User talk:Knowledge Seeker/Archive7

This is an archive of old discussions. You may edit this page to fix malformed signatures or to update links, but please direct new comments to my talk page.

Thanks

Do you have my page on your watch list? Just curious. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hehe yes, I stalk many people. Actually I have my preferences set so that every page I edit automatically is added to my watchlist. I must have reverted vandalism on your user page or left you a message at some point. Actually come to think of it, it was probably when Ed Poor was trying to harass you and I was getting annoyed. Having this preference set is great, as I can keep track of pages I edit. It also means I can keep an eye on vandalism of the user pages of users I've talked to, as well as stay up on some happenings as well. But it also means that my watchlist slowly increases in size, and when I come to Wikipedia after a long time, especially after a 24+ hour shift, way too much has happened on my watchlist. So periodically I prune it...should probably do that soon! — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

And you post your replies in both places - I thought I was the only one who did that! Although I don't always. Yes, you posted on my page when Ed threatened me with dire consequences for a simple comment on an Afd. I hope he's de-stressing and gaining perspective during his extended break. KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I started that a month or so ago, I think. I really dislike when people reply on their own talk page. I'm of the philosophy that if you want to leave me a message, leave it on my talk page; I have neither the time nor interest to hunt down replies. It comes down to courtesy, really. Though the page is on my watchlist, I don't always remember whom I've left messages for, and if there's another edit after their reply I might not see it. On the other hand, only placing messages the recipient's page has problems too with fragmenting the conversation—placing it in both places seems logical. Anyway, yes, Ed's comment was way over the top. It's a shame he was desysopped although I'm convinced it was a good decision and will lead to less stress for him and for everyone else. I'm sure he'll return with fresh views on how to tackle these matters, and I look forward to his return. Ed's problem is that he really wants what's best for Wikipedia and he's convinced that his ideas are what's best for Wikipedia. I don't think he really intends to act so inappropriately, but he's been here so long and invested so much into Wikipedia that he has some strong ideas about what's best (I have to admit, so do I, and they don't always concide with the community's ideas—though I try to keep that under control). When he returns hopefully we can do a better job of respecting all he's done for Wikipedia while gently steering him away from too much trouble. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Moon hoax girl

hi! I am a 20 year old peruvian psychology student, I share your passion for knowledge, and I love wikipedia, but I'm not a member,I mean, I don't have a profile like you do,I'll try and see the FAQ to know how to make one... your answer was awesome, thank you really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.240.200.140 (talk • contribs)

Hmph. I don't think anyone's ever called my writing "cute" before. But I'm glad I was able to help, and let me know if you have any questions. May also give you a couple suggestions? One, to sign your name, you can use four tildes: ~~~~. Use that at the end of your statements on user talk pages like this one, or in discussions on the reference desk, and so on. Not only does that help people know who is saying what, but it also helps separate different writers—otherwise, the comments get kind of jumbled. Also, you should consider registering as a member—it's free and no personal information is required. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? for more information. It will make it easier for people to communicate with you and you can create a user page as you see fit. Wikipedia's a great place for those who love to learn! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Roman Soldier

Thanks again for watching my back. This guy has been harboring a grudge since October and he's now decided to reattack me for no reason. I just blocked him for a month. Best, Lucky 6.9 05:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem—I always look out for you! I don't know the whole situation, but do you think something shorter, like a week, might be sufficient? His edits seemed to be a mix of good and bad; maybe I could work with him to help him become productive. Again, I don't know his story, so I'll leave it to your judgment. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

One week it is, Doctor. Done and done. - Lucky 6.9 08:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I've had it. I just saw this guy's comments and I've blocked him permanently. Anyone who'd hold a grudge for this long and then reappear out of nowhere is, quite frankly, a scary individual. Thanks for helping, but there is apparently no getting through to this guy. - Lucky 6.9 23:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll give him this much: He's persistent. I've extended an olive branch in hopes that this BS can be ended. I want to edit, not fight. Help! - Lucky 6.9 06:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Your patience and tolerance are a credit. I am still hoping that he will be able to move on from this incident and concentrate on productive edits, although his recent comments are disappointing. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey there

Hey—didn't realize you were back. It's nice to see you around again! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

That's funny, I didn't even realize I'd left! :) How are you doing? - Vague | Rant 07:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I hadn't been seeing you around like I used to, and it looks like you didn't make any edits for a couple months. Of course, I haven't been able to do much recent pages patrol, so I don't run into you tagging copyvios like I used to. Hey, has your signature always linked to Vague instead of your user page? I never noticed it before... — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Er, whoops. Well spotted. I'll get right on that. I have been editing less lately (just got a little busy) and a lot of the time when I have edited I haven't bothered signing in. So yeah, now that it's summer break, I'm around more. Nice to see it was noticed. Have a good one. - Vague | Rant 07:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Minnesota speak

I'm asking you on the basis of your name and the fact that you're from Minnesota: Is that stereotypical accent people associate with the area (the one in Fargo) North Central American English? I'm sure you can understand this removal, but the fact that the "Yooper dialect" mentioned on the NCAE article includes the "ja" part, it made me wonder if NCAE just needs to be expanded to include a mention of Minnesota or is separate. Jibbajabba 08:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think I can be of much use to you. I am not familiar with NCAE, but from reading the article, I don't think people here speak it. That being said, I have only lived in Minnesota for half a year, and then too I live in the southeast corner, an hour from the border, so perhaps I am not getting the "true" Minnesota accent. Sorry—wish I could help more! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

E-mail

Hi Mike; I just dropped by to say that I agree with Nichalp that administrators should have their e-mail enabled. Especially if you block someone, that person should have a way of getting in touch with you. I understand that you already have your e-mail address displayed on your user page, but I still feel that the standard method be used, so that people can click "E-mail this user" or go to Special:Emailuser/Mike Rosoft. I guess I'm also a little confused why you wouldn't mind displaying it on your user page (in obfuscated form) and yet wouldn't want to set it in your preferences. Also, I feel that your message to Nichalp was a tad abrupt and seems out of character for you. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I have thought about it for some time, and I have finally decided to enable e-mails from other users. Presumedly, this serves to allow users who do not have e-mail accounts of their own to contact me. If my previous comments seemed too harsh, I apologize for that; I am rather sensitive to people making demands on me for reasons I see as arbitrary. - Mike Rosoft 16:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I thank you for reconsidering, although I don't believe that those without e-mail accounts will be able to e-mail you (unless they put a false address in, and even then they wouldn't be able to receive a reply. I'm a bit confused by your later comments on your RfA, though. Your comments there still sound to me like you're overreacting to a simple request. Especially when you complain about no one leaving a request on your talk page with an explanation, which I would think is how this conversation started. I understand that getting oppose votes can be stressful, but I don't really see anyone making demands of you. I don't have any desire to draw this matter out, but I'm just confused by this behavior from an otherwise great Wikipedian. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

My signature with no links

I noticed that your signature does not link to your user page, which I'm assuming is deliberate. I'd like to ask that you consider having at least one character link to your user page or talk page, or perhaps if you don't mind you could let me know why you don't wish to do so? Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your note on my Talk page. I explained part of why I do this (no linking in my sig) on another user's talk page. An additional reason, which is actually why I dropped the link in the first place, is that default linking prevents me from signing with a link and tracking that signed page via what-links-here with my user page as the target. In other words, including the link to my user page in my sig makes the what-links-here function with respect to my user page useless and I wanted to recover that functionality. I hope that makes sense — if I wanted to drop off the map altogether, I would use a name other than my username in my sig, but I don't want to be that unreachable (one would have to do History investigation to find out what my user page really was in that case). User:Ceyockey 05:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC) (talk to me)

Thanks for your reply. I hope I didn't come across as being bossy. I understand your desire to avoid excessive conversation, although I still feel that one should have a link to some personal page, as you have done in your last message to me (although if you disagree, I am not going to cause any trouble for you or anything). Your other reason makes sense as well. Linking to your talk page seems to be a good way around that obstacle, or if you prefer you could link to a user subpage instead. Whatever you wish. Thanks for being receptive! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking hard enough, I see - by including the "talk to me" link in the sig I can cleanse my userpage what-links-here while preserving click-to-message functionality. To that end → User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Font size help

