User talk:Gadfium/Archive 1

March 2004

Hi there Gadfium. Welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for writing Michael King. I hope you like it here and keep doing good work. If you want, you can drop us a note at Wikipedia:New user log to introduce yourself.

If you need editing help, visit Wikipedia:How does one edit a page. For format questions, visit our manual of style. You can use the Show preview button before you save, to make sure your edits do what you intended.

You can sign your name on talk pages by using " ~~~ " for your username and " ~~~~ " for your username and a timestamp.

Some time when you're bored, you can read through our policies and guidelines.

If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. You can also drop me a question on my talk page.

Happy editing, Isomorphic 22:14, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Gadfium, and welcome. What a sad entry. A great hole has been left in NZ writing and history scholarship. Moriori 23:39, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

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Hi again. Yeah, improving an article should never be taken as criticism - in fact, it's more of a compliment. It says that what you wrote was interesting enough to make it worth expanding. I don't have a particular interest in King (in fact, I'll admit that I'd never heard of him until today) but I like to learn things by expanding articles, especially when the subject sounds interesting. It's kind of sad that some people get entries here only when their death makes the news. We notice what they've accomplished only once they're gone. Isomorphic 01:32, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

April 2004

Hah, thanks for catching that Traingle typo. *blush in embarassment* --Golbez 04:04, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

May 2004

Greetings (again?), fellow-Kiwi. If you ever want a momentary break from computerese and NZ towns, please have a look at the fledgling Maori Wikipedia - it may inspire something; or at least you will see whether it's worth telling others about! Kind regards - Robin Patterson 00:47, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the greetings. I do actually check Maori Wikipedia every few days, even though I speak no Maori, just to see the progress being made on it.--Gadfium 00:59, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

June 2004

Howdy. Just a quick thank you for pitching in with the misspelled links list. Good job. - TB 11:09, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

Glad to help. I'll do a bit more over the next few days, whenever I need a break. --gadfium 22:03, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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I saw you caught edits on Port Charles and Lisa Rinna. Thanks for the help! The unexplained truncation seems to be stemming from an anonymous contributor who adds the shows a person was on, but little else. :) Check out my user page for the pages I've created. I usually stay in the American soap realm but I've also added pages on Jean Alexander, Julie Goodyear, and Sally Whittaker. Mike H 01:34, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

You didn't reply to me, so now I will reply to me. I saw you edited another pithy substub. NOW do you know what I mean? Mike H 01:29, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't realise you wanted a reply. I see you are changing the sub-stubs to redirect to the main show, but if there's already an article on an actor, even a stub, I'd rather clean it up a bit than redirect it. I don't know what we can do about the sub-stub creator, who seems to change IP addresses daily. --gadfium 01:37, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have only redirected a few. Lucky 6.9 is redirecting most of them. I feel that I want to write these articles at my own pace and should not be forced to write it because some snot just wants to write a pithy one-liner that is, in essence, "refined vandalism". And BTW, if I write to someone, I generally do want a reply in return. It's kinda....give and talk. I was going to type give and take, but I figure that's more quirky and punny. Mike H 01:38, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)

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From ErikFP 07:09, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Hi! Yes, I did mispeld Americian, it wasn't intentional. when I found nothing there I was surprised. But also found it a good place for further discussion on the origins of the name Indian. The Native American topic is already so darn big (and contentious) I hesitate to make any changes to it. But I have actually done a lot of reasearch into the orgins of the name and no, it wasn't Columbus.... most of what we are told about him is fairy tales and it turns out that the origin of "Indian" is very probably another fairy tale, most likly explaination is the Spaniards.

Anyway, I had spent many hours working on that topic and then poof it's gone. I was none too happy until I finally managed to figure out how to pull up my work. strangly, redirect pages do not have an edit history...

Well, anyway, I was back to add another really cool quote to the page and now I have the problem that my page is an orphan. I'm not sure what to do with it at this point. One idea I had was to take the entire name section of Native American and put it onto a seperate page, because as I say, the topic is really getting too big.

I'd like to here your thoughts on this... The current topic is well written, but I've got all of this suplemental research... I don't want to mangle the existing topic, but I would like to present this additional info. Any ideas how I can do this and especially how to do it without tilting other peoples apple cart?

Thanks, ErikFP

July 2004

Wikimoz.org Spam?????

http://www.wikimoz.org/en/about.html

ALFA..............

(placed on my user page by User:81.172.108.8)

Pues yo la quiero en español, dame tu página, por que adivino no soy.

(placed on my user page by User:81.172.108.8)

Murder by Death

Could you do me a favor: i merged histories (trivial tho the hidden one was), but (somewhat as the last time i did that) cannot immediately see the result of the final undelete. I'd be grateful to know what you get as the history of Murder by Death (and when you got it); if you're curious you may want to refer to Talk:Murder by Death.

My theory is that this is a server-cache problem, that will clear up for both of us at the same point in time, and that the contents of my client cache is irrelevant.

Tnx.! --Jerzy(t) 07:23, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

I see both articles as redirects pointing at each other. This is clearly not acceptable, so I've reverted the one which had real content so at least something is there. Feel free to make any changes you think appropriate; I know nothing about this movie and only discovered that we had two articles on it through a cleanup list I was working through.--gadfium 09:03, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(I remember the film, but my interest in editing it was equally prosaic: fictional characters don't belong on List of people by name, where i do a lot of work.)

Tnx, we are now both seeing what i should have been able to see last nite, without my having done anything further to changing my client-caching status. This reassures me that i know what to expect in these situations.

To give you a little more detail, i deleted "your" page, and moved "mine" to that name, with everything looking as expected. I got an ugly message when i undeleted "yours", and could only see the short history of "mine". Now we both find that what the server is reporting to both of us includes the merged history that was the next step toward the result i was aiming at.

The change you made is the final step i thought would probably be needed (tho i couldn't tell for sure which of the two same-minute edits would end up as more recent). We agree as to the proper text; thanks for finishing the job. [smile]
--Jerzy(t) 14:08, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

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Cu Chi tunnels

Hi, good spot on the redundancy on Cu Chi tunnels, but I think it should probably be swapped the other way around on the title. Please see: Talk:Tunnels_of_Cu_Chi. Thanks. Fuzheado | Talk 02:57, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've replied at Talk:Tunnels_of_Cu_Chi. -gadfium 04:20, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tools

Thanks for helping with that article, and sorry for the lynx-link. I guess I got confused while changing things around. Also, i'm sorry about my othography... it's pretty bad in german already, and it's worse in english, i guess. Anyway, I will keep translating bits for that page. If you like, have a look every now and then. regards, -- G. Gearloose (?!) 22:06, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My comment was out of line. I apologise.-gadfium 22:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

NZ politicians

Gidday, Gadfium. I see you don't accept Dick Hubbard in the Category:New_Zealand_politicians because he hasn't been elected yet. We therefore have (not explicitly but by logical deduction) different definitions for the category and for the page, which latter I recently amended to include "including prominent candidates for local and central government office as well as those who achieved such office" after Vardion added Dun Mihaka, who has never been elected either. A bit of a hui desirable, maybe! Robin Patterson 01:47, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have no problems if you want to add him to the politicians category, but he is still primarily a businessman and should therefore be in the general New Zealanders category until we split out a category for New Zealand business people. As far as Dun Mihaka goes, I am happy for him to be in the politicians category as politics are what he's best known for, an activists category would be even more appropriate.-gadfium 01:59, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

TV Nova

Hi. Someone else has already removed Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/TV Nova from VfD, I would have left it there for 24 hours to give you a chance to respond. If you want to discuss why I think it doesn't need to go on VfD, or how to do the redirect if you want to be bold, or where to talk about the options if you want to seek support for the action first, just drop me a line on my talk page. Andrewa 01:27, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If this was a simple merge of two articles, I would have done it myself, but in this case I suspect the content of the article is false, and I wanted to raise this so someone could verify or debunk it. Should I raise it on m:Peer Review instead? If you look at the original author of the article, you can see why my suspicions were raised. -gadfium 01:32, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've put a Template:Accuracy tag on the article. This is probably what I should have done in the first place.-gadfium 01:49, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's a good move.

