User talk:DragonHawk/Archive 1

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Welcome!

Hello DragonHawk/Archive 1, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! 

Your talk page didn't have one of those yet.  :) Bushytails 00:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Was it supposed to?  :) --DragonHawk 00:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, everyone is supposed to get one around about the time of their first non-vandalism edit, if the new user welcoming people are doing their jobs.  :) Bushytails 00:51, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Screen scraping

Hi Nick! I saw your comments in Talk:Screen scraping, and tried to expand the article to give a better description about what screen scraping is all about. Is the new version of the article any more helpful to you, or does it still need more work? --DragonHawk 23:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your screen scraping edits; the new edition is more explanatory. --Nick Douglas 17:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm glad to help. --DragonHawk 23:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Gmail screenshot

Hi! You don't know me.  :) The image you uploaded of Gmail's link to the Horn of Plenty article incorrectly used the {{Wikipedia-screenshot}} template. That template states that the associated image is a screenshot of Wikipedia. Since the screenshot is of Gmail, that's clearly wrong. I changed it to use the {{Software-screenshot}} template. I believe that's much more correct. (Gmail is basically just another software program, after all.) I wanted to let you know in case my take on this is wrong. --DragonHawk 05:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, mea culpa. I don't know what I was thinking; I've uploaded other screenshots before. Thanks for pointing it out! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

No big deal, just wanted to let you know, since I was changing the "License" section. Cheers! --DragonHawk 17:31, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Fellow Granite Stater!

I saw that you were on [[Category:New Hampshire Wikipedians]], and I was wondering if you'd like to join us in improving content related to New Hampshire at Wikiproject New Hampshire. Please let me know if I can help you out with anything. karmafist 23:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Talk header template spacing

No problem; I've made the same mistake myself so many times that I know to check for it now ;-) What happens, if you're curious, is that when a noinclude section is placed on its own line at the end of a template, it produces an extra blank line in the output; this causes gaps in the spacing on pages like Talk:War of the League of Cambrai, where a bunch of the templates are stacked together. —Kirill Lokshin 15:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Fact

Thanks for the nod. dryguy 23:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I do think some of the points you were making in that discussion were valid, but by going to TfD, the only thing that was heard was "Don't delete that template!". --DragonHawk 00:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Odd numbers

Hey, just letting you know I'm reverting your addition to the list, not because it's not amusing/cute, but because the whole point of sticking that in my user space was to preserve the list as it is in the only form it can be found. No worries, mate? Confusing Manifestation 15:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I appreciate what you're doing, even. It was that that when I came across the page, I just couldn't help myself. "We apologize for the inconvenience."  ;-) --DragonHawk 17:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure thing. You know, I suspect "I just couldn't help myself" was the reason the list exists in the first place ;) Confusing Manifestation 04:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

I saw your addition at WP:FN about a bug with cite conference. I looked at Sanitization and didn't see an obvious problem. Can you explain what the problem is, maybe it can be fixed easily? Gimmetrow 02:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Reply here: Wikipedia talk:Footnotes#Cite templates. --DragonHawk 02:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Talkheader template

Hi there, I see that you have changed a template on a talk page I watch from Template:talkheader2 to Template:talkheader. The reason why I was using the second one is because I feel it's more visually consistent and informative than the other one, but red tape and disagreement prevents me from suggesting these changes to Template:talkheader. Is it not right to have a second template for something like that when the template is only used for non-encyclopedic purposes? —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 06:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Msikma. Sorry to surprise you with that! I've put forward a proposal, currently at Template talk:Talkheader, which explains where I'm going with this. It was my honest belief that the duplicate templates weren't even in active use. I still believe the duplication is a bug, not a feature. I had started down the road of replacing the dupe templates with {{talkheader}}, but then realized that such unilateral action was against the spirit of Wikipedia, and posted at the talk page. So feel free to revert my change. I do encourage you to respond at that talk page, though, because barring clear majority opposition, my plan is to eventually put the duplicates to a Templates for Deletion vote. Thanks! --DragonHawk 17:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The "stickman"