Hi, Doctor. I'm using my User page as a sandbox for a project I'm working on. I was wondering if you could insert a code into the box to shrink the text similar to the boxes you created inWikipedia:WikiProject Medicine. Thanks! AED 20:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Is that the effect you wanted? You may need to play around with it some more. Let me know if I can help. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you! It's perfect! Hope you have a Happy New Year! AED 04:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You're quite welcome; I'm always glad to help you out. Happy New Year to you as well! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Symmetry (biology)

Pretty much final draft status now. Feel free to proof it now. What do we (or I) do about the merge discussion on the talk page (since it's irrelevant now)? TheLimbicOne 02:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, nice cleanup. The article was definitely a bit of an embarrassment before. It's such an important topic; I'm going to keep an eye out for more information to add later on. For the merge discussion, I would just leave a comment at the bottom like "Merge completed" or whatever you'd like, and sign it, that way it will be obvious that the matter is complete. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it needs more plant stuff, but I'm weak in that area. Right now I'm tracking down and bypassing all the redirects I created. TheLimbicOne 03:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I completely forgot to check out that article you sent me. It's actually really good. It covers the next subject I wanted to see added (or add myself) to the symmetry (biology) article: evolution and symmetry. For now I added it to the "see also" section. TheLimbicOne 03:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry—I'm glad you like it. I would try adding some of it in myself, but you'd probably be better than I. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

"...better than I..." Ha! Thanks, but I'm an amatuer working out of a biology text book and whatever I can find on the internet. My day job is machinist and welder. Go ahead and add Evolution of Symmetry if you find the info. I'm not possesive of articles; I just patrol the ones I worked on for vandals. TheLimbicOne 08:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Stealing

I really like your use of color and italics to track conversations across user talk pages. Consider that idea stolen. TheLimbicOne 04:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Good! I'm glad you want to use it! I dislike fragmented conversations, and yet I want my messages to be on the recipient's talk page...and then I saw User:GordonWatts (currently inactive) mark his messages in blue and I liked it (I can't recall that he placed messages on the recipient's page as well, though). It makes it so much easier to follow matters later on. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Hello Knowledge Seeker/Archive7,

I wish to thank you for your vote on my RfA. It has passed with a final tally of 59/0/0. If I can ever help with anything or if you have any comments about my actions as an admin, please let me know! KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 04:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome; congratulations on your promotion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

User:PeterZed

User:Knowledge Seeker, you said on User talk:Jimbo Wales that User:PeterZed posted "inflammatory messages". Could you please cite those "inflammatory messages" (give hyperlinks to them)? Thanks. --2004-12-29T22:45Z 04:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC) [2004-12-29T22:45Z (talk · contribs)]

Er, actually I said I wanted to prevent him from "posting increasingly inflammatory messages". [1] will give you an idea of where his messages were heading. Fortunately, he has moderated his tone, and I am confident he will be unblocked soon, even if he and I don't agree on everything. Incidentally, I noticed that your signature does not link to your user page, which I'm assuming is deliberate. I'd like to ask that you consider having at least one character link to your user page or talk page, or perhaps if you don't mind you could let me know why you don't wish to do so? Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

YaY Thanx

Just wanted to say it always makes me smile to see your reversions pop up on my watchlist—I love your edit summaries and especially the "RVC" (it makes me laugh to read your explanation above). By the way, it may be time to archive your talk page, if you so desire. And if you ever need someone to move a page for you or create an article or something, just let me know. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I like Administrators who don't just randomly revert IP addrs and say "IT MUST BE VANDALISMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". I'll let you know if something uncontroversial comes up (Like this: United States Senate Pages and United States House of Representatives Page have conflicting numberings for paired articels and one or both needs to be moved). Hopefully I wont swamp you with requests, but some things (Especially AfC) are incredibly trying. ;D 68.39.174.238 06:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I moved "United States Senate Pages" to United States Senate Page, and updated the links. Hope that's what you wanted. I'm sure it's frustrating, and I'm also sure you have your reasons. Let me know if you need anything else done; I'm happy to help. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanx! 68.39.174.238 08:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

fix edit summary

I screwed up. I removed a clean up tag (abdomen) and accidentally credited mattaopedia in the edit summary when it should have been Ec5618. The only way I can see to fix it would be to make a meaningless edit (like adding a space somewhere) so that I can have another edit summary. Can you edit my edit summary? (you can reply here, I'll watch for it) TheLimbicOne 21:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you're right—you'll just have to make another edit and put a correction in the edit summary. Edit summaries can only be changed by a developer, and they probably wouldn't change it for these reasons. I've run into the problem before as well, but I'm sure you can find something else to change in the article. Good luck! — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I did find something else to fix, thanks. TheLimbicOne 03:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again

You know ever since I recieved my new buttons vandalism on my user page has jumped :-D KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 03:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that has a way of happening. It just means you're doing a good job. Wear it proud! — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Mes vs. Per

[Regarding [2] — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)]

What a pleasant surprise to see you answering my question.

The reason I asked in the first place is I was looking at the pseudocoelom (which is supposed to be pseudocoel, right?) article and found it lacking. I'm halfway through a first draft when I realise that different sources use peritoneum, mesothelium, or "tissue derived from mesoderm." I want the "best" term and I'm going to stick with it.

I realised something else along the way. I also don't like the article linked to coelom: body cavity. I think these are really important terms (coelom, pseudocoel, acoelomate) that deserve a top notch article, so I suggested the merges. Comments or suggestions? TheLimbicOne 03:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Why, thank you. I'll have to do some research to comment further on this matter—my knowledge of human embryology is fading; that of non-human embryology is even weaker. It's fascinating material though, and provides an amazing insight into how the same basic body plan can be modified to produce such a diverse array of life! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's frustrating how little material on subject is available to a lay person. I'm going to do the article the best I can and let you guys fill in or correct the finer details. Does the RRevised template generate good peer review traffic? TheLimbicOne 07:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it is—which is why resources like Wikipedia are so great! I'll try to do some reading up on this stuff and see what I can do, when I have time. You know, I was not familiar with {{RRevised}}; I am not certain what effect it will have. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Roman Soldier final decision

You know, for the last few days I've been thinking about unblocking that guy as a show of good faith. I was starting to feel bad about blocking him in the first place. The comment he left tore it for me. No more chances. I've blocked the talk page from further editing as well. I've had it with that person. Thought you should know. Happy new year, by the way! - Lucky 6.9 03:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Peer review invite

I've made signifigant changes to the body cavity article and invite you to review it for completeness, style, and factual error. TheLimbicOne 11:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I definitely learned some new things reading your expanded article! I'll see if I can dig up some material. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

No, I don't mind at all. Thanks for the helpful edit, in fact. It makes the ekplanatory thesis I was attemptting to get across much more helpful. :) -MegamanZero|Talk 21:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome; glad to help! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism help request

Soon after User 84.9.75.111 returned after you temporarily blocked him, he vandalized my talk page. Is there a next step?Benami 00:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that. Not really a next step; if he continues vandalizing he'll be blocked again. Looks like he stopped after being warned, but if he continues I or another administrator will block him. Let me know if you have any problems. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

%8F — Grr that used to work before ;)

Just curious; what does "RBE" stand for? — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanx 68.39.174.238 05:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. But what's %8F?? — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Taht's an interesting way to format a conversation...

