User talk:Vsmith

Please note - rules of the game! I usually answer comments & questions on this page rather than on your talk (unless initiated there) to keep the conversation thread together. I am aware that some wikiers do things differently so let me know if you expect a reply on your page and maybe it'll happen :-)

Question

You recently stopped by the YEC page and you made a comment that I violated WP:POINT. I noticed you are an admin, so I thought I'd personally ask you for advice on how I could have handled this situation better.

My intent: Two users were "fighting" -- one would put up an edit, and the other revert it. This happened several times. I thought to help out by moving the edit to the talk page and having them each give their reasons for why they believe their edit should stand, and thereby peacefully resolve the issue.

"The problem": However, as soon as I did it, a number of other editors jumped in (seemingly out of no where) and claimed I was violating a whole bunch of things, and things really got out of hand, etc.

Question: How do you think could I have done this better and resolved the conflict between the first two editors, without the rest of the community getting all upset over it?

Thanks, your advice would be appreciated as I really feel bad about this all. Tjbergsma (talk) 05:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. Don't call something vandalism in an edit summary when it wasn't.

2. Carefully read WP:POINT

3. Do not attack other users - focus on the edit, not the editor.

4. Read and consider carefully the comments by other users on Talk:Young Earth creationism. I see User:dave souza has provided some input - pay attention.

5. Read WP:NPOV carefully, we all have a pov - just be careful not to overly push. I see you concentrate on certain religious articles (most of which I avoid) so we shouldn't meet often.

Happy editing. Vsmith (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indium supplement

Some people buy indium sulfate as supplement because you life longer and get no cancer at all! And everything is 100% true because a peer reviewed mice study of a guy called Schroeder from 1971 exists![1] When you read the article you can't find a thing of what is claimed by the people who market the stuff. The weight loss which is wanted was even more evident in the scandium group while you life longest with palladium and the tumor rate was in control A 11 of 80 in B 6 of 41 and in the indium group 6 of 54. With these small numbers you get nothing from your statistics than a rough guess. I hope Henry A. Schroeder never found out how greedy people us him to earn a fortune.--Stone (talk) 12:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FAR notice

I have nominated Zion National Park for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cirt (talk) 03:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

78.144.177.108

Try anonblock, as confirmed by whois. an isp proxy. thanks. --Encyclopedia77 Talk 00:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Link to Talk: Link

Seems to be inactive for now.??? Vsmith (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canyoseedemtalk (talk • contribs) 18:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, seems we had some overlapping edits there. Cheers, Vsmith (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

License tagging for Image:NMSZBig.gif

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Banning of our IP

I noticed you banned our school's IP address against anonymous edits of Wikipedia for frequent vandalism? I looked at the edit log for this IP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/151.200.174.43

and see that most changes were not over turned and done in the spirit of the site.

What was your rationale? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas20 (talk • contribs) 12:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see a bunch of vandalism with a couple of valid edits. Simply use your reg. username to edit. Valid student users can also create a username from another location and log in. Vsmith (talk) 12:59, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re: Archimedes reference

From the Archimedes page (notice "weight" not "volume"):

“ Any body wholly or partially immersed in a fluid experiences an upthrust equal to, but opposite in sense to, the weight of the fluid displaced. ” --Jhbdel (talk) 17:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's what it says ... but, "where he saw that when an object floats, the amount of displaced water is equal in mass to that of the object" is not what he said. And that misstatement is what I reverted. If you drop a 100kg block of lead into a container of water, it does not displace 100 kg of water. Rather an amount of water equal to the volume of the lead mass. Vsmith (talk) 00:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I thought the point of the article was bouyancy not volume displacement (since mountains are rarely immersed in the mantle). --Jhbdel (talk) 17:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is about buoyancy - which is about the weight of the fluid volume displaced, not about the weight of the displacing object. In the case of lead in water, the bouyant force is equal to the weight of the water volume displaced - which is far less than the weight of the lead, and the lead sinks. And mountains do sink into the mantle until the buoyant force (equal to the weight of the displaced mantle volume) equals the weight of the mountain. Vsmith (talk) 00:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Granted, my only point is that mountains seldom become completely submerged in the mantle. Thus, they seldom displace their volume. Rather, they displace only their weight and thus remain mountains. --Jhbdel (talk) 06:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What was it that made you delete the reference to the XKCD comic on the Kepler page under the references in popular culture section? --65.93.166.40 (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pure trivia, it may be worth noting on the page about the comic if you want - but totally non-notable on the Kepler page. Vsmith (talk) 23:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links