Other possibilities are Wikipedia:Pages needing attention and cleanup. Both m:Peer Review and m:Peer review link to non-existent Meta pages, but there's a Wikipedia:Peer review page which I think is what you mean. But it's for requesting review of your own work, not other people's.

What I would have done is to copy the suspect text to the talk page of the article with the preferred name, with a note as to why I thought it needed verification, and where it was from if it wasn't from the preferred name article. I'd then have merged all the useful information to the preferred name and redirected the other.

If I thought the suspect text was definitely worth further investigation but wasn't able to do it myself, I'd then take some action such as described above, but I don't think I'd have bothered in this case. I take your point about authorship, it's most likely a joke IMO but I don't know an easy way to find out. If it's not a joke someone is bound to find the removed text in the talk page and reinstate it, especially if the article is tagged as a stub, while if it's just in the page history or in the talk page of a redirect they may never find it.

Lots of options. Hope this helps. Andrewa 07:19, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

beta Systemic Bias section

Hi, if you wish to help contribute to a beta version of a Wikipedia page section designed to counter-act Wikipedia's systematic bias, please sign the bottom of this section on the Village pump - Wikipedia:Village_pump#Systemic_bias_in_Wikipedia. If not, no worries.--Xed 03:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just a Thank you

Thanks for the catch on Trumbull ...Lou I 17:08, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Battleship categorization

Hi, I undid your addition of Formidable class battleship to Category:Royal Navy battleships because it's for individual ships, not classes. There is possibly some values in making a Category:Royal Navy battleship classes, although I tend to prefer a large Category:Ship classes over having it be a collection of small categories. Stan 05:08, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ok, no problem.-gadfium 05:39, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This page contains a link that might be mis-punctuated

Howdy. Firstly a pat on the back for working through the lists of mis-punctuated links so diligently - my hat is off to you, you (and others) have manged to recover around 1.5% of all red links in wikipedia by my reckoning. I'm planning to rebuild the report soon using a slightly more robust method and, of course, a more recent database dump. Before I do so, I wanted to check that this won't upset your ongoing work in the area. If I don't hear from you in a few days, I'll rebuild it in more or less it's current format. - TB 08:22, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Categories

Hi Gadfium - could you hold fire on any more category additions in trees/conifers, I'd hoped to organise something a bit more systematic for this - thanks, MPF 00:04, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sure, sorry if I've caused you any trouble.-gadfium 00:06, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks; the problem is that Category:Conifers would end up with 600-odd listings eventually, once every species was added. When I get the time, I was reckoning on adding categories by family (did a trial start with Category:Pinaceae but am not fully satified with the way I've set it up!), then put the family categories into Category:Conifers. MPF 10:30, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Long lists of mispunctuated links

Thanks for instructions on how to break up those big sections on the "mispunctuated links" report. I knew it had to be something simple like that. I'm finding that list to be addictive, like popcorn or mixed nuts, but with fewer calories. Joyous 10:43, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

After correcting a great many mispunctuated links, I'm slowly reaching a conclusion: People Can Be Careless. Joyous 01:13, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but people mean well. I suspect many editors don't bother previewing their article and looking for unexpected red links. Doesn't it feel good to make an article better, by fixing a broken link, adding a category, correcting grammar, or sometimes even doing a bit of research and fleshing out a stub?-gadfium 02:10, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Red-link recovery

Howdy and many thanks for your work on that list of mis-punctuated links. The list's pretty much completed now - I'll be generating a new version of it in due course, taking all the lessons learned from the last one into account. In the meantime, if you enjoyed working through the list (or at least found it a worthwhile distraction), you may want to have a look at the similar list of plural discrepancies which highlights red-links that might be red because they (or the article they are aiming for) are improperly pluralised. Again, thanks for your efforts - award yourself a wikimedal for janitorial services if you haven't already got one! - TB 11:26, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

Culture of Greece

Culture of Greece is this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article.

Thank you!

Your vote of support on my RFA really means a lot to me. Thanks so much! Cheers! Joyous 00:05, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Partition of India

You voted for Partition of India, this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article.

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

1. ...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
2. ...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 most active Wikipedians, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know at my talk page what you think. -- Ram-Man 17:34, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Snap!

Hi Gadfium. Believe it or not, you and I have just both added links to Waiheke Island in the Auckland article within the last five minutes![[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk ]] 06:43, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Adminship

Hi Gadfium, I'd like to nominate you for adminship. Are you interested? - Fredrik | talk 18:49, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please accept the nomination on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gadfium. Fredrik | talk 08:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Week

Your vote for African art has helped bring about the article's selection as this week's Collaboration of the week. Please join in trying to make the article a feature.

Congratulations, Gadfium!

Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:46, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. The rollback button is neat!-gadfium (talk) 08:04, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Congrats from here, too! - Fredrik | talk 09:47, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for the barnstar award! It's greatly appreciated... makes the work worthwhile. And congrats on becoming an administrator, too! Nearly finished a first pass of NZ geography now, then a little tidying up and I'll take a short holiday I think. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk ]] 07:01, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Current Surveys

Since you rolled back my surveys, I am removing the "Koans" poll for the same reason CheeseDreams 02:13, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

vandalism to User:fvw

Thanks for reverting the vandalism to my userpage; Even though I do to a certain point measure how much RC patrol I've done by how many times my user page is vandalised (note the s, back in my day vandals used to be able to impersonate someone at least slightly *grumbles*), I still appreciate it being cleaned up promptly. And while I'm here, thanks for your pledge of support for my next RfA too, it's appreciated. --fvw* 09:37, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)

NZ External Links

Actually I meant to revert to remove the link but Chris 73 must have got there just before I reverted it and so when I clicked on the second item in the history it took me to the version with the 'bad' link. Sorry about the confusion. Evil Monkey → Talk 06:12, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for fixing the categories at The Dark Frontier. It would never have occurred to me that I had made such a silly mistake. Best wishes, <KF> 01:53, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Liberty Motor Car

Thanks for checking that. Weird. The image just loaded fine for me with 3 different browsers. Discussion at Image talk:LibertyMotorCar1919.jpg. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 17:31, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

64.124.92.199

Thanks; your warning seems to have worked - MPF 23:24, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Blocks are not expiring

I'm posting this message on every admin who has made a block in the last few days. The title says it all really: because of a bug in the new software blocks are not expiring when their time is up. Until this is fixed can you get in the habit of manually unblocking a few everytime you block one. If everyone does this we'll be able to keep on top of things until the bug is sorted out. Note also that another bug is displaying indefinite blocks as expiring at the current time and date. obviously you don't want to unblock those. If you want to reply please do so here Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 09:35, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Week

League of Nations is the new Collaboration of the Week. Please join in helping make it a feature article.

Persistent vandalism of 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

Hi, thanks for blocking 64.18.111.141 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

However, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake is a pretty high profile article, linked from the main page... yet it's been the target of vandalism sprees today that haven't had a timely response from admins. One spree by the same IP continued half an hour after it was reported on Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. As far as I can see, User:Cantus is more or less single-handedly taking on the vandals, but he probably needs to sleep sometime.