Anyway, RBE is Revert Blank[ing/er/ed] Edit and %8F is a nonprinting character in Unicode that I think has been disabled from use since the Pelican Shit vandal misused it. 68.39.174.238 23:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm just full of interesting ideas. Though actually now that I look at it, I shouldn't have put that comment of mine first, since you really weren't responding to it. Anyway, thanks; I like how you come up with all these interesting edit summaries. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

More Roman Soldier

Thanks for weighing in. I honestly never expected to hear from him again, but the fact that he took the time to write tells me he gives a damn about the project. I've unblocked the account and actually feel good about it. My back appreciates your having watched it.  :) - Lucky 6.9 17:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You did good. So did he. I hope he rejoins Wikipedia with his new attitude. It's tough trying to help people adjust rather than outright blocking, and sometimes that's all you can do, but occasionally it works out—and I think that makes it worth it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

WiCker basket

Hi KS, regarding your blocking of WiCker basket, judging by the nature of the vandalism and the "WiC" in the name, I think it's pretty clear that this is a sockpuppet or impersonator of our old friend Wikipedia is Communism. I just wanted to let you know, and I'll be adding this account to the VIP log and applying the {{Wikipedia is Communism}} tag to this guy's user page. Cheers, Deathphoenix 20:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, and thanks. I don't know why it didn't occur to me at the time but I was in such a hurry (on my way out the door, if I recall) that I didn't really have time to think. Anyway, thanks for catching that! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

No problems. :-) --Deathphoenix 03:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

could use your opinion

Please review my latest proposed merge at eumetazoa as it's apparently controversial. TheLimbicOne(talk) 02:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The editors who have joined the discussion after you asked me seem to be quite knowledgeable; certainly more knowledgeable than I. I'll add the page to my watchlist and keep an eye on it; I'll contribute if I think of something. Nice job spurring interest in this, by the way. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Space.com, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

—[Petaholmes (talk · contribs)]

Thank you for posting it; I appreciate you letting me know. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

out of curiosity

Is the intro section of my user page accurate or riddled with obviously flawed logic? --TheLimbicOne(talk) 14:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well...I'd say I consider it more of a tongue-in-cheek story rather than a rigorous explanation. To be honest, I'm not even sure what a limbic gland is—a Google search only turned up two hits, neither of which was very helpful. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey back

Hey Jasen, I sent you an e-mail a few days ago; did you get it? I guess not. Anyway, I saw that you nominated yourself for RfA. You're probably not currently ready for adminship, since while you do good work on Wikipedia you don't need administrative tools for it. Would you mind if I removed the entry for now? You can follow the suggestions already left there and reapply in the future. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove it, I think you're probably right that I don't need Admin tools. I came across more than a few disputes in a short amount of time where people were acting crazy and making personal attacks. Instead of bringing it to the attention of an Admin I thought "hey why not get admin rights and try and help out." But like most things on Wikipedia they seem to have worked themselves out. Thanks, hope all is well with you in the New Year. Jasenlee 20:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I didn't get your email, I've implemented a new spam filter and I think it's getting a little overactive.

I'm sorry it didn't reach you. You're an excellent editor, of course. But voters on RfA tend to highly value being part of Wikipedia policy-type stuff, community action, and a demonstrable desire to accomplish tasks that can only be performed with administrative powers. The reason I suggest removal is because RfA can be quite toxic these days (if I weren't yet an administrator, I'm not sure I'd want to run anymore), especially if someone has been uncivil in the past or has made questionable edits or decisions. Sometimes editors (good editors who just wouldn't necessarily make good administrators) get so hurt/upset that they leave Wikipedia temporarily or permanently, and I wouldn't want to see that happen here. Now you don't have any misbehavior like that in your past as far as I've seen, which is why voters reacted as favorably as they did, but there's still no need to go through that unnecessarily. If you decide you'd like to seek adminship later on, they've left some great comments for you. And I'd of course be happy to help. Happy editing, and good work on all the Chicago-related material! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

While I disagree with Spawn Man's edit, I certainly wouldn't consider it vandalism. Perhaps you could find a less inflammatory word to use in your edit summary? Just a suggestion. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Removing the source of a quote can transform a fair use quote into an ILLEGAL copyright violation punishable by a lawsuit. If that isn't vandalism, nothing is. WAS 4.250 05:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that has nothing to do with vandalism. In general, and on Wikipedia specifically, vandalism usually connotes a destructive intention. Accidentally breaking a car window with an errant baseball would not be vandalism, while smashing it with your bat would. While I agree that the source should not have been removed, it was clearly not vandalism—he wasn't deliberately trying to cause difficulties for Wikipedia, and implying that others have bad intentions is needlessly causes ill will. The first sentence of Wikipedia:Vandalism, which I have now properly sourced, summarizes nicely: "Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia." Keep up your good work referencing articles, but perhaps it can be done without antagonizing others, especially if their efforts are misguided. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

He put looking pretty above "integrity". On purpose. No accident. His prior insertion of ^{[citation needed]} twice into a sourced quote was an accident. Prior to that his addition of a false statement based on a remembered tour was in good faith. His prior to that removal of sources was a newbie thing and there are disagreements over how much to source and how much rewriting is needed before its not copyvio; so I let it go. (All in the dinosaur article.) I felt his act was a deliberate act, and thought a warning was needed. My history of letting things go with him and even giving him a barnstar for his efforts show I have demonstaated both good faith and efforts to not antagonize. I'm sure you feel your judgement is superior to mine in this matter, but I have to act on my judgements not yours. He has already indicated he is not going to do this kind of vandalism anymore and your involvement has only made things worse not better. Let's just drop it ok? This entire conversation should have never happened. Have a litle more faith in other's ability to judge these things ok? If you want to have the last word, go ahead. As far as I'm concerned, let's just forget this conversation ever happened and get on with encyclopedia writing, ok? ok. WAS 4.250 14:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Listen you little toad stool, (This is for Was4.250, not you Knowledge...), I am not a newbie as indicated by this statement, "His prior to that removal of sources was a newbie thing and"... I have worked on many articles before the dinosaur article & I have written at least one FA, of which you are complaining about. It was soooo bad it got bumped up the list & got featured on January 1st, 2006. If anything, you were the greatest problem! More than myself had a problem with you. This included many people on the Dinosaur talk page complaining about your narrow point of view. You set your mind & you don't let anyone else change it. For example, the opening. Everyone had a problem with the opening which you created. I had put a great opening & you reverted it many times, despite me trying to reach a middle ground! C'mon, Dinosaurs are vertebrate animals that range from reptile-like to bird-like. THAT IS NOT A FULL SENTENCE!!!!! It's rubbish. I suggested putting, range from reptile-like to bird-like in appearance. But you wouldn't have any of it! Plus, everyonbe disagreed with you on the are part! Everyone wanted were! But you, one person, who had done jack all to improve the article, over rid the main editor on the article, me, & did it your own way, even though it was in FAC! Infact, you hampered the improvements more than you helped! Your constant reverts & what I see as "newbie" things halted improvements to the article! For example, on the FAC, you can even check it if you don't believe me, one of the tasks was to make sure all the citations were the same style. I spent no less than 6 HOURS tiding up external links in the text, most of which were your doing, as I checked the history to see which pain in the ass had done it! I wasn't very surprised when I discovered it was you. The orders for this major revamp was given by a very influencial editor, nixie/petaholmes, who I supposed knew her stuff, & which you are now saying is wrong by not giving all one style. Now my example of a "newbie" thing is that, even after I told you several times, you still haven't learnt how to create a footnote & YOU'RE STILL PUTTING EXTERNAL LINKS IN THE TEXT! Now, if you say I'm a "newbie", & I know how to use footnotes, what does that make you if you can't even use them? A bigger "newbie"? I think so. So it doesn't matter that I, practically solely, got this article from a skeleton topic, into AID, into a FAC & onto the main page on 1st of January, but you still think my input is inferior to yours? Pah!!! Puhleeeease! And for the last time, I never put {{fact}} into the sourced sentence! Infact I actually deleted them because I had no idea what the heck they were! I never typed the word {{fact}} at all! Only when I put that it's a fact that the dinosaur article is actually a FA!!!!!! Not some stupid article, but a featured article! See this banner for example:

Knowledge Seeker/Archive7 is a featured article, which means it has been identified on a previous version as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.

See those words? "If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute". You compromise!!!! There should be a dinosaur ban on you!