Judging from the users remarks on his talk page + his deletion of your valid link addition to the Neil Peart article...my AGF grows thin that the user wants to contribute to Wikipedia in a positive way. Any thoughts? I know lots of admins but don't want to bother them with this unless it's truly necessary. For now it's just small potatoes link spamming. Cheers Anger22 23:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

He appears to have lost enthusiasm for adding his link, now that he has been pointed at the rules. I cannot know for sure, of course, but my take is that he's just a fan-site creator who, like most creators, thinks his creation is special and deserves to be linked. The site does place highly in a Google search, so I think it may actually be of above-average value for a fan-site, but even if it's the best fan-site in the world, that still doesn't satisfy WP:EL. Wikipedia is not a bookmark file. I agree that it's not worth admin intervention unless he won't use Talk but continues to try adding the link. --DragonHawk 23:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with letting it cool for now. It's not mass spam attempts...just a single purpose user. I too gave it the Google test. My guess is to why the "high show" was simply there just aren't that many sites with content specific to Peart and drumsticks?? As far as fansites go I found it to be quite poor. Again, like I said on the article talk page, in the end Wikipedia is ruled by concensus among regular editors. And right now the odds are stacked against the sticks. Take care! Anger22 00:10, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ben, Thank you 100x over for all the help you given me and answers to my questions. So far you and Anger22 are the only people kind enough to help me out with my ignorance of the rules in a truly polite fashion. THANK YOU!

I have raised some question(s) in response to comments made to, and about, me by ThuranX that he/she has conveniently deleted and I did not make a back-up. Then I get threats of removal, and being angry, etc, etc. I think you know from our emails I am not angry. I have even asked for 100% deletion of my account and all comments and I will go away, but no one will do me that favor.

I deleted the external commercial links from my webpage as a sign of good faith to show I can cooperate. Although ... I still do not wish to be linked on Wiki! My questions have gone unanswered raised on the issue in paragrapgh titled "Link As Requested" on my talk page, and ThuranX talk page. Can you please take a moment to read it and then be so kind to answer the question(s) for me the way you have done in the past. None of what I write is in anger ... I am simply a mature educated adult who writes straight and to the point. Thanks again for your time and help, Ben! Michael Peartdrumsticks 04:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest bringing your concerns over to Talk:Neil Peart. That's the appropriate forum, where all editors can reach consensus on the article in question. You and me talking here isn't consensus. Further, some pretty serious allegations have been raised against you there. --DragonHawk 02:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

sassy sexy scuzzy

Looks like all the history was deleted, not just my addition to the original intent of the pronounciation. So this question has no bearing on the wikipedia entry other than that it was my first posting and I'm curious. What would have been the proper way to get a citation for the intended pronounciation of the acronym? I know this information because I knew someone who was around when the name was created and they were complaining about how people refused to call it sexy when they spent time trying to come up with the logical successor to sassy. Would I give you the name of the person and his connection to the process? Would I get a letter from someone who was involved and knows the history and then forward that to you? Would I ask someone like that to try to write a letter to the editor somewhere to get published so that it could be referenced? How far from the actual experience does the citation need to be to be deemed acceptible for inclusion? Just curious. kee@kagi.com

{The word is pronunciation, dear Kee.} Wortschätzer 23:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess this refers to this edit I made to SCSI. Unfortunately, I don't have a ready answer, and I'm really busy with real life lately. I hope to get back to this in the future. --DragonHawk 16:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

DoD 5220.22-M

Do you know what page in DoD 5220.22-M talks about data sanitization? Jobarts^-Talk 22:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Footnote 4 in the NISPOM article (permalink) cites this. --DragonHawk 16:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't notice that. Jobarts^-Talk 21:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. Though, as noted in the article, the NISPOM barely touches sanitization. It basically just says it's required. --DragonHawk 22:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