There probably needs to be a more concerted effort to protect current-news articles, especially this one, which is a bigger story than average, yet it seems most admins are taking a break from Wikipedia over the holidays. -- Curps 05:37, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm on holiday too - it's mid-summer here, my main break of the year. I'm just checking in a few times a day, but I make VIP my main priority when I do.-gadfium 08:16, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Orsha

Ghirlandajo was the first one who reverted four times...--Emax 19:21, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

66.11.165.56

Hi. Could you block 66.11.165.56 for repeatedly vandalizing the Rob McRae vfd header? Thank you. 172.172.35.229 23:27, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've just done so.-gadfium 23:29, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. 172.172.35.229 23:31, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Result for 170.211.237.1

--> /usr/local/bin/fwhois 170.211.237.1@whois.arin.net [whois.arin.net]

OrgName: Arkansas Public School Computer Network OrgID: APSCN Address: #4 State Capitol Mall, Room 401A City: Little Rock StateProv: AR PostalCode: 72201-1071 Country: US

170.211.237.1 vandalizing Isaac Newton article

Result for 170.211.237.1

--> /usr/local/bin/fwhois 170.211.237.1@whois.arin.net [whois.arin.net]

OrgName: Arkansas Public School Computer Network OrgID: APSCN Address: #4 State Capitol Mall, Room 401A City: Little Rock StateProv: AR PostalCode: 72201-1071 Country: US

Barnstar

Thanks for the Barnstar. Evil Monkey → Talk 09:02, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for deleting the Patrick Lewinski page. I was just testing how wikipedia works and didn't realize a "sandbox" existed. I'm inputting a page with a fellow historian about quirky legends from Tibet now. (Comment by User:Tteexx moved from my user page.23:35, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC))

Pitris

don't delte pitris. It belongs to Hindu culture and is a definition, Raj2004 00:05, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

AOL

I'm not sure it's worth blocking AOL addresses unless you block the entire range... Evercat 03:44, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It at least forces them to log out and in again, and this one isn't being subtle, so we'll find them again quickly enough.-gadfium 03:46, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS THE CHRIST

Please stop censoring the WORD OF THE LORD. it would greatly be appreciated.

-The Avenger

If the lord is omnipotent, as his followers claim, he doesn't need his message spread on wikipedia. If he isn't omnipotent, then you've picked the wrong lord.-gadfium 08:15, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

DO NOT BLASPHEMY THE LORD JESUS WHO IS CALLED THE CHRIST. BORN TO MARY FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT OF THE LORD HIMSELF!!!

IF YOU DO NOT STOP YOUR BLASPHEMY YOU WILL BURN IN HELLFIRE LIKE MATTHEW SHEPARD!

Yes, but at least I have SlimVirgin there with me, and I'm sure I'll prefer her company to yours.-gadfium 08:25, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Miraculous Winking Jesus tells me that you're cool, Gadfium. He also says something about eternal fire, damnation, and CapsLock keys, but I'm still working on translating that part from the Aramaic. Hoary 08:33, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

172.131.211.87 has been having way too much fun. He needs a little vacation (whereupon he'll just pop back with a new IP number, of course). Hoary 00:50, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

And now, 172.208.143.168. Yawn. Hoary 04:54, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Latest in a long series (including but surely not limited to 205.188.116.67, 205.188.116.133, and 205.188.116.204): 172.128.56.17. The poor schmuck is using AOL. I think his Mom should be told. Hoary 04:33, 2005 Jan 6 (UTC)

I just blocked the latest one (I've been away for the last 36 hours or so, enjoying the good life on Waiheke Island). I feel sorry for this anon, she's such a sad example of humanity.-gadfium 04:42, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Question about Vandalism

I wrote the article on The Roadrunners, and I need to talk to you about 68.44.108.238, who I actually know in person, but keeps adding false information to the article. If you could, e-mail me at penclick111@yahoo.com Thanks. Vash The Stampede 23:13, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nice explanation

Thanks for your points on my carrot test, they were very coherant and made alot of sense. They also put me more at ease (and maybe I will do some RC patrolling, trying to start new articles requires so much more sweat and tears :) about mistakes. There were several factors that do make my "test" tough to detect:

• What I actually said could seem plausible to someone unfamiliar with the anatomy of vegetables. It could be quite possible that carrots of very small seeds that are editable. After all, grapes have seeds and everyone eats them.
• I've never "vadalized" (although I debate even this being my first) previous to this "test", so that did leave my record rather clean.
• I have a user page that is not blank and I've been around for awhile now, so its most likely I would've done something by now.
• I understand that following the Recent changes of every single articles is nearly impossible, especially on an article that I'm sure gets much less page hits than "George W. Bush".

I appreciate your input, its the best I've heard on the topic :) bernlin2000 ∞ 04:10, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Comment above is timestamped 04:10. At 05:02, [1], which was preceded at 03:42 by [2]. Also User_talk:Cyrius and User_talk:Mackensen. File under Category:Things that make you go hmmmm. -- Curps 05:58, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Censorship

Thanks for the support on my removal of the pictures - I'm expecting a mini-backlash about it and it's nice to have positive comments. Cheers, violet/riga (t) 00:00, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

4.158.180.166

Thanks man, ad for the 3r, with it being vandal i wasn't to worried, =) --Boothy443 01:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image:Tea.jpg

I marked Image:Tea.jpg for speedy deletion as no pages are using that file. I have seen other people using speedys on images before, so that is why I did it. Somebody in the WWW 05:38, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Block

Thanks, nice to know someone's keeping an eye on VIP :-) --fvw* 01:45, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for fixing the "cities in xxx prefecture" categories (I was starting to wonder if anyone actually paid any attention to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard page). -- Rick Block 04:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:68.49.41.204

Thanks for blocking User:68.49.41.204 while I was just getting round to blocking him -- I hope my 6 hour ban didn't override your 24 hour one :) -- Arwel 02:12, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello

Thank you for your message. I'm from Argentina, and live in Buenos Aires. I'm trying to translate some articles of Nueva Zelanda, because they were empty. I did South Island, North Island, Great Barrier Island, and more. Now I'm working in the Abel Tasman's biography, but I need talk more in english. I have been studied for several years, and I can read and understand your language but its very difficult to me talk and write fluency. :) LadyInGrey 03:07, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mt Eden image

Hi Gadfium - I use Photoshop for my image correction (Phooshop 4, but if you've got access to PS 7 it should be even better). Adjusting a combination of Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast does the trick. Hope that helps! Grutness|^hello? 05:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't delete my Metal Gearios article!

Blacklist

I created Template:Blacklist because some articles may meet the need to be blacklisted. 202.75.80.8 06:28, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Come and discuss it on #wikipedia on FreeNode, if you have IRC.-gadfium 06:33, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: Admin nomination

(Copied from User talk:Grutness): Gidday Grutness. Have you considered becoming an admin? I'd like to nominate you.-gadfium 21:12, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Eek! I've thought about it, but don't really know what's involved. Thanks for the offer though! What is involved in being an admin? Grutness|^hello? 22:40, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well... not as bad as I feared... I still feel I'm pretty new here though. Give me a bit of time to think about it. Ask again in a few weeks and I'll probably say yes. Thanks! Grutness|^hello? 23:01, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Joan Dingley

Hi, how did you find out about our lab being named after Joan? - It wasn't that long ago we had a meetign to discuss the naming of the new labs. Anyway i work for landcare Research in Auckland, if you need any info for you CRI article.

Eric McKenzie supplied me with the photo and information for that article. I know many of the people at Landcare in Auckland; my partner Stephanie works there.-gadfium 23:08, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

RRick and Gadfium

So now the two of you are working together to delete the writings of a newbie to ensure what this clique has created as an 'encylopedia'. How dare you and I will be writing about this in the admin forum. 69.107.115.110 08:22, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

64.142.49.230

can you please block the following IP 64.142.49.230 and also revert the page back. This user has changed the page with only 4 lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amanda_Blake&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amanda_Blake&diff=0&oldid=9711396

Thanks (Added by User:202.177.156.159. I replied on their talk page as follows)

You (or someone with this IP address) asked me to block an anonymous user for their actions in Amanda Blake. I'm not going to do so at this point, because they made only one edit. Blocking is for people who consistently made destructive edits, even after they've been warned, and what this anon did looks like a "newbie" test - just finding out if they really could change a page. We prefer people to do this in the sandbox, but we don't yell at them if they do it in an article. It's quick and easy for anyone to revert to the previous good state of the article.

