TheRingess 20:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

argh!

Your practical joke caught me. Dcandeto 05:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, same here! Leftist 03:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: WikiCheese

Not much, unfortunately. He seems to be switching IP addresses with every new account, so we just have to keep going until he runs out or gets bored ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 06:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikicheese

Good work with reverting the wikicheese vandalism :) I was attempting to revert a couple of times, but you beat me to it :D Jude(talk,contribs) 06:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Since you welcomed me so well

Just looking for a little more info that I couldn't find via searching. I would mostly like to help with grammer projects and getting some work done on making articles a little more 'readable.' Where should I start? I checked the village pump but met with little success... Thanks so much--PaddyM 01:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Fractal

The modelling a mountain is a gif animated sequence. And I see it in my computer. Do you see it animated when you click over it? I don't know what the problem is. Tó campos

Thanks for the help

I was new to Wiki and thanks for helping me with the redirect issue. How do you leave a message to another editor. Is it by editing the user discussion page.

Thank you

Thank you for welcoming me to wikipedia. You were very helpful and I admire the speed with which I was welcomed. Thank you.

Benjaminstewart05 17:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank You!

^{24 June 2006 03:23} Ste4k wrote: Hi! Thanks for bringing that matter to my attention. Can we further discuss it on my Talk Page? THANKS! :)

Do you think that is funny?

Have you been to California? They are so freaking popular, Ultimate Improv, that is. Do you even know JD Walsh? He is a celebrity, you idiot.