Further more, this statement by nixie furthers that not just myself thinks footnotes should be used, "There is a mix of footnotes and harvard notes, references should be in a standard format throughout the article. And while on the references, WP:CITE states you should actively search for authoritative references to cite, so in an ideal world the primary research discussed in all the footnotes would actaully be listed, rather than (or in addition to) the regurgitated simplified media version.--nixie 11:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)" This was retrieved from the dinosaur FAC.

Another comment from the dinosaur FAC favouring footnotes & parenthetical citations over external links; "Note that when I say inline citation, I mean either footnote or parenthetical citation -- I believe that's common usage but I thought I'd be explicit. I say that because I'd like to see page numbers on those sources, if at all possible, and including them might look better if done in footnotes. In that case, the note itself might simply list the first author's last name and the page number, allowing the reader to refer to the references for the full bibliography (see welding, for example). --Spangineer^es (háblame) 01:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)".

Now as I said above, the dinosaur article is a FA. Now, this means that all edits should improve the article. I would expect you to agree with me here Knowledge seeker, but going against the flow, & putting an inline external link where all other external link sources are in the footnote section is going to make the article look disjointed at the least! I was not deleting the sources because I didn't believe them, but rather, I deleted them because I wanted you, Was 4.250, to put them under the footnotes section, so you would be such a "newbie" anymore! "Newbies" do that, not real editors. So saying that, "His prior to that removal of sources was a newbie thing and"... is absolutely wrong, as I was actually trying to get you to do something professional!

But as we speak, someone did the correct thing!!!!!! Loooooook!!!

Dinosaur history, [3]

The thing which you were too lazy to attempt Was 4.250, someone else did!! So alas, you'll never learn anything because someone else did it for you. So mull over that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What I said was right, you were too lazy to do it!! SOOOOOOOO THERE@#!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAAAAA!

I want you to see this message everyday & see how you could have done things so much more simply by following what an older & wiser head said, (which is me by the way). I didn't want to quarrel or argue, just to maintain a sense of formality on the article. As I said above, you WAS 4.250, are yourself a compromise! Goodbye.... Spawn Man 22:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC) P.S., Never call me a "newbie" again....

Thanks, Doc!

[Regarding User talk:Knowledge Seeker/Archive7#More Roman Soldier]

I really appreciate the nice words on my talk page. Thought I should sign in and show my appreciation of your impeccable bedside manner! - Lucky 6.9 05:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I think we both agree that words are more powerful and more productive than blocks. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Information: New Help Group

This message is to inform you about a new group whose aim is to try and answer Wikipedians' questions. The group is based here, and is so far nameless. If you can offer any help by improving the pages or by answering any questions, then you are very welcome to do so. You are also welcome to raise any questions.

If you know of anyone who would either like to know about this or could help us, then please tell them. Thank you. The Neokid 17:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Block for attack

I'll try and say this as nicely as possible: Assuming that it was simply the opposite of the "support" This appears to have been totally out of line a bit strong. Redacted

I'll agree that it was inflammitory, a bad idea, and almost certain to get someone to do something silly, but he does have a point: Admins are allowed to make templates saying they support of Kelly for ArbCom, but regular users get blocked for saying they will oppose?

I'd urge you to think over not just the block, but the edit to his user page and how that looks. It's hard to admit that you've made a mistake, but a short statement to him would go a long way.

brenneman^(t)(c) 02:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey Mr. Brenneman thanks for your message. Don't have time right now to post a longer message or examine issues more closely but I didn't intend to edit his user page, and I'm sorry. Will leave longer message for you and him later. Thanks — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Also I posted on WP:AN/I when I blocked if you unblock him please note there thanks — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I could have been more clear. I meant Kelly's edit to his user page after he'd been blocked. And I can't unblock him, I'm not and admin just an over-sensitive stickybeak. And even if I were, I'd not consider this ouy-of-bounds enough to warrent over-riding another admin.

I just think that we should all be more careful in the current climate than we normally would be.

brenneman^(t)(c) 00:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to be nice; I think that's important. I recognize my block may have been controversial, but I think it is a bit over the top to characterize it as totally out of line. A user had been previously blocked for making an attack template. He agreed not to make any more templates referring to other editors, was unblocked, and promptly created another one. I hate to block people and you'll often find me arguing against others' blocks or spending large amounts of time attempting discussion with people to try to avoid their being blocked. Of course, recognizing the potentially controversial nature of the block, I promptly reported it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Attack templates, as is standard procedure inviting review and feedback when making questionable judgment calls. The response was largely favorable. The reason I used a short block is that it did not appear that discussion was accomplishing anything; he immediately returned to creating a template.

If that's the point he's making, I don't agree that he has much of a point. It is naive to assume that praise and criticism can be treated equally. If a discussion is taking place and after I comment someone writes "I complete agree with Knowledge Seeker; as always, he shows himself to be a clear-thinking, intelligent editor," no one would be upset, if one were to write "That's stupid, Knowledge Seeker is a something something something [insert insult of choice; I'm not good at those]," it would probably be removed and the editor censured. Administrator status is irrelevant, with the exception that it is more difficult to take action against an administrator, although an administrator is quite unlikely to create an attack template in the first place. One may set one's standard for inclusion at different thresholds: perhaps both support and oppose templates (for anything) are acceptable; perhaps both are not, but there is certainly a wide middle ground where supports are acceptable but opposes are not. In this I make no judgment about the suitability of the support template nor of Ms. Martin's candidacy; however, the oppose template is clearly inappropriate.

I don't think it's that hard to admit a mistake, and I've certainly admitted them on Wikipedia before. But I still think the block was appropriate. I dislike blocking in general and try to use it as a last resort; perhaps in this case I jumped too quickly to blocking without first engaging in discussion. I realize that it might have been better to try to talk to him further instead of blocking first. All I had to go on, aside from my instincts, were that he had created an attack template, had been blocked, had agreed to stop creating templates about other Wikipedians, was unblocked, and then resumed. To me, that shows that discussion is not achieving its intended goal. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the admonishment and if this user continues to engage in inappropriate behavior, I will certainly attempt to see if we can come to an agreement over what is acceptable on Wikipedia and what is not.

I'm not certain why you're asking me to think over how the edit to his user page looks, since it took place after my comment and block and I'd had no additional interaction with the user since then. If you simply were looking for outside opinion, it would probably be better to ask someone not directly involved with this editor.

Thank you for the feedback. I am always eager to know if other users feel I am doing a good job or a bad job as an administrator and editor, and how I can improve. I look forward to additional feedback from you in the future. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I appeared to have stirred up another tempest in a tea-pot with this, haven't I? Thank you for taking to time to respond so eloquently. "Totally out of line" was unfortunate hyperbole on my part, for which I apologise.

My concern is that while each individual action was only slightly over the line, the cumulative effect was overwhelming. Doc's block was justified but a bit hasty, yours hinged on the interpretation of "attack", and Kelly's edit in isolation would have passed without a blink. Put them all together and it gives at least the appearance that the nail that sticks up gets pounded down.

But you are not responsible for what follows, and it was unfortunate of me to conflate your actions in that manner. Once again, I appreciate you taking the time, and the patience that you have demonsrated.
brenneman^(t)(c) 22:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It's all right; I take no offense at your comment. You know, you're right: just because my actions are justifiable or logical doesn't mean that they were the best course possible. I agree that the timing of these events was unfortunate. Perhaps the situation can still be salvaged. I'll try to keep an eye on the situation and see if I can't contribute in a more constructive manner. Thanks for the advice. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

BC AD

I noticed you changed the formats for the years in Human. You may not realize this, but there has been considerable controversy in the past over whether to use BC/AD or BCE/CE, with impassioned arguments on both sides, leading at least once to a Request for arbitration. The current compromise treats the matter similar to American/British English spelling differences: use whichever is already established in the article or the article's author originally used. Hope this makes sense, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

There are many English speaking people in the world who do not understand the concept of BCE. Though there is a link to Common era from the Human page, it seems to me to be an advertisement for secular promotions. You as well as I know that the common era system is relatively new (200 years old at best; popular only within recent decades) and it is identical to the anno Domini system beside the fact that it covers up why the year 1 is the year 1. I write this message on Sevenday, Firstmonth 8th, 2005 (days of the week and month are religious too, but since theyre not Christian, you'd never see that). 05:30, 8 Firstmonth, 2005. Darwiner111.