My appologies for adding a reference that was not used in the writing of the article - I had thought that this was just for useful references, since the other one was not refered to. The external link is not book promotion, just a useful link to free code rather than the commercial link that is there. I will put this on again with no reference to the book which it accompanies. I've also made some edits to the text, which I hope to add to when I have time, although this will mean adding the previously removed reference. --Kriging (talk) 16:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Content is fine - just that your username and a link to a book website looked rather spammy or WP:COIy. Cheers, Vsmith (talk) 16:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Tar sands

I think you may be interested that there is a discussion about renaming the Category:Tar sands. Beagel (talk) 18:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Mineral economics

Hi, was looking for your opinion on a redundant category I created, started a discussion here.--kelapstick (talk) 18:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Replied there. Vsmith (talk) 18:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect of Adam Dashner

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Adam Dashner, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Adam Dashner is a nonsense redirect page formed as a result of the reversion of page move vandalism (CSD G3).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Adam Dashner, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot (talk) 00:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can't we build smart bots? I zapped that page move vandalism - left the redir there so the vandal couldn'r repeat the bad move... Ah well that's awright, nice dumb bot. Vsmith (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Hi Vsmith, and thanks for the way you took care of secondary minerals. --Scray (talk) 03:13, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, not sure that was the best solution, but works for now maybe. Still thinking 'bout a section in mineral or a short independent stub. Seems a rather poorly defined term, depends on the context... I'd need to get some refs to back up the stuff rattling 'round in my head. Have a happy holiday, Vsmith (talk) 04:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merry

Wishing you the very best for the season. Guettarda (talk) 06:26, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bah humbug :-)

Izzat you snoozin' under that palm? Cheers, Vsmith (talk) 18:02, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wish :) Guettarda (talk) 04:35, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User: Uncle Milty

Thank you for your help with the mess regarding my talk page. I was enjoying my Holiday dinner and didn't even see it happen.

I hope you enjoy(ed) yours. --Uncle Milty (talk) 22:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked a couple of ips, the bored one is ip hopping, so may be more. Enjoy what's left of the holiday! Vsmith (talk) 23:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of all my links

Dear Dr. VSmith, Wiki admin,

on Dec 20th Wiki deleted all links going to my website realgems.org because of "spamming". Meanwhile I know that I did something wrong when I added a lot of links to my own website. I will not do that again of course.

But Wiki admins have also deleted all links which were added by the international public. Now my website realgems.org is no more accessable on Wikipedia. So nobody can find all the photos and infos on my non-profit and educational website, after having read a Wiki page. Nothing happened with all the links you once added, e.g. to Mindat, Webmineral and Mineral Galleries. Why? Wiki accused me having spammed their mineral and gems pages with my own links but I don't see a difference between your links to some mineral sites and the links going to my site.

Would you be so kind and explain me why all your additions are no spam but my visitors' links are spam?

Oh, I just see that I cannot write my complete URL because this URL is blocked! So I have to write "realgems.org" instead of the complete address. It's a shame.

Kind regards, Redberyl —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redberyl (talk • contribs) 14:11, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quite simple - I have no connection to those mineral websites. I simply use them to find technical mineral info and document my editing of mineral articles. I viewed your website as non-commercial and felt it had some quality images, but the data was available elsewhere. Your problem was in trying to promote your own work, that is a distinct no-no on Wikipedia for a very good reason. Too bad that the blacklisting was the result, but tough cookies. Am I going to work to change that? I see no reason to now. And that Dr. bit above is not appropriate as I'm not one, had to "drop out" and feed the kids. Vsmith (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And if you really want to help, why not upload some of those great images to Wikipedia and add content to gem and mineral article stubs - join in the fun as a real Wiki-volunteer. Vsmith (talk) 14:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

14:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Dear VSmith, thanks for your quick reply - in contrary to the rest of Wiki admins. My international visitors also have no connection to my website but their additions (links) were deleted. Do you know exactly that all these people don't use my infos also, for editing mineral articles? Surely not. Thanks for having a look on my site. You are right: My project is mainly aimed on photos. To create such a collection seem to be helpful not only for collectors but also for U.S. scholars, according to my web usage statistics. Mineral data is also available elsewhere, not only on your favorite sites. Please tell me another website where you can see and compare more varieties of colors of gems and their minerals.

I really did not intend to promote my own work. The more visitors, the more I have to pay for traffic volume... I just thought that my efforts to compile all this stuff would be worth being linked on Wikipedia to help people finding a lot of gems varieties. That is (at least in my opinion) exactly the aim of Wikipedia: being a helpful resource for informations. I would have created articles but what would Wiki admins have said if I would have flooded Wikipedia with all these photos?

Your final sentence I don't understand, re "feeding kids". I hope you meant something positive, according to the Wiki ethics.

If I would start helping Wikipedia by editing etc., would Wikipedia re-install my links?

Kind regards, and happy 2009, Redberyl

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