On the porch

Hi there. I noticed that you intend to clean up Front porch and back porch (on your todo page, via Special:Whatlinkshere/Front porch). I don't know much about this, but I'd like to start by merging the articles, since they discuss the same topic. I had initially moved one to Porch (broadcasting), but reverted myself since that may not be entirely accurate. My question is this: what would be an appropriate name to which these can be merged? Would Porch (video) be intuitive? Mindmatrix 20:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, what I was thinking was that several articles (those listed in my todo list (and I just added some more)) were all short articles -- barely more than dictdefs. Yet they all have a common theme -- they are all concerned with the signals that get fed into a CRT. I was thinking they could all be merged into one larger article, with a title such as CRT signalling or something like that. Such an article could address such the concepts as a cohesive whole, rather than a bunch of disjointed definitions. But I never went anywhere with the idea, obviously. --DragonHawk 04:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Data remanence

I was looking through old merge tags and found data remanence/file wiping/shredding. Do you feel there was any consensus to merge? It seems like everything could go under a generic title, like Data deletion, with wiping and shredding being two methods and data remanence being an unintended side effect. Tocharianne 03:32, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tocharianne. Thanks for your interest.  :) I have replied on the article talk page. (I feel that's the best place to discuss proposed changes to an article. Hope you don't mind.) Cheers! --DragonHawk 07:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk pagessssssss

Fixed it ... I think. ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

History page has lost info?

Hello

A redirect was made to a page here [1] and all the previous history before the redirect was somehow lost. How do we get all the History from these 2 pages together?

Thank you
--Trade2tradewell 23:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A redirect is simple some special syntax in a page that tells MediaWiki to pull a different page from the database. Redirects do not affect page history at all. If you go to Christopher Gardner, you will get redirected to Chris Gardner. Notice the "(Redirected from Christopher Gardner)" text right below the page title. Click the link in that text, and you'll be sent back to Christopher Gardner but with redirection forced off. You can then view the history or talk for that page.

Also, while I'm glad to be of help, I'm kind of curious as to why you asked me this. As far as I know, I'm nobody special at Wikipedia.  :) —DragonHawk (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

talkheader

How's the talkheader coming? I see on my watch list you were having some problems getting the policy box to appear. Veracious Rey talk • contribs • review 23:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Yah, it's weird. The first use of ParserFunctions to make the "Not a forum for general discussion" heading conditional works fine. The same syntax doesn't work later on in the template. It's hard to test because the "Article policies" box is not supposed to appear anywhere but article namespace. So testing anywhere in the usual proper places does not help. I am currently searching for a sandbox in main article namespace to test with. In the meantime, it at leasts looks okay everywhere; it's just one feature is missing. —DragonHawk (talk) 00:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

You're talking jibberish now, I'm not a code geek like yourself  ;)

Shoot me a message on my talkpage when you get it figured out. Glad you liked the Barnstar. Veracious Rey talk • contribs • review 00:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Second revert of Talkheader

What is wrong in your opinion with using "start a new section" for a link? Your comments don't make that clear, the current version violates Wikipedia:Accessibiliy, and changes that violate guidelines require justification for doing so. NeonMerlin 05:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason I am reverted your changes twice has nothing to do with the content of the template, but with your approach to the changes. I go into more detail on the template talk page. In the past, this template has been the subject of edit storms as everyone tinkers with it. That's bad for the servers, and has led to the template being protected in the past. I'm trying to forestall the edit storm by directing efforts towards talk first. You can go ahead and edit again if you like, and I will not revert again, but I can virtually guarantee somebody else is going to see the change on their favorite talk page and go and change it how they like, and then someone else will, and then the template gets protected, etc. • All that being said, I actually think you're on the right track with your latest change. But let's see what others think first, please, okay? —DragonHawk (talk) 05:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

talk header

Seems a bit of a double standard to ask that discussion be used to remove something that had no major discussion to include it in the first place. I'm sorry, but you do not OWN this template. -- Ned Scott 19:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to apologies for my earlier behavior. Right or wrong, the issue was so minor that I'm embarrassed I made such a big deal about it. It really doesn't matter to me much either way if the template includes those links or not. The whole time you've kept a cool head and been polite, even when I was not. -- Ned Scott 02:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