Also, I forgot to ask, where is the documented argument concerning the BC/BCE usage? I looked in the Talk archives and can't find it. Thanks. [Darwiner111 (talk · contribs)]

Thanks for your reply. It's probably not too useful to list arguments in favor or BC/AD here, since even were I to be convinced, I am just another editor with no special power to declare one way better than the other; the issue isn't actually all that important to me. I'm more interested in preventing edit wars and such. BC/BCE may or may not have been discussed specifically for the Human article—it's more of a Wikipedia-wide issue—so I am not sure if there is any mention in the article's discussion archives. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras has the current guidelines, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2 is a recent case regarding a user who was changing years from one format to the other. It's been discussed in other areas as well, although I can't recall offhand; asking one of the users active in that RFAr might be helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Template changing

Knowledge Seeker, I've noticed that you're changing the userbox Template:User good-looking from the template to a copy of the contents of the template on everyone's user page in Category:User good-looking. Your edit summaries state that this is in preparation for deletion, although I have not seen a recent discussion on WP:TFD or anywhere else that reflects consensus for the template's deletion. Can you please point me to this discussion? :) I appreciate the initiative you're taking in fixing everyone's page. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 08:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your question, Cookiecaper. It was actually a template I created myself, in a moment of lightheartedness. A few days later I regretted creating it, but by then a couple people had started to use it, so I hesitated to delete it; today I decided just to substitute it and delete it. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, you're welcome to recreate it if you like. The prohibition about not recreating deleted content would not apply. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

{{RRevised}}

I guess we'll find out if this does anything. I merged art film and "art house film" (at someone else's request) with a major revision and clean up. So far, tagging it just added it to a category called "Recently revised." --TheLimbicOne(talk) 17:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh...good luck! You may also consider asking someone on the Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce to take a look at it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Your Help Desk answer

Just wanted to say - pure genius! That never would've occurred to me in a million years. :) pfctdayelise 23:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I recall reading it somewhere a long time ago, so I can't really take the credit. But I'm glad I could help! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: Signature

Have you considered shortening your signature at all? It takes up five lines of text on my edit screen. And it includes two images, which are generally preferred not to be used in signatures. I'm not saying you have to change or anything; just thought I'd leave a suggestion. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry; I was not aware of the comment above when I left this message. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Mmmm.... yup. Search4Lancer 06:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. Do you mean you considered changing it but decided not to? — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Mistress Selina Kyle

In my view, you're one of the better contributors to Wikipedia, and whenever our paths have crossed, rarely though that is, you've been very fair and kind. I hope I'm the same, although I might express it in my own idiom. On the admin noticeboard you said you had had enough of Mistress Selina Kyle. I always feel a profound disappointment when what seems to be a contributor who wants to add to the encyclopaedia, in however a misguided a way, so annoys someone I trust as to get that kind of reaction. It's my view that the user in question is misguided rather than bad, although I accept that that's not a perception that everyone would share. Could I ask you to read my comment in the section about her, and to call on all your reserves of goodwill and consider doing as I suggest? I'll fully understand if the answer is no. As I say, I agree that she is more trouble than use, but I don't think she's trying to be bad. Maybe that's too positive a view but I tend to think the best of the worst. Grace Note 09:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

As always, thank you for your comments and support. I do agree with most of your points; I always try to convince vandals to stay and help us rather than block them outright. And I always favor trying to reform problem users. I'm a bit undecided on MSK's case, though. While she definitely made some valuable contributions, the wealth of her disruptive edits was a bit disturbing, she did seem to turn up an awful lot in controversial areas, and she managed to cause a decent amount of trouble while she was here. I'm not certain that she didn't enjoy stirring up controversy. That being said, I am only peripherally aware of her case, so I can't really properly evaluate the situation. I do agree with your WP:AN/I proposal, in principle; by that, I mean that I wouldn't object if someone were willing to take MSK under her wing and mentor, and keep an eye on her. Your suggestion is a good one, but I don't think I can be the one to do it. For one, I simply don't know enough about her case to be taking charge of a situation like this. Also, my recent attempts at "mentoring" problematic users have been somewhat disappointing; I've only made a couple breakthroughs. But the big problem is time: at this point in my career, my time is so limited that I can only accomplish a small fraction of what I want to on Wikipedia, and I'd rather spend more time on writing articles. I'll consider it over the next couple days; or perhaps you can find someone else willing to take on the task. I always hate to see Wikipedia lose contributors. — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello!

Hi there. Sorry that there's not much usefulness to this message but i just thought i'd post to say hello, because i'm also in the medical profession. I'm currently studying as a Physician with around 1 year to go until i'll be qualified, i was a medic within the army, as well as i'm already a registered Nutritionist + Dietician! I am just excited to know there's other people who are qualified medical professionals within the wikipedia, and i'm glad i discovered the category that you're in :-) The magical Spum-dandy 17:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Spum, it's nice to meet you. I'm always happy to see other health-care workers and friends contributing to Wikipedia. I see you've been around for a while, but if you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask. Also, you depending on what your areas of interest are, you may find Wikipedia:WikiProject Preclinical Medicine, Clinical medicine, Medicine, or the Medicine Collaboration of the Week interesting. Good luck with your training! — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder, too, if you'd considered removing the information about scientology from your user page. While I am not particularly a fan of scientology myself, I'm not certain that this user box will have its desired effect, and some would consider it to be in poor taste. Perhaps you'd consider writing about why you don't like it on your user page instead. Just a thought! — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, if you look at the "scientology" link, it goes to the article which completely encapsulates what i feel. However, still, i have created my own bit of blurb as to why i'm opposed to it; if you check out the category i'm in, it'll explain it all :-) The magical Spum-dandy 20:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Pet project

History of Earth is my new pet project. I've only written a couple sections so far, but if you have a chance, take a glance at it and let me know what you think on my talk page. Do you think this kind of article is appropriate for Wikipedia? — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I’m looking it over right now. Heck yes this should be in the in Wikipedia. I haven’t yet looked at all the relevant policies, but I think this would make a great lead article for a category on Earth that groups together all the relevant articles. That’s what I intend to do with organogenesis. Instead of a merge, I’ll just make it a lead article for a whole category on organogenesis (which covers a huge range of topics that I looked at when I was doing "germ layer").--TheLimbicOne(talk) 01:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I wanted to do these with my editor's red pen, but using a div style to color the words also added line breaks. Instead of red, my questions are in parentheses and outside of the quotes.