The appropriate action, if you see someone doing this again, is to revert their test, and then place a friendly message on their talk page advising them to use the sandbox. A "canned" message many people use is {{test}}. If you see a series of previous such messages on their talk page, and you find by checking their contributions that they've made numerous such edits today, or their edits are particularly nasty (use of foul language or images on inappropriate pages, for example), then you might like to report them on Vandalism in progress. Reporting them there will likely get faster results than reporting them directly to an administrator, since the admin you report them to may not actually be logged on at the time. I'd just stopped looking at Wikipedia to have breakfast when you reported it to me; I might not have come back for hours.-gadfium 20:41, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Instructions Group

Hi,

I did not remove any information, I just moved them to Paris Fire Brigade, as explained in the history. The title of the article is unclear (it should be at least "Instruction group of the Paris fire brigade", as I think there must be instruction groups in all army corpses), and the length does not IMHO justify a standalone article; the Paris Fire Brigade article is quite small and does not need to be splitted.

I think we should go on in talk:Instructions Group as recommended by the deletion tag...

Cdang|write me 10:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Unusual articles

I have no problem with that. I just thought the link should be at phrase book instead of just book. RickK 07:46, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Noah Peters

Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/User:Noah_Peters Please visit again. I have added an update. Apollomelos 04:18, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Edit count

Hi, Frank. Glancing through the Help Desk archives, I came across you saying that there is an old version of kate's tools available here. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be working for me. Any idea what's up, or has this wonderful tool also been lost for good? Thanks, Smoddy | ειπετε 23:48, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That version works for me. It's linked from near the top of WP:RFA. Don't forget that your user name is case sensitive and starts with a capital letter. You have 707 edits.-gadfium 01:54, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The one time I don't bother copying my reply to my own talk page and someone else joins in. *sigh*. Yeah, I took it up with a dev who restarted the apache to make it connect to the directory server and all was well again. --fvw* 01:59, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

Yeah, I do sometimes. It's my only weakness :-P --fvw* 02:06, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

Re:Admin nomination

(you to me) It's now a few weeks later. Any change in your answer?

Sigh.. okay :) So, what do I have to do to apply? Just add my name to Wikipedia: Requests for adminship? Or do you do that as nominator? Grutness|^hello? 03:32, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

PS - I forgot to say thank you! :) Grutness|^hello?

44-0-1! Just a quick "thank you" for both nominating and voting me for admin. Now all I've got to do is find out how to use these worrying new powers... Grutness|^hello? 05:44, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Vanity thing

Hi, Gad. Are you sure we just can't make that "article" go away instead of clogging VfD with it? If you really want to move it over to VfD, please do. It frosts me to think that while we play by the rules, folks like our young engineer fail to heed them. Thanks for letting me know. - Lucky 6.9 01:56, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• No prob. I'll move it to VfD if you haven't yet done so. - Lucky 6.9 02:02, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re: Welcome

Thanks for the welcome, even though it seemed to be triggered by my addition and "subsequent deletion" of my own nomination for sysop. C'est la vie.

More thanks!

Much obliged, Gad. Thanks for blocking that ninny at 24.34.218.205. - Lucky 6.9 01:58, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That thing you did

Hi Gadfium - a while back I was having trouble with some geography stubs, and (via the Village Pump) you found out for me that they'd been created twice, and fixed them. I['ve found a handful more like that, and - now that I'm an admin - I'd like to know how you did that so that I can try to fix them myself. So, what did you do? Grutness|^hello? 00:28, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

GrafWalls

OK, fair enough. But User:RickK is a disgrace whether or not you agree with him/her.--AliceCrypto (Talk|Contributions) 08:27, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

138.130.194.229 / 220.244.224.8

Hello, just a note that the anon user 220.244.224.8 (who is now using the ip 138.130.194.229 [3]) who you gave a "final warning" for vandalism (rightly so[4]) is now still vandalizing and violating copyright[5] and causing much consternation for good editors in general. Thanks. --Deglr6328 10:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:requests for comment/138.130.194.229

Please see Wikipedia:requests for comment/138.130.194.229 Dunc|☺ 16:40, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

KIDWBVUGVFGTYR

Some on banned him already, sorry mate. --User:Boothy443 | comhrÚ 06:24, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's why I always put a message on their talk page - it's not just for the user I've banned, but for anyone else who's investigating.-gadfium 06:39, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Speedy deletions and VFD

Hi. I would very much appreciate after deleting an article with a VFD notice, once the article has been speedied and meets the speedy criteria, that you go back to the VFD subpage and close the discussion of the debate.

Simply do these simple instructions:

1. Place the {{subst:vfd top}} above the section title.
2. Insert the reason why you are closing the debate: For example, speedy delete under speedy criteria #3
3. Sign your name at the top
4. Place {{subst:vfd bottom}} at the bottom of the page
5. Save the page.

{{subst:vfd top}} '''speedy delete''' --~~~~
== [[Article Name]] ==

Debate here

{{subst:vfd bottom}}

Your cooperation and assistance is appreciated. Thank you so much. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:14, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

== Request vandalism block for 85.98.38.241 ==

User 85.98.38.241 had vandalised 4 articles, some as major as deleting an entier article. A warning is necesary in my opinion.

• Zubeyde Hanim
• Kemal Atatürk
• Diyarbakir Province
• Abdullah Öcalan

--Cool Cat| My Talk 20:23, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Roger. --Cool Cat| My Talk 01:08, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Coconut Crab

Yhanks for the heads-up on the coconut crab viz my talk to Robin Patterson. By the time you read this I will have corrected it. Yet another case of "when in doubt, read the instructions".

L-Bit 07:01, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Trier

Hi, how do I email to your messages you sent to my talk page? Secondly, How come all my contributions were deleted SIMULTANEOUSLY! Actually, some were quite good, and over and over, the wikipedia states anyone can use it and their contributions DON'T have to be great!

Actually, my edit on Trier was useful information. Trier had a Roman governor long after 476, the standard date of the fall of the Roman Empire. If you refer to the wikipedia articles already in existence, "Syagrius," or "Soissons," this should be clear that this is not "patent nonsense."

Please check my work again and, as a long term user, use your influence to put some of it back in the spirit of the wikipedia project that allows everyone to contribute.

I mean, if everyone who newly contributes to this wikipedia has their "poorly" written contributions deleted, this is kind of a problem because no one will read an encyclopedia that advertises itself this way when in fact it is not the case. If you are serious about your severe editing policy, why don't you start your own on_line encyclopedia that only accepts emailed contributions that you select from yourself?

Really, what you guys have done is not in the presented spirit of this wikipedia, especially if it is rigorously applied not only to myself but to many other "newbies!"

sincerely, "Tommcnabb"

BioBlitz

Hi, I was just talking to Stephanie, and that gave me the idea for a BioBlitz article. We could take a few photos in the domain, a bit of history, and overseas Blitz's too. The only problem I see is the results which would be original research. Anyway I am full on this month, and would only be able to add bits at a time, so I thought I would ask if you wanted to help out. Onco p53 02:49, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking I'd do an article on BioBlitz before 12 March. I'll try to put something together this weekend.-gadfium 03:28, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Mt Eden, Auckland.jpg

This image, uploaded by User:Grutness is credited to you. Do you release it under the terms of the gfdl? — Zeimusu | Talk 04:24, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It was an image I took and uploaded to the commons. Grutness then edited it to improve contrast and balance, and uploaded it to en. I've now moved it to the commons and deleted the one on en. I've placed it in the public domain.-gadfium 06:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Iquery on users 195.175.37.8 and 195.175.37.11