No big deal, and thanks for the apology. We all loose our cool sometimes. I'm lucky enough that I find it easier to bite back instinctive responses in online forums (as opposed to real life, which is far more real time). Before I hit save on a talk page, I always try to evaluate what I've written in the context of things like WP:CIV. There are plenty of times where I've discarded what I've just written.  :) —DragonHawk (talk) 02:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

regarding biased edting of Sunni page

im humbly submitting that on sunni page of wikipedia the wahabi group is posting /pasting its own sites regularly. the person is not accepting the sunni barelwi sites and is only pasting the links of wahabi islam sites . which clearly says in its wahabi page that they dont follow 4schools of thought which is basis of sunnism all over the world . so all the moderators are requsted to check this . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 164.100.151.36 (talk) 15:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

talkheader

No hard feelings about the talkheader fiasco. I stopped adding the headers 500 or so edits ago it's a thing of the past. Incidentally I agree with Harvey100 the bold lettering is a little condescending and confrontational and it kind of surprised me, but I'm a big boy I'll think I'll get over it. Quadzilla99 22:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you didn't take it personally. My intent with the "bold remark" was not to intimidate, but to call attention to what I saw as a potential train wreck. Based on your edit history and the context of the discussion, I was worried that you might have been running a robot to auto-add the template to every talk page on Wikipedia. Aside from being a violation of WP:BOT, that was against consensus discussions for that template, and would probabbly get countless people mad at you. Sorry if my response was unclear. Happy editing! —DragonHawk (talk) 02:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

'tis the season

It's somewhat convoluted but basically a matter of philosophy. The perennial debate is whether Wikipedia should follow strict rules and procedures, or not. You're probably aware that we have several policies (WP:NOT, WP:IAR, WP:5P) indicating the latter. The snowball clause is a reiteration of that; and note that the idea it represents was in use before the page was written.

Objections to the page generally take one of the following forms:

• The idea that every page in Wikipedia must have a tag, and confusion over what tag it should be; note that there was a similar debate over IAR for a long time
• The fact that {{essay}} has gained negative connotations on Wikipedia, and as a result that people want to use it on pages they dislike
• The unsubstantiated allegation that it is frequently abused, in ways that do not at all correspond to what the page actually says
• The idea that putting some tag on it may prevent people from using it
• The notion that since it is (allegedly always) cited wrongly, the page should clearly indicate to people reading it that it should not have been cited
• The misunderstanding that you make a page a guideline (or anything else) by sticking a tag on the page, whereas in fact the tag is the result of the page already being a guideline (or anything else)

PI is a wholly different matter. It is an old practice of Wikipedia that if people see something happening that you don't like, they write an essay about it, often with a disgruntled or snide tone to it. Incidentally some people have gotten fed up with this and are calling for a scouring of Wikipedia namespace. Then, somebody got the notion that either of SNOW or PI should become a "rider" on the other, and that it would prevent edit wars if they always had the same tag, and started edit warring over both pages to ensure this was the case. The irony in that should be obvious.

Hope that helps! >Radiant< 12:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Need article-namespace sandbox

from Wikipedia talk:About the Sandbox#Need article-namespace sandbox

Is there anything like a "sandbox page" in the main namespace (article namespace)? I'm debugging a template which uses ParserFunctions to cause it to appear differently depending on which namespace it is in. Of course, I'm having trouble with the conditions when it is placed in article namespace. I could create a page named something like Page for testing templates which use ParserFunctions but if there is a better alternative, I'd like to use that.  :) —DragonHawk (talk) 23:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you figured something out, but if not you may want to check out the Wikipedia Test Wiki. You'd have to copy over any templates you're using, but you'd be able to test in the article namespace. Happy editing! timrem 03:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

See what treatment I got for adding relavant material

Past Life article was getting redirected to reincarnation. Past life is not just reincarnation. It is much more than that. I tried to add valuable matter their keeping the existing redirection but only letting the relevant matter being made visible. For this I received a threat of banning me from editing wikipedia. I have answered the author that I had just put the relevant matter in relevant place. This is not vandalism. I get threatened by such attitude and cannot share the oceans of knowledge with the world.