Questions:

• In the section, Origin:
  • "The formation of Earth occurred as part of the formation of the solar system. It" (ambiguous pronoun: Does It = Earth or the solar system?) "existed initially as a large rotating cloud of dust and gas…" --TheLimbicOne(talk) 01:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Looks great, just made minor grammar edits.--TheLimbicOne(talk) 02:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
• Moon
  • Would you like me to e-mail you a really cool rendition of the collision?--TheLimbicOne(talk) 02:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)--TheLimbicOne(talk) 02:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll read the other sections thoroughly tommorrow. I liesurely read them already. I'll have to look it up, but I think my bio book said the other possible matrix for the formation of life was lava rocks. --TheLimbicOne(talk) 02:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback! Especially for examining it so closely. I still have quite a ways to go on it, obviously, but I thought it'd be a good idea to make sure someone else thought I was going in the right direction before I worked any more on it. You can take your time reviewing it; I'm going to be away the next few days and so probably won't make any progress on it until next week. I'd definitely like the picture—I love stuff like that! Feel free to include the lava rocks if you think it's appropriate; I'm trying to briefly summarize the current theories and obviously can't go into too much detail, but in areas with controversy or not much data, we should briefly mention the major possibilities. By the way, you can use <SPAN> (it's an inline element) instead of <DIV>, a block-level element. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

An invitation

Regardling the vandalism on my user page earlier today:

http://blog.4lancer.net/node/545

Search4Lancer 02:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Did you figure out who it was? — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes indeed. My general manager (the guy right below the owners of the company) emailed me the next day because he saw that post. Said he found it doing a Google search of the company name to see what kind of things employees were saying on their sites. Also said that he will buy me an ice cream cone as per the demand I made in that blog post. :-) Search4Lancer 04:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

sorry about the revert

Why did you remove my lowercasing of "User" and my removal of the apostrophe from "it's"? And with an edit summary of "rvv"? I don't wish to edit war, but ask you to restore the changes. Or at least explain why they were inappropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

That was my bad. I gave a quick explanation on my talkpage, but it is not very good in terms of coherence, since I just wanted to ease your worry real fast, then explain more in depth later. I did not realize that message to the side was there, and I did not realize it had been edited recently. The vandalism I refered to was in the userbox itself, which said "This user supports userboxes because they don't really care about writing an encyclopedia." Obviously, fixing grammatical errors is not vandalism, and so I apologize. The Ungovernable Force 06:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's fine; thanks for the apology. I thought perhaps you felt a sense of ownership of the template and didn't approve of anyone else modifying it or something. Maybe in the future when someone makes a change you don't like, you can just edit those changes out instead of reverting all the way back to a version before those edits. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocking users over fair-use image disputes

Hi KS, as someone whose judgment I place a lot of trust in, your input would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Blocking_over_fair-use_image_disputes, if you have a moment. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Aw, thanks! Heh...for the most part, I've tried to stay out of the fair use controversy—I'm not sure I understand all the subtleties of it and I don't want to get too stressed =) That said, looking at the discussion, it looks like you have good support for your proposal—hope it works out! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Add to Prostate Cancer

I have seen some of your writings on prostate cancer and since I know little about this medium I thought I would turn to you. I have a series of web sites, discussion groups, a database, chats, etc. all dedicated to prostate cancer. All non-commercial, free of ads and free to all.

One of the things I have discovered over the 8 years that I have developed Prostate-Help, is that patients rarely know the important information they need to make treatment decisions. Often they are rushed to a treatment that may not be needed or may not be right for them. I developed an outline for a Prostate Cancer Digest (PCD) and it is found on one of my web sites at http://www.diagnosis.prostate-help.org/pcpanic.htm . I would like to see this added to the article on Prostate Cancer. I tried but it disappeared. Can you edit and add this for me if you think it has value. We use this for newly diagnosed men who are seeking help through the Discussion Group PHML by them filling in the form at http://www.diagnosis.prostate-help.org/pcgivin.htm .

I operate under Prostate-Help and you can go to the Gateway to Prostate-Help at http://www.prostate-help.org and get some idea as to what I do. I can be contacted through the page at http://www.diagnosis.prostate-help.org/pcreply.htm .

Thanks Don Cooley —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.134.32.189 (talk • contribs)

Mr. Cooley, thanks for your inquiry. I'll take a look at your site in more detail later. I'm not sure if it will be appropriate for Wikipedia. There are many people who would like to have links to their sites from Wikipedia, so there typically is quite a high standard for sites to be in the external links section. Many editors believe that if an external site contains valuable information, then that information should be included on Wikipedia rather than listing the site as an external link. What I'd suggest is that you make this request on Talk:Prostate cancer. That way the editors who are active on the article can discuss it or explain why or why not the link should be included. How does that sound? Feel free to ask me if you have any questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

astronomy

I have had to revert your cleanup of astronomy, due to substantial vandalism made before the cleanup. Since you used AWB I think it would be easier for you to cleaup agian than it would be for me. Sorry, —Ruud 12:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your courtesy in in forming me, and for watching over Astronomy. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Space exploration

Why did you italicize only one name out of all the spacecraft on this page? Why did you italicize any? Do we have a new standard I missed? I didn't find anything on Wikipedia:WikiProject Space missions. Rmhermen 13:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your question. No, it's not really a new standard. It was added to the MOS a little over a year ago. I brought it up on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles)#Italicize names of spacecraft? and a couple other editors I'd seen working on spacecraft articles. Based on recommendations from Chicago, a NASA style guide, and a couple other sources, after consultation with them I added a spacecraft example to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). Even more so than for titles of movies or books, they're inconsistently italicized on Wikipedia, although you'll usually see them italicized in featured articles or on the Main Page and such (I just did it for New Horizons, so that doesn't count). The reason I just did that one is that I was using WP:AWB to take all the articles that link to Apollo 11 and italicize its name in those articles. The process is semi-automated; there isn't an easy way to scan each article to see if any other spacecraft names are mentioned elsewhere in the article. I figured I'd get around to doing the other spacecraft later, but it probably makes sense for me to manually go through that article and italicize them—I'm sorry, I should have done that in the first place. Do you have any objections? — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I also discussed it at User talk:The Singing Badger#Italicization of spacecraft; I can't remember offhand with whom else I discussed it. Let me know if you disagree with my actions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with it. I just hadn't seen it done anywhere. Since we have a couple hundred articles with these names, I hope you'll keep using your semi-automated method. Still it will be a lot of work. I will mention it at the Wikiproject although I am not sure who is still active there. Rmhermen 23:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I appreciate the feedback. I just went through Space exploration, and will continue to work on this. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Response to your message to pg2114

Why did you leave this message? What was the problematic edit? And why did you use "rvv" (revert vandalism) as your edit summary? It doesn't appear that you reverted his talk page, but instead placed a new message. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi.

Sorry about message I left on 68.39.174.238's talk page. This IP address did vandalise a page on Wikipedia and I left the appropriate message for them, however I used the incorrect message in the summary. My apologies.

Thank you.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pg2114 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for your response! It's all right; it's easy to let a mistake slip through. I was just surprised because 68's a great vandal-fighter and I would be very surprised if he were to vandalize a page. I'm assuming you mistook him for someone else since I don't see any vandalism in his contributions. Keep up the good work, and just be sure you're leaving messages for the right people. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

With regard to John [Doe] (aka AlabamaStateCons/68.39.174.238)

Achille, IRC logs should not be posted on Wikipedia without permission of all parties involved. You weren't very polite in that exchange, either. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC) from User talk:68.39.174.238#AlabamaStateCons in his own words

My apologies, I was severely frustrated and John's unwillingness to create an account, I usually RC-IP only edits and he comes up often. In my defense he was not professional either (quoting unrelated books and not-answering questions). In further defense, irc logs posted on wikipedia include [4] [5] [6] and many many many of those: [7] —This user has left wikipedia 10:10 2006-01-23

And my name's not "John" either. I have NO idea where that came from. 68.39.174.238 20:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

With regard to "John": In the American legal process, if the identity of someone is not known the monkeir John Doe is used to make it easier to talk about the subject. —This user has left wikipedia 22:44 2006-01-23

I don't see why 68's unwillingness to create an account should be frustrating to you. If he comes up often on your RC patrol, you should recognize him as a quality vandal fighter. Why do you feel he should have to answer your questions about why he does not wish to register? You cannot demand that he answer. Regarding IRC policy, please see m:IRC channels#Logging prohibition on #wikipedia and other channels, conveniently linked in a comment just below the Bishonen transcript (also, if I recall correctly, User:Njyoder's behavior in this matter was responsible for him losing a significant amount of credibility and respect on Wikipedia. Finally, please do not edit others' user pages against their wishes. 68 is perfectly capable of creating a user page if he so chooses. I hope I don't come across as hostile; I certainly don't mean to. You're doing great work fighting vandalism, and Wikipedia needs more editors like you. Just remember that we're all on the same side—you can direct your energies towards vandals, not fellow RC patrollers. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• I hope you will carefully and fully read the following comments as I have placed great deal of time and research on them.