There is a POV dispute as they keep adding their POV's on same articles. Since the IPs are so close I am not sure if these two people have same identitiy. Can you enlighten me? --Cool Cat| My Talk 17:27, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You may be thinking of the developer ability to determine whether two user names belong to the same IP address. There's no way I can tell if two IPs are the same anon user. If they were significantly different IP addresses, you could use the tools at the top of WP:VIP to determine if they were at the same location, but in this case it seems like a given. I've got a lab to go to, no time to check further.-gadfium 20:41, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Auckland Power Crisis

Thanks, your section on the Auckland Power Crisis is excellent. I don't think it needs any further expansion in the meantime. Oh, and sorry I wasn't logged in, I think I was at a university terminal. Thanks again. -- FP 06:15, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Ammolite vandalism

I've been reverting rapid-fire vandalism to the featured Ammolite article, and trying to use the minutes between reversions to figure out how to post suitable warnings to the two users doing the apparently malicious edits (in addition to posting notice at Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress#70.93.90.106). I saw that someone used special tags for notifying 70.93.90.106, and tried to repeat this for Tme 88. Not only did I botch it, but I saw that you had beaten me to it, so I deleted my messed-up one. Only after did it occur to me that my actions might be construed as an attempt to act like an administrator. I just wanted to let you know that I was trying to be helpful. I apologize if I stepped on any toes. — Jeff Q (talk) 01:11, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't the only one reverting, either. Paxsimius, Michael Hardy, and Spencer195 got their shots in as well. I had more difficulty not interfering with their reversions than actually undoing the damage. Guess the Wiki model works pretty well. ☺ — Jeff Q (talk) 01:23, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1918 - The Soviet Union moved its capital to Moscow from Petrograd. .... NOT !

Hello, Gadfium . Thank you for fixing my careless mistake at Selected Anniversaries today so quickly. I meant Bolshevist Russia, not the Soviet Union, even though they were more or less the same bunch. I'll be revising the template again, as Russian history, 1892-1920 is about Imperial Russia, rather than the Bolsheviks. Thanks, again. Ciao. -- PFHLai 10:57, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

New Zealand photos

From User talk:Giano Gidday, I saw your note to Grutness.

Oh you did, did you? I didn't know you made a habit of reading other people's mail :) Grutness|^hello? 23:52, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I watch the talk pages of many admins, partly to keep up on what's happening on Wikipedia, and partly so I can revert vandalism to them. I strongly suspect that several admins watch my talk page too, since the occasional vandalism here gets reverted pretty quickly. I don't mean to invade your privacy, but you should accept that your talk page is not a private place.-gadfium 01:20, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Gadfium, Thanks for the advice, I have left a message on the New Zealand message board, and Grutness is hopeful of finding something (I think his message to you was a joke by the way) I have an ambition to get something on New Zealand architecture one day on the main page, and Petre may be the man as his style was so diverse; I think it amazing all these hig quality classical European type designs down there on the other side of the world, so many of them, and largely unknown up here on the top of the world - I bet you all know what our major buildings look like, and yet we don't have a clue about yours - shame! way of the world I supose. Regards Giano 11:13, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Suzanne Lenglen

> I'm happy with the current wording.-gadfium 04:26, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's great; I am too. Nice working with you. --Ryan! | Talk 08:46, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

My adminship

Thank you for voting for me for adminship. I appreciate the confidence you showed in me. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:06, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mordechai Vanunu

Well it is a pretty hard-fought subject. I wrote that response to you after drinking half a liter of Cava and umpteen pints of lager, otherwise I probably would have been much more polite and rather less waggish. I'll have a look at the article myself if I find time. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:38, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hi Gadfium, thank you very much for your vote, the kind comment, and the congrats, which I appreciate very much. I hope if you see me around doing something I shouldn't be, or failing to do something I should be, that you'll let me know!  ;-) Best, SlimVirgin 03:32, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Evening Star

Hi Gadfium - don't know much about the Evening Star, sadly - it was on its way out when I arrived in Dunedin... I do know that you got the dates of it a little wrong, though! Grutness|^hello? 09:27, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I updated the founding date just after I put a message on your page - is that more accurate? The original date came from an archive of issues which was clearly far from complete.-gadfium 09:29, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yup - that explains the edit conflict message I got! :) Your message also goaded me into extending the article on the Otago Daily Times (seeing as I work for them part-time... I also added a red link which I hope will someday become a blue link - my partner's great-grandfather Silas!) Grutness|^hello?

Did it die in 1978 or 1979? Your article says the former, you're in a better position to know than I am.-gadfium 09:54, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cookie

Thanks for the cookie—the idea for People's Republic of America just came out of the blue. Evil Monkey∴Hello 09:29, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Welcome

Assuming your welcome message for the anonymous user at 65.144.254.146 was intended for me, I'm guessing this was in response to my posting a short test message on one of the Village pump subpages. (I removed the test right after posting it.) I was aware of the sandbox but I was actually testing how the Village pump worked and couldn't see any other way to do it. Sorry if this caused any confusion or consternation. --65.144.254.146 06:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Blocks

Thanks for the information, Gadfium. There's a lot to learn. ;-) SlimVirgin 06:47, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

And thanks from me as well. The page move vandalism is an angle I hadn't thought of, and having faced it myself I know what a pain it is to discover and fix. I've unblocked and indefinitely reblocked him. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for reviewing and fixing the external link spamming on the NLP articles. Your help was most appreciated. JimCollaborator\^talk ~ 16:56, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Double-ing block time

Your quote: We should begin the pattern of doubling the block time with each vandalism for this user.

I would very much like this rule for all vandals (with possible slide down for long lasting good behavior). Thanks for your help with vandals. Pavel Vozenilek 20:33, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Supremes

I reverted your most recent edit, because (due most likely to a software glitch) a section of text duplicated itself and significant content disappeared. You didn't have an edit summary; could you reapply whatever edit you were trying to make please.-gadfium 00:59, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I did write an edit summary, and, after reading the above, looked at the page and saw that my most recent edit had not been reverted. And then I looked at "page history" and saw an edit after my most recent edit, attributed to me. So that's where the glitch is. Michael Hardy 01:15, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Many thanks for blocking that anonymous vandal who was screwing with my user page. —ExplorerCDT 04:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The vandal you blocked for me is back, with a new IP...4.143.107.116. He's being nice and reverting changes I made to articles in the past just to taunt me. What can you do with him? —ExplorerCDT 04:58, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi! Speaking of vandals, would you be kind enough to keep an eye on THE KING for me? We either have a malicious troll or a misguided kid on our hands. - Lucky 6.9 06:37, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sure, but I'll need a cut of that cash settlement.-gadfium 07:17, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Laura Bush

Please don't restore tabloid innuendo to the Laura Bush article, falsely describing the First Lady that way is worthy only of an April Fool's joke. No respectable source substantiates the inferences made about the accident, viz that the First Lady deliberately killed her ex lover. So let's leave it out please. Gmyu 05:13, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't care whether she's the First Lady. I do care that someone ran a red light resulting in a death, but they were not charged. That's a major scandal, and since it involves a significant figure in public life, it's encyclopedic.-gadfium 05:43, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Refactoring an old discussion

I've been so bold as to refactor the comments you made way back on User talk:JRM/Countdown deletion. I'm thinking of reviving this proposal, in a new form, and I'd like the new talk page to be a refactoring zone. However, I'm aware this goes against de facto Wikiquette and I can't retroactively instate it, so if you find you don't agree with my edits, please feel free to replace them with something better. JRM 15:51, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

No problem.-gadfium 18:45, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

reply about CCB

I created that Clunky Cartridge Button article to state information about some defects that it causes on NES games and what effects it causes. I played NES when I was really little, and we have undergone some problems that we remember it having. I just thought that the notorius pop-in button would be worth making an article about due to the notorius defects it has. Even with a VfD article, I still have good intentions for Wikipedia. --TheSamurai 23:59, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The spelling thing

Thanks a lot for reverting John Dee; I missed the fact that it was in a book title.