Pl. look into it.

Rekhaa Kale 19:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

From Rekhaa Kale

Can I know how one uses the talk pages and why my articles are repeatedly deleted mercilessly?

Right now I have put some suggestion and a problem. May be you can add the solution of it on that page.

Rekhaa Kale 12:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanx. I will try to do the same.

Will you also let me know about the authenticity and other criteria?

There was some objection about my Kriya Reiki page on that ground.

I will be obliged to receive help in managing that article.

In fact I have put a paragraph about authenticity but I feel that it contains some matter out of frustration due to the fact that that page was deleted in the past. I certainly want to remove all objectionable content from that paragraph.

re PI and SNOW

Hi DragonHawk. Naw, it's the usual broughaha at these pages. There's always something going on there. I think both pages are out of protection now so that's OK, thanks. Herostratus 08:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

National Instruments link spam

Hello DragonHawk. I am going to remove the ni.com external link spam again from the IEEE-488 page. I've been investigating a major external link spam campaign that has been orchestrated by National Instruments over the past couple years. It's blatant, it's huge, and this company might even get black listed. I'm a Wiki spam fighter and I'd appreciate your support. Thanks. (Requestion 21:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC))

Hi Requestion. Please forgive me for being blunt, but do you have some evidence for this, specially demonstrating that the links on the IEEE-488 page are spam? When I did some work on that page, those NI links actually proved a useful resource. I might even argue that some of them must be listed, as they provided source material for the article. Be aware that Agilent and NI are really the only major players in the world of GPIB, so any page on GPIB is going to include a lot of information derived from NI. Thanks, —DragonHawk (talk) 22:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have a huge pile of evidence that supports this. I'm working on a final report for the Wiki Spam Project, maybe in a week or two, and I am going to request black listing. I think this might even be bigger and higher up than the Penton Media spam campaign I took down. This investigation is still in-progress and I want to be semi-stealth right now so I am going to delete the mirror copy you posted on my talk page. I'll send you a link to my NI.com spam report when I post it. (Requestion 23:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC))

Okay, keep me posted. Thanks. —DragonHawk (talk) 23:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Talk main page

Hi, I'm not sure how long you've been hanging about talk main page, I seem to remember your sig. But do you remember Template:Main Page discussion header ? We used to have that on there, but people still placed help questions and etc on talk:main page. The general consensus recently was to just not have any warnings or help and just answer people's questions or direct them to where they should be, with out WP:BITEing them. No use in trying to hold back the tide it seems. People 'never' read instructions ;) --Monotonehell 00:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Yah, we've both commented in a few of the same threads on T:MP. Most recently, I was the guy who added the "super short summary" to the "move the main page" discussion. • I do remember that "big box" template. It wasn't exactly the same thing; it was trying to do a lot more than just the present warning. • I am painfully aware of how people like to skip instructions. I totally agree that we'll never "solve" that problem. On the other hand, some people do read them. A prominent notice is more likely to be seen and acted upon. It doesn't have to be 100% effective for it to be worth it, and it's cost is low. On the gripping hand, I don't really care all that much. If you think it would be better to remove it - or if that's established consensus - go ahead and remove it.  :) —DragonHawk (talk) 01:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not concerned really, my past attempts have been to make things easier for new users. But some of the "old hands" want things tailored to their use, and newbies be damned. Personally I'd like to streamline a lot of the help channels for new users as they are a confusing mess. But, it's a VERY large job to attempt, and trying to get consensus to change things is a constant uphill battle from the "If it ain't broken...we fear change" crowd. "Gripping hand"? Nice metaphor, I've never come across that one before. --Monotonehell 03:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Response to Main Page stuff

Hey, That! I don't really feel like being civil. And yes, I would like a yellow background with big black lettering. • (using the small dot you seem to like) • Thanks. 89.120.193.125 17:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Talkheader template wikilink

Many thanks, Ben. I learned a new thing. See you! --Meno25 07:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)