• I have never had never had any disagreements with John, but I have "crossed paths" with him in several occasions (eg, seen him working). When news of his "adminship" spread on IRC several people (including me) were severely angered. I believe this comment from Essjay sums it up [8]. It is my belief that John is making a mockery or Wikipedia editing by refusing to edit as a registered user INTENTIONALLY. Anon editing is a way to allow the average user to contribute, it was never meant as a platform of identity. It is my belief that John knows this and is bending the rules intentionally. As you may have seen from his logs and some of his comments such as [9] he shows little civility. and from his IRC comments that he shows immaturity. I particularly posted the IRC to try to give a small insight on him.

• With regard to the IRC Logging: The link provided by you, [10] only deals with logs on #wikipedia. Upon further searches I was unable to find other policies prohibiting logs. (You may notice that the IRC logs were used *against* Bishonen in her RfA). Since the conversation between John and me was a private one not on Wikipedia, If no further objections from you or John arise, I shall replace the IRC logs.

• With regard to your comment: Finally, please do not edit others' user pages against their wishes. 68 is perfectly capable of creating a user page if he so chooses.. My apologies, I was not aware that John wished that page remain empty, I thought I was doing a favour by adding a redirect (which links directly from his signatures). I believe that only registered users could create new pages.

• Coming back to the admin issue (that you will se plastered in his userpage): Being a vandal fighter (someone who reverts acts of vandalism on Wikpedia per long sessions continuously) should in NO WAY be grounds for Adminship. Edit count should be an irrelevant number, an admin should be someone who can be trusted to
  • Maintain calm even when attacked
  • Weigh on each issue using civility
  • Provide editing and content to wikipedia (we are an Encyclopedia after all, the goal is to grow, not just to avoid acts of vandalism)
  • Show Integrity and Maturity
  • Be TRUSTED.

• Anyone is capable of joining a channel such as #wikipedia-en-vandalism and just clicking on the links and reverting. That's a fantastic thing and that's great of him for that, but that's not enough.

• In all, I'm sure John is a good kid and notwithstanding the above I have nothing against him. —This user has left wikipedia 08:28 2006-01-24~

Mike, there is no need to place copies of my comments directly under them; I hope you don't mind if I remove them. Of course I will carefully read your comments, as I do to all, but I'm not sure this matter is so important as to merit extensive research. What does the adminship nomination have to do with anything? Did he even participate in it? Examining the deleted versions, I don't see any edits or acceptance by him; all I see is another user creating the nomination. Of course I would not support such a candidacy and would have removed it had I come across it; I'm not even certain that it is possible to give an anonymous IP address administrative rights in MediaWiki. But I fail to see the relevance to our discussion or how it excuses your rudeness. Especially since the timestamps seem to indicate that the page was created after our conversation. I don't understand how User:Essjay criticizing User:My Cat inn is relevant; I am not familiar with the latter user and had made no statements concerning him or his behavior. You can believe what you wish, although I don't believe Wikipedia is so tenuous that an anonymous user refusing to register can make it into a mockery. And your beliefs certainly don't make it appropriate to harrass other users. There is no rule on Wikipedia, implied or stated, that one should only edit anonymously if one does not intend to make many edits. There is no edit count beyond which one must register an account. I don't think it's productive to speculate on why different people support the continued ability of unregistered users to edit; I certainly don't accept your idiosyncratic interpretation. "I'm not 'John', whereever that came from" doesn't appear to be particularly uncivil to me, certainly no more uncivil than your remarks you posted in the IRC log. You're right; the policy I cited pertains to #wikipedia; if you feel comfortable exposing your behavior, you may repost them—of course, 68 is not obligated to keep them there. You are correct in that the IRC logs were intended to be used against Bishonen; however, they had the opposite effect of drawing in much more support for her and severely discrediting the poster.

You're right that anonymous users may not create new pages, although this is a quite new change and 68 has had plenty of time to create a user page if he wished. Additionally he can request it be created or ask any one of numerous editors to create it for him. If someone has not created a user page, before you do the favor of creating it for him, consider asking him on his talk page first if he would like one—there may be a reason he never created one or had one created, and page creation is not an easily revertable action like other user page editing might be.

Why are you returning to the administrator issue? I don't believe I have ever said that I would support an adminship candidacy for 68. Anonymous users cannot be administrators; even if it were technically possible, it'd be incredibly dangerous. In fact, if he ever desires adminship, he may end up regretting the long delay in registering, since he'd have to build up a repuation as a logged-in user. I cannot understand why you are responding to my comments about your lack of politeness with arguments for why he should not be an administrator.

I'm not certain that there is any more to be gained from this discussion, as I've made the points I wished to make. I will be happy to continue it if you wish. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe you just pulled yourself to the same level of this kid by time you wrote Mike, there.... Considering that the IRC log issue solved I foresee no more needed discussion.

—This user has left wikipedia 06:48 2006-01-25

Thanks! I'm glad I could help, although I don't understand what you mean about me pulling myself. If you have any more questions, let me know. Oh, I wanted to tell you, I love your user page! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

CE vs. AD

I wont list the arguments but suffice to say that I prefer CE. I introduced a section in stub article Early Christinanity this dating system (CE). However, both Darwiner111 and Dominick have changed this to AD, with claim that "(AD is the preferred wiki dating system)" From my understanding having read the abritation on the matter, this is not so. Since CE was the dating system first introduced, it should be kept. I think an edit war over such a point is trivial but perhaps you can clarify for these users since they seem to be misinformed. Thanks. Giovanni33 15:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me, Giovanni. It looks to me like the original dating system in the Early Christianity article was AD, so I think they'd be justified in keeping the article consistent with that, unless a consensus of editors decides that the other version would be more appropriate. I agree that there is no preferred Wikipedia dating system, but in this case, it looks like they were justified in their change. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding, or if you see any other inappropriate changes. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article metolazone, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

—[Petaholmes (talk · contribs)]

Thanks, and thanks for letting me know. Please let me know if you would prefer I not reply to these notification messages. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

History of the Earth (Part 1 :))

Knowledge Seeker -- I think this is a fascinating article. I have made some very minor tweaks to the English, so if it's not on your Watchlist please have a look to make sure I haven't inadvertently introduced any errors. I graduated in biology at Sussex University in England a long time ago: this has brought a lot of it back! How far do you plan to take this? Early evolution is a bit of a minefield, but nothing compared with later stuff. Puffball 20:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd been meaning to write an article like that for a long time, but it is an ambitious task. I'm pretty surprised actually that it hadn't been written before. There's not even a history section in Earth! I'll be adding that at some point. My goal with History of Earth is to provide a brief overview of the history of the planet, like history of the world. I don't want the article to get too long, so I'm trying to be succinct in each section and I'm not sure how many sections are optimal. I wasn't planning on going into too much detail in later evolution, since I can't really do it justice and it'd probably be better if someone wrote about it in more detail in a sub-article. What do you think? It's hard writing about eras when not much is known or there are several competing theory. What I'm trying to do is summarize the leading theory if there is one, or briefly mention the competing ideas if no theory is dominant. I haven't entirely planned out the rest of the article, but I'm thinking that I'll write the following sections:

• Colonization of land, (bacteria, plants, animals), including dominance of reptiles/dinosaurs, emergence of angiosperms, divergence of birds and mammals, and of course extinction. Maybe I should mention some of the other extinction events as well. Then the dominance of mammals. I'm not sure if I should keep this all in one section
• Origin of humanity. Brief mention of primate evolution and then discussion of human evolution. I don't want to go into too much detail because it's controversial, and because I don't want the article to become too biased towards humans—I'd rather emphasize the vast period of history before humans arose. Perhaps only two sentences on human history, with a reference to History of the world for further information.
• Spaceflight. A bit of a conceit, considering how much I'm condensing human history, and there were plenty of other major advances in human history. But as a history of the planet Earth, I think it's relevant to discuss the major step of some of a planet's inhabitants launching objects, and eventually themselves, off the planet. Perhaps it would start with a quick mention of the improvements or planetary travel (horse, car, airplane).