PS: If I were to spell Shakespeare's works instead of math, I would be in big trouble. :) Oleg Alexandrov 01:26, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pope John Paul II

The Vatican Secretary of State has already called Pope John Paul II, John Paul the Great. the Knights of Columbus is calling him, the Great. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/11303527.htm

Please see http://www.kofc.org/ as well. Thank you.

It's easy to heap praise on someone just after they die. Wait a while, and then see what history's assessment is.-gadfium 01:55, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Botanists studying fungi

Yes, that was a cock-up of mine. The cause was the current split between Category:Mycology and Category:Fungi. I too prefer the former - however, before doing anything about, please be aware that (1) I was using data from IPNI and I have some doubts over its reliability (e.g. occasionally the article talked about him as studying algae but IPNI didn't list him as such), (2) currently mycologists lists mainly devout mycologists, whereas a lot of people in the current category were mainly interested in e.g. algae but apparently did enough mycology on the side for IPNI to list that as an "area of interest", (3) there is a strong chance that my cat scheme will be reverted anyway and if so I wouldn't want the original category to get lost in the process.

I am not an expert on botany. My main hope was to deal with a conflict between a group of users who wanted to categorise by nationality and another who wanted all botanists to be listed in one place. What I have created is a situation where all major botanists that I found in Category:Botanists are now listed in Category:Botanists with author abbreviations and also under List of botanists by author abbreviation. That involved actually looking up each botanist in the list in IPNI, finding their author abbreviation (a few, mainly "tele-botanists", hobbyists and pre-Linnaeans didn't seem to have one - I put the pre-Linnaeans into their own category to avoid cluttering up the main category), putting their author abbreviation into their article, putting them into the "with abbreviation" category and also putting them on the list; then recategorising them by nationality and I also made an attempt with some of them to categorise by location of research. While I was doing this I noticed that IPNI listed the fields of interest and thought: well, if I'm going to look every botanist up in here, then I might as well do a little data mining! Hence all the "Botanists studying..." were born. It may well only be a temporary measure but I thought it is pretty neat that when browsing a category e.g. Algae you can jump to people who studied algae.

Seeing as you know more than me about this, I could actually do with a little advice: (1) Do you think the IPNI information should be regarded as enough to merge Category:botanists studying fungi into Category:Mycologists under the title of the latter? (2) Can you think of equivalent short names for the other categories e.g. Category:botanists studying ferns? At the moment the "Botanists studying..." clutters up the bottom of the article pages.

My current thoughts are to use: Category:Algologists, Category:Lichenologists, Category:Pteridologists, Category:Bryologists and Category:Paleobotanists. I am considering having Category:Botanists studying spermatophytes deleted because it doesn't appear to represent a genuine field in its own right. Am I correct in that synopsis?VivaEmilyDavies 18:36, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(3) Could you think of a better way to phrase e.g. "Category:Botanists active in Australia" and others? I actually put in there a lot of botanists who worked in Europe, but dealing with material brought back from Australia. Would "Category:Botanists of Australian flora" be an improvement? Can you think of any better ideas? Thanks! VivaEmilyDavies 14:12, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not an expert in this area either. I just happened to write a few short biographies of botanists, and saw that one had been recategorised. You could try asking User:Onco p53 for advice; this is more his area.-gadfium 20:11, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Images and media for deletion votes

• I am contacting people who previously helped to vote to delete a generally objectionable photograph by a vote of 88 to 21, and who might be unaware that immediately after that image was voted to be deleted someone posted another which was very similar in content. My objections to this, and the previous image that was voted to be deleted might be based upon reasons far different from any that you have, but I do object to it, and consider the posting of such images to be acts of asinine stupidity, which burdens the project and its major educational aims in ways that they should not be burdened, and can be extremely detrimental to the acceptance and growth of WIkipedia's use and influence. Thus far those who I believe to be in the extreme minority of Wikipedians who would like to include these images, many who have been channeled to the voting page from the article with which it is associated have dominated the voting, 23 to 12 (as of the time that I composed this message). I would like to be somewhat instrumental in shedding a bit more light upon the issue, and if possible, helping to turn the tide against its inclusion. It might also be necessary to begin making an effort to establish an explicit Wikipedia policy against explicite photographic depictions of humans engaged in erotic, auto-erotic, or quasi-erotic activities. To my limited knowledge such images have not been accepted as appropriate anywhere else within this project, and frankly I can agree with those who are casually labeled prudes for opposing their inclusion, that they should not be. Vitally important information that might be unwelcome by some is one thing that should never be deleted, but un-needed images that can eventually prevent or impede many thousands or millions of people from gaining access to the great mass of truly important information that Wikipedia provides is quite another. There are vitally important distinctions to be made. Whatever your reasons, or final decisions upon the matter, I am appealing for more input on the voting that is occurring at Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion ~ Achilles † 21:23, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Thank you for the vote at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Henrygb2. It has made my week. --Henrygb 01:56, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for supporting my nomination too --nixie 11:53, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:CDThieme

Last month you helped me with a malfeasant stalker who was fooling around with my user page. I just got online for the first time in several days (away on business, internet access opportunities are few and far between), and I noticed one of the articles I work on was edited by a User:CDThieme who is probably that vandal from last month who was harassing me and screwing around with my user page, and now has decided to start a userpage based on one of my personal e-mail addresses. I sincerely doubt there are two CDThieme's operating on WP and I take considerable umbrage if this little bug has misappropriated my name for dubious and mischievious purposes. He/She seems to be focused on articles dealing with homosexuality, in what I think is an attempt at bringing discredit or to slander me or my work (through association, an attack which seems to work in professional fora). I'd like you to keep an eye on him/her, and I hope that if it is truly a malfeasant stalker something can be done to stop the attempts of this person if he/she is involved in mischief during my absence. I have my suspicions on who this individual is in real life. Unfortunately the IP trail stops cold at a mass-ISP in Chicago. Is there anyway I can force him/her to change his/her name. Thanks in advance. (Last note: It may take me several days until I can read your response to this posting.) —ExplorerCDT 21:46, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I doubt that there's anything I can do, since it appears that User:CDThieme is making productive edits. That their user name is similar or identical to the user name you use in an email address may be coincidental; and while they do seem to have a focus on gay-related articles, that doesn't make them mischievous. There's no obvious connection between this user and the user page vandal of a month ago. If you have a home page associated with your email address, you might like to put a disclaimer on it that you are not the only person on the web using that name.

I'm aware that I'm not the only person on the internet to use the name "gadfium", but I have no reason to believe that anyone else who has adopted this name has done so to spite me.

If you want to take this further, you can ask a developer (User talk:Tim Starling) to investigate whether User:CDThieme has a similar IP address to last month's vandal.-gadfium 22:40, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for your suggestions, I will be contacting Tim to proceed with an investigation. —ExplorerCDT 23:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar!

Hey, thanks SO much for the Barnstar! I had a couple of old user pages deleted and I lost my others. I greatly appreciate it. Have a great weekend!! - Lucky 6.9 20:22, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Flower Photos

Thanks so much for identifying my photos. --Fir0002 08:56, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My adminship: thanks!