Anyway, that's the plan for now. What do you think? Any suggestions? After the preliminary writing is done, it's going to need a lot of polishing, and I want to carefully reference some of the assertions at some point. I'd like it to be a featured article eventually, but that's a very long way away. Please continue to help fix it up; I'll definitely need help, and assistance from a biologist will be very welcome. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I replied here; sorry if you didn't catch it! Puffball 22:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about your reply. Have you considered leaving messages for users on their talk pages? I think it makes it easier to know when someone has something to say to them. Just a thought. But anyway, thanks for your insightful comments. I certainly do hope people (more knowledgeable than I) will split off subarticles from some or all of the sections. I am actually very surprised that there is no article or even section of an article on the formation of the Earth. That Earth includes neither a "History" section nor even a "Formation" section greatly surprised me, and is one of the reasons I wished to write this article. You're right about the arthropods, and anyway the bacteria are probably the dominant life forms on Earth anyway, depending how you define dominance. I'll rethink how I write that section. The recent sections I've written are going to need a lot of rewriting. In particular, History of Earth#Colonization of land has become quite long, and I haven't even finished it. Should I split it up? I'll probably have to, but I want to limit sections to major changes in Earth's history, not minor events like evolution of mammals or something. Maybe I'll finish writing the first draft of the article, then go back and work on these problematic sections.

Regarding nonscientific theories, in my opinion, the article should focus on scientific theories of Earth's history, similar to Origin of life (which is why, similar to that article, I specified in the introduction that this article discussed the leading scientific theories). Do you think that's all right? Even if we were to attempt to include religious explanations in the article, I'm not certain how it could be done. If one is to include specific religious events, it would get far too complicated to include all major religions, and it would become extremely complicated with conflicting stories being woven together. Even just focusing on Christianity (which I would disagree with), it's unclear how it could be incorporated. Could you maybe give an example of how this could be addressed?

I'll briefly mention some of the mass extinctions, and perhaps you could assist in writing more about them when I've made some more progress with the article. Do you really think that it was so serendipitous that life began? I used to think so, but the more I read the moreit seems more inevitable. That tends to be the flavor from what I have been reading, too. I think many scientists view the short time between Earth's formation and the origin of life (less than a billion years) as suggesting that life's beginning was not an unlikely event. The origin of complex life and intelligence may have been, though. Perhaps if our spaceflight technology ever advances that far, we will find many planets where simple life has evolved, but never find another intelligence. Mass extinctions, including the one driven by Homo sapiens, are quite destructive and wipe out many species, but don't really threaten life itself. Eukarya may be severely affected, but the Archae and Bacteria have survived quite hardily. I agree that humans are a threat to themselves and to a number of animal and plant species, but while we could easily make the planet uninhabitable for us, I doubt we could make it unhabitable for life. In fact, even if humans worked together, I wonder if we could wipe out all life on Earth. After we're gone, I'm sure prokaryotes will survive at least, and probably even animals like arthropods. This is all speculation, of course. You're right, genetic engineering should be mentioned as well. I'll figure out a way to work it in. I'll see what I can dig up on predator-prey as well.

I very much appreciate your assitance polishing the text. In fact, it's going to need more than a bit of polishing. As I said before, this is a very ambitious article for me—I usually write on very narrow topics. Overviews are tough, and I could easily write too much about something. I'll definitely need your help to remain concise and clear. It's going to need to go through several stages of improvement, but I intend to seek featured status for this article one day, no matter how much work it takes. I hope that some good subarticles will be written as well. Oh, by the way, if you have better suggestions for any of the pictures, please suggest them or change them. I'd like each section to have at least one picture but it's not always easy to find something appropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the talk page thing.

Yes, arthropods rule! Apparently cockroaches can survive incredible levels of radiation. Luckily for us, most arthropods "breathe" by little more than passive oxygen absorption. This limits their size, since once they get any bigger than a lobster they have trouble supplying all their tissues. Apparently there were some whopping dragonflies in the Carboniferous; I wonder how they managed.

But you're right, the bacterium is the real boss in the ecosphere.

I think it is indeed highly serendipitous for life to begin anywhere, and then to thrive. The chemical composition of the planet has to provide the necessary elements. Gravity and temperature must fall within a reasonable range. The peculiar properties of water are crucial (which suggests to me that water is an essential concomitant of life). For example, if ice sank, life could not have continued in the sea. The links formed by carbon make it #1 choice for the complex molecules needed at startup and thereafter. Daylength and circadian rhythm are probably also important, as also the lunar cycle and the stimulus of the tides: the Moon is an unusually large satellite with a correspondingly large gravitational pull. Maybe also the tilt of the axis and the cycle of seasons. The conditions here are probably pretty rare, which is not to say that they aren't endlessly replicated elsewhere. It's intriguing to think that life is widespread in the cosmos, either seeded by comets or just an inevitable consequence wherever conditions are right.

With short-termist politicians in charge, the Earth will be unable to sustain so many people for much longer; in geological terms, for no longer than the blink of an eye. Even if the eco-crash doesn't get us, we're a monoculture just begging for viral disaster. But I doubt that we will become wholly extinct. If we do, there might be a natural cycle of sapient forms arising and then killing themselves off, until one manages to get it right. Presumably such "people" would get a handle on faster-than-light travel, which I suppose is when the colonization of space would become really interesting. (Of course, some believe that "they" have done that already.)

Another possibility is that Earth and all its systems exist merely as one of a multitude of simulations inside somebody's computer, either as a game or as a scientific model. But this philosophical idea has no more relevance to "History of Earth" than religious theories. I agree that one should stick absolutely to orthodox science, otherwise the piece will become uncontrollable. I suggest that you ignore religion completely. After all, some eminent scientists are atheists, but plenty are believers.

Likewise I would suggest you abstain from any sort of prediction about the future; leave the reader to figure that out.

I don't think the Colonization of Land section is too big at the moment, but when a section does get too unwieldy, why not just make a sub-article out of it and retain a summary containing a link? How long should the parent article be? How long will the interested reader devote to it in one sitting? Maybe you should set a limit, e.g. 5,000 words, and see how it goes.

I will hunt around the Commons and Google for images, but I think you're doing a pretty good job already.

My knowledge of science is hopelessly out of date: to get other input on various topics, have you considered checking the history pages of relevant articles (e.g. Evolution) and then contacting the chief contributor(s)? There might be a case for having some place on the site (if there isn't already) where such appeals could be posted. But, as I say, I'll do what I can, as this might prove to be the most interesting and fundamental article in the whole of Wikipedia! Puffball 16:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been keeping my eye on this. I'm a little busy in the real world right now, but I will return to help you out on this project. --TheLimbicOne(talk) 21:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Nah, there's nothing to apologize about. I don't like fragmented conversations either. Some people leave a short notification message ("Replied on my talk page") kind of like you did, but I figure if you're going to do that you might as well just copy your whole reply. Anyway, everyone finds their own preferred style.

Water seems important, but I wonder if it's essential to life. Perhaps there are alternative biochemistries we haven't thought up yet. Really, all that's necessary is for some sort of self-replication to arise. Even if it were water based, even if ice sank, there are plenty of regions on Earth where water doesn't ever freeze. And I doubt the length of days or circadian rhythms are very important for many microscopic life forms. I do think these factors are important for Earth's large multicellular life, but not for life itself. Anyway, unless we find some more concrete information, I'll leave it out of the article for now. All right, I'll keep working on the land section, and we can trim/split it as necessary. Speaking of images, today's featured picture will be beautiful for the spaceflight section. Yeah, I'll try to recruit some people to help flesh out some of the details or write subarticles and such once I finish writing the skeleton—we'll definitely need help. I want to add something about the origin of sexual reproduction but I need to find more information, so I haven't written about it yet. I'm excited about the article too, and thanks to both of you for helping out! — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a great image. I'm still polishing; just about to do a bit more ... Puffball 19:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)