Hi Gadfium. Thanks very much for your vote for my RfA. I promise to be prudent, wise, sagacious and totally unilateral in all my admin affairs. I should say that I am very pleased at the number of people who supported me – it's very nice to know I'm making a positive impact. Cheers again, Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:57, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alan Duff

Thanks for adding to this article! I am from Canada and saw Once Were Warriors on Showcase a few years ago, and was really impressed. I just recently started reading the book, as I had a hard time finding it and by luck found it at Value Village (a thrift shop) one day. I wanted to find more info on the author, so naturally I checked WikiPedia first, but was shocked to find to entry... --Mista-X 04:42, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I haven't actually seen the movie myself; it appears to be too violent for my taste. I might read the book sometime; I'm sure it's readily available in my local public library.-gadfium 04:52, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the note you left on my talk page. I think you may have overstated my intentions (although not my wishes) a little, but I agree that it would be valuable. As yet, I haven't actually found any other list of candidates equivalent to the one we're building here at Wikipedia, so I'm hoping that it will actually be visited by people other than regular Wikipedia-users. Of course, Wikipedia isn't intended to be some sort of online database for New Zealand politics, but I believe that articles about significant candidates fall well within the aims of the project. -- Vardion 01:14, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

netbux

Please reconsider your vote to delete the article Netbux, which has been re-written to incorporate verifyable information and statistics, some links and references etc... Your delete vote reflects your attitute to the previous version of the page, but I am sure your vote will be to keep the current version. I apologise for the referrals - i got a 24hr ban for that but i will not do it again. Thanks. THE KING 08:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I still don't think this article is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. I suggest you move on and find another topic where you can contribute to this encyclopedia.-gadfium 20:03, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:Pavel_Vozenilek

You asked Pavel if he wanted to be nominated for adminship, and he accepted, but you didn't go ahead with the nomination. Did it slip your mind? I'll support the nomination.-gadfium 02:56, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I performed the nomination. The only reason I hadn't done it sooner is that I wasn't certain whether Pavel's ambiguously worded followup to my question was an acceptance or not. Firebug 04:27, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

Thanks for supporting my successful RfA. I will do my best to live up to the responsibility and your trust. --khaosworks 07:07, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello, Gadfium. Thanks for your vote at my adminship nomination. I appreciate the support. Cheers! — Trilobite (Talk) 13:30, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes and thank you for catching my typo. BrokenSegue 02:06, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:24.244.210.190

In case you were curious, it is this IP's first block. I agree with your actions, just saw your comment on ViP. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

pope molesting

what was wrong with what I wrote

What you wrote was not appropriate for this article. The article is on the office of Pope, and what you wrote was about molestation by priests. You made no attempt to tie your text to the article. The chances are, any mention of molestation in the pope article will be removed as being irrelevant, but it certainly isn't sufficiently relevant to be in the first paragraph. You may be interested in our article Roman_Catholic_Church_sex_abuse_scandal.-gadfium 02:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Speedy

Yes, very sorry about that, I guess when you're looking at lots of articles you get a bit rushed and need to remember all the important little things to do. I'd thought I'd opened a new article. I'll remember to always check history in future. --Silversmith 09:29, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

re:WP:RFA

Working on it right now. --Poiuyt Man (talk) 00:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

And done. I was spending some time writing out responses to those questions, but I forgot about replacing the date. Thanks for reminding me. --Poiuyt Man (talk) 00:59, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

And yes, I realize my number of edits isn't very high, but I'm hoping the overall quality of contributions I've made stands out. I do expect that being denied adminship is a likely outcome, but it's not a terribly big deal; I'd just like the admin powers for the convenience of editing. --Poiuyt Man (talk) 01:05, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Hey Gadfium, thanks for dealing with my charming namesake and for reverting the message. Best, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:24, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

humpback whales

I´m not sure if you get this meesage - I don´t know why you delete the link to our humpback whale pictures all the time. I think, sorryx I know that those pictures are outstanding and herefor add to goog content of wiki. BTW I would not have a problem to put some of my pictures into wiki. Hope to hear back from you - you may also explain me how I can get in contact with you - I think I have not figured this one out yet. cheers from a half Kiwi

See my reply below this. To contribute pictures, you'll need to get an account with Wikipedia, and then use the "Upload file" link. It would be best if you get an account as commons.wikipedia.org, since pictures uploaded there can be used in any of the different language Wikipedias, but the commons needs to have its pictures copyrighted under the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses (or public domain). If you want to put a no-commercial restriction on your donation of pictures, you'll have to upload them to en.wikiedia.org. When uploading the pictures, say exactly what they are of and what the licence is. You can then add the pictures to appropriate articles. See Wikipedia:Images for more information.-gadfium 19:45, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

why did you remove all my links

Dear Gadfium,

I don´t understand why you have removed all our links - we only contibuted our picture pages which fits to the articles, and we also got very good comments from wiki user that those links are helpful. why do you take the right and remove them all??? I don´t think it has anything to do with spamming if almost every wiki page has external links to whatever the page is about - this includes also links to photographers/picture pages. Our work is done professional and herefor adds a lot to wiki - why don´t you remove all links also to other photographers???? only to me??? As I mentioned I don´t have a problem to make the wikipages better by including my pictures in them . but I don´t think it is in favour of the wiki structure if someone like you just goes in into pages which you never had anything to do with them and just remove all my links - just because you don´t like my pages (for whatever reason) - I would very much appreciate if you come back to me about this concern - again, the idea of wiki is to provide information - what we do, and not to try to control it. I hope you agree and you can tell me your point of view - best regards Rolf

Wikipedia is not a web directory. If we link to one picture site, we should link to all of them, but that would make all our articles unweildy. When I see someone adding such links to a bunch of articles, I remove them. There are undoubtedly some such links in Wikipedia which haven't yet been removed; you can remove them yourself if you'd like. If you really want to help Wikipedia, rather than to promote your own site, please consider donating some of your photos to us.-gadfium 19:34, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

One option you have is to ask the wider community for feedback on whether your links are acceptable. I would suggest that you copy this conversation to your talk page at User talk:Wildnis, add any further explanations of why you think links to your site are valuable to Wikipedia, including links to sample pages there, and then advertise the discussion for people to comment at the following two places: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) and Requests for comment. If you get a consensus that people like the links, then you've got a green light to add them, and anyone like me who thinks to remove them can be pointed to the discussion. You will need to conduct all further edits of Wikipedia while logged in so other editors will find the discussion easily.-gadfium 23:31, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

re: Village Pump - duplicate sections

Nice job on cleaning up all the duplicate sections at the village pump. Before I figured out what had happened, I thought that the servers were having a meltdown.... the section text keep switching back and forth between two different versions. :-)

By the way, how does one become a programmer for a large software company and THEN go to college to study chemistry? Do you already have a programming degree?

- Pioneer-12 17:56, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I've had a number of careers. I was a truck driver for many years, then got bored with that and spent two years of training to become a computer programmer (not a degree, but a reasonable qualification for programming in those days). I then worked for several companies and did some contracting before settling down into a startup which was bought out by my present employer. I'm bored by programming now, so I'm looking for a new career. My intention is to quit work later this year and be a full-time student from next year. It'll then be two more years to complete a BSc, then an honours year, and at least three years to do a PhD. It will take longer if I don't manage to skip over having to do a Masters degree. It's also possible that I'll decide that being a full-time student isn't right for me, and I'll find something else to occupy myself.

I chose chemistry as a major with biochem as a minor, but what I'd really like to get into is molecular nanotechnology. Very few universities offer that as an undergraduate degree option, and none of them local to me, so I picked chemistry as being a good foundation. I looked at physics as a minor, but after a couple of papers decided it didn't interest me as much as biology did.-gadfium 19:30, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Wow, truck driver to computer programmer... to nanotechnology.... you don't don't see many of those. (Like I should talk.... I've worked in a hotel and an amusement park....) Have you read Engines of creation, by K. Eric Drexler? A fascinating book.

- Pioneer-12 20:37, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I haven't read Engines of Creation, as it was written in the mid 1980s and was already very out of date when I became seriously interested in nanotech. I first heard about nanotech in the late 1980s, primarily through magazines such as Analog, and when looking into it further late in the 1990s I used Drexler's later work Nanosystems as my reference. I recall reading several years ago that EoC was being updated for a second edition, but I don't know what became of that venture. It's quite a long time ago that I read Nanosystems, so I should probably get it out of the library and read it again.-gadfium 01:37, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

votes

Re your vote on styles. I understand and agree. But only casting one vote is effectively a vote against Alternative 1 because it means that less opposition is recorded against its nearest rival. Ireland uses an electoral system called Proportional Representation using a Single Transferable Vote. It works on the same principle as the one being used (only less complicated! I never thought I would find a system more complicated than PR.STV!) What you do is give your bottom preference to the people you want to defeat, and spread your vote in a way that boosts the rivals of the alternative you do not want. So if for example, you find Alternative 3 the one you least like, give it your bottom vote so that opposition to it is recorded. And spread the other votes to ensure the weakest get votes ahead of it. If for example in Ireland I want to ensure candidate 'x' of Fianna Fáil is elected, and ensure candidate 'y' of Sinn Féin is defeated, and there are 15 candidates, I give my number 1 to 'x', my number '15' to 'y' and spread my other votes to ensure that all other candidates beat 'y'.

Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil voters famously used to practice a 'first and only choice' vote by just voting for their own preferred candidate and then stopping. They eventually realised that they were wasting their vote because they weren't using it to block those they were most opposed to, or to build up the rivals to the candidate they were opposed to. To stop Alternative 3 winning, if that is what you want, give it your fifth choice and give your second, third and fourth choices to the weakest options.

Just be careful though not to copy everyone else doing it. If everyone gives the same other alternatives the same order of votes they may win. So if option 4 gets a lot of 2s, give it a 4. Doing a full vote right down the line will have the effect of strengthening Alternative 1 vis-a-vis 3 or whatever. Just voting for 1 and stopping actually weakens it against its rivals if everyone else votes down the line, because while their opposition to different alternatives is recorded, by stopping at 1 your's isn't. That is why though very popular Alternative 1 is being beaten. Remember the winner won't be decided by who has more votes for, but which faces the least opposition. Slán FearÉIREANN^(talk) 00:11, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I choose not to play by those rules. The issue is not sufficiently important to warrant the time taken to learn that voting system. Incidentally, I voted in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)/Survey on Style-Prefixed Honorary Titles several days ago, and have edited many other pages since; you could have made it easier for me to tell what you were talking about by linking to the page.-gadfium 01:15, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I really don't like the voting system, in part because I shouldn't have to vote on options I don't like in order for my vote for options I do like to count fully, and in part because several of the options require not just a ranked vote but an explanation of how it should work. Why should I explain how an option I wish to vote against should work? Nevertheless, I've changed my vote to include all options as it seems that's a requirement for the vote to be effective.-gadfium 00:24, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Elevation of Tacoma

Removing your comment from Wikipedia:Reference desk#Altitude/Elevation question was a real courtesy. The pool of wikilove just grew. I had not noticed that my edit conflict was on the very section that I was editing (mental note to self: check conflicts more carefully). --Theo (Talk) 09:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Impersonation

Thank you for blocking my impostor. Please, could you also roll back this edit, which is the only one that might damage my reputation (he types, pompously)? Thanks --Theo (Talk) 08:32, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't have the ability to remove edits from the database, as far as I know. Only developers can do that. I suggest you either add a reply to it pointing out it's not you, or just delete the comment with an appropriate edit summary.-gadfium 08:37, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

My sig file

Hi Gadfium - thanks for the comment. Casito's right though, it doesn't help the server problems. Maybe someone'll fix that sometime and I'll go back to it, who knows? Grutness...wha? 10:31, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Voting in fir0002 semi FPC

Hi Gadfium, I was wondering if you could spare the time to participate in my semi-FPC. For a while, (unable to decide on only one image) I was uploading multiple images onto the FPC page, which caused those who tallied up the final results considerable problems. So to remedy that (going on a suggestion of User:Solipsist) I created a page (User:Fir0002/FPCandidates) in which whenever I had a bunch of photos which I couldn't chose from, I'd ask a couple of people to vote for the best one, or alternatively say that none of them are worth putting onto the FPC page. I'd really appreciate it if you could join in. Thanks, --Fir0002 01:15, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Will do, but not until tonight.-gadfium 01:29, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

User:Billybobjoehik

Hey Gadfium! I was wanting to ask you why you warned me like that. After all, all I was doing was tryin to have a little fun. Actually, my friend Spoonboy had been doing most of these edits under my name (we both decided to create accounts together and tell eachother the passwords). Do you think you could do something about this problem that I have with spoonboy? Please, if you can do anything please do that. Thanks for any help that you can give me. Billybobjoehik

Hey gadfium. Thanks for telling me to stop vandalizing wikipedia. I guess the whole george washington thing is a little extreme. I promise that I won't do that ever again, really. However, I wanted to inform you about something. When I first got my wikipedia account, me and my friend (username spoonboy) created them together. We told eachother our passwords. So actually to make a long story short, he us occasionally causing vandalism under my name. Is there something that you could do to verify that the computer on the other line is actually mine? Please do something. Thanks for wakeing me up, I won't do it again. Billybobjoehik

Redundant Links

I see what you mean. I vaguely remeber reading about that. Seeing the blue links everywhere makes the article difficult and unpleasant to read. I hope people dont have such an adverse reaction to slightly different date layouts.

Abortion

No trouble, my change was only a reversion of the POV "abortion-cancer hypothesis" paragraph. Emiao 05:34, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

About adding web sites as external links

I did not know that you did not want added websites. The reason for this being that wikipedia is loaded with much more offensively commercial websites.Just look at the external links for Brazil for instance. Since I live in Brazil I am familiar with them. At least mine is a wiki, and a real service, and is not being blatantly commercial or devious in any way. I would like to hear your thoughts on removing all the commercial web sites that are already listed.

After reading your response I have just a few final thoughts. I know that there can never be 100% agreement on anything, much less peoples' tastes or standards of value. Instead of having to police wikipedia using the editors' standards, wouldn't it be more "wiki-like" to offer a commercial category and let the consumer decide. I know wikipedia is a big operation and that the addition of one line of code even for thousands of websites would not be that costly. I'm pretty sure your readership would cull all of the "online drug sale" spam from the content in a short period of time. This is just an appeal for wikipedia to be more "wiki-like" and a little less authoritarian in nature.

Abortion

I didn't think I could do such a move without messing up the histories, or I would have, --SqueakBox 01:01, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Chess

Hehe, no problem. I'm looking forward to listening to it :-D Linuxbeak | Desk 03:48, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

You might want to comment on my game again; it appears that Project2501a is digging himself a hole :-) Linuxbeak | Desk 01:11, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

FYI

I've withdrawn from the RFA due to my attempt at humour that went badly wrong. Figured you should know, and sorry. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Ya. You have to understand, I feel really rotten about the whole business. Everyking sticking the knife in, and TheCustomOfLife doing the same didn't help. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:36, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Bill Clinton's birth name

Dear Gadfium,

One point of contention that I have had with other Wikipedia contributors concerns the continued misrepresentation of the name Bill Clinton was given at birth. It was William Jefferson Blythe IV, not William Jefferson Blythe III. I have corrected this false statement in Bill Clinton's article multiple times, but each time it was reverted to the false name. This is really starting to annoy me. Please, I beg of you, help me to keep his true birth name, William Jefferson Blythe IV, intact. You may look it up if you don't believe me- it should be on his White House biography, and that is what he says in his autobiography. So please, help me to maintain his true birth name and his father's article, William Jefferson Blythe III, not Jr. Thank you. (Posted by Valadius (talk · contribs))

I've checked on whitehouse.gov, and seen the discussion at Talk:Bill Clinton. It looks like you're right, although I'm no expert on the subject. I won't revert your change again.

You must understand that making modifications of this sort to articles without citing references looks like vandalism. I seem to recall that the last time I reverted such a change it was made in the first section of the article but not in other areas, and I reverted because you were introducing an inconsistency without any evidence provided. You can make this easier for any future issues by adding a reference to the website (not just naming it, provide a link. I know to go to whitehouse.gov not .com, but does everyone? I then had to search for his bio), or to the talk page section containing the references. Thanks for your persistence.

By the way, please sign your posts on talk pages with ~~~~.-gadfium 19:41, 30 May 2005 (UTC)