User talk:AdamWill

Hullo there. Welcome to Wikipedia. Nice work on the Sandman pages. I'm afraid I shan't be reading all of them myselff, as I've not yet read all the books (wikipedia contains spoilers... ;-) ). There's a page of Wikipedians somewhere that you're welcome to add yourself to. -- Tarquin 16:39 Sep 1, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks. Yes, I mentioned somewhere (somewhere obscure, I fear) that the Sandman pages could do with the spoiler warnings added. I might do that myself in a bit. I shall track down the Wikipedians page. I'm attempting to draw Neil Gaiman's attention to his entry here in the hopes he'll post it on his blog and even more rabid fans than I (I do hope my stuff doesn't reek of positive bias) will improve on it... AW

Hi - just a heads up about your new article on RATM: there was an article on them already at Rage Against the Machine (that capital T makes all the difference). Your new article is better, but you might want to have a look at the other one, integrate anything that needs to be, and then move it across to the lowercase T version (which I guess is the correct title - in any case it doesn't much matter so long as there's a redirect from the other). It's usually best to do a quick search on anything you're planning to start a new article on to make sure there isn't one already - the search function ignores caps as far as I can tell, but the presence of a capital letter in the title makes for a differnt article, if you see what I mean. And good work on the Sandman stuff, btw --Camembert

When you edited Napster, you said "companies are singular, not plural." This is true in North America, but not in Britain - the person who wrote the article may be British. I assume you're not going to start "correcting" all instances of -ise and -our to -ize and -or, so you may wish to ignore other dialectal variations as well. --user:Montrealais


 * Eh? I'm English, check my user page :). I've always seen the singular usage in English media. From the Finance page of the Guardian today:

"Weekend reports suggested Cadbury had hired the investment bank to advise it on ways to structure a deal."

"Granada TV is in talks to sell the format to its hit TV series, I'm a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here, to an American TV network."

"British Airways, which once called itself "the world's favourite airline", is this week facing relegation..."

and so on. Where do you see the plural usage? --AW


 * Yes, the singular for companies has made its way across the pond, but one still often hears teams in the plural: e.g., "Ipswich have reshuffled a Worthington Cup tie,..." (would be "has" over here) --LDC


 * Fine, let me amend to say: too many authorities use plural for groups ("the government have" and so forth) for it to be regarded as a solecism. - user:Montrealais

I don't see "groups" as one coherent mass as you both seem to. Ispwich are a football team, not a company. A government is, well, a government, not a company. I happily consider football teams to be plural and companies to be singular and it hasn't caused my brain to melt yet. Am I just odd? :). Theory - maybe it's because so many teams have contractions that are explicitly plural - "The Rams", "The bulls", "The red devils" or whatever. This applies to American sports, too... --AW

You wrote in the RC log: "(moved over here (KILL ALL SUBPAGES). couldn't do a proper move because this was already a redirect to the page i wanted to move *from*.sigh.)" -- the trick is to delete the redirect page first so the page can be moved. BTW, you a sysop now? -- Tarquin


 * Nope. So I couldn't do that. I suppose I could be. --AW

Did you actually try the move? I changed the code a while ago to allow moving a page onto an existing title if that title was just a redirect to the source; but maybe the redirect had some history of its own or something.

Ah. Guilty as charged. No, I didn't, I just assumed it wouldn't work. *slaps own wrist* --AW


 * Ah, can everybody move pages now? That was why I assumed you're a sysop. -- Tarquin


 * Yup. There's a message about it on the ML somewhere - it was decided that eveyone would be allowed to move pages, since it's no longer dangerous (talk page gets moved too). --AW

Hi Adam, I've added in quotes from the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act onto the Talk: Australia page. Your quotes are correct. The constitution quotes show using your quotes what the answer is to the straight-forward question; is Australia a republic or a constitutional monarchy? JTD 00:18 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)


 * I don't quite know what you mean by "correct"...they're "authoritative", if you count the OED as an authority, and "accurate", since I just copied and pasted, but correct? Tricky. :)

Correct as in correctly taken from the OED. I think the problem is that in theory all constitutional monarchies are republics in so far as they are ruled by their people, and only reigned over by their monarchs. The days when the monarch controlled a country, at least in democracies, are over. So the general principle applied is simple: Our friend on the Australia page kept insisting that Australia was a republic, which must come as news to the people in Australia who voted not to become a republic a couple of years ago!!! No amount of dictionaries, references, etc seemed to convince him. In the end, three of us (myself, Tannin and Mintguy) had to 'stand guard' so to speak, over the pages, reverting them every time he tampered with them to declare Australia a republic. When finally just about everyone collectively shouted 'stop. You are wrong' he stopped. . . and went to the Constitutional monarchy page, which he then began adapting to declare Australia a republic there (which was illogical - if it was a republic, it wouldn't be on the page in the first place, and even as a monarchy it wasn't until he kept 'doctoring' the page.) It took three reversions to stop him 'doctoring' that page. So, after endless rowing,10 reverts and everyone who came near either page telling him he was wrong, he has either Who says Wikipedia isn't fun sometimes. At least it beats a character called DW a couple of weeks ago who spent his entire time telling everyone they were a 'moron', 'asshole', 'phoney'. etc until he was banned. Pity. I miss wondering what page of the dictionary of insults he had got as far as reading each day! Slán (Irish for goodbye) JTD 03:06 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
 * if it has an elected head of state, its a republic
 * if it has an inherited monarch, its a monarchy.
 * gone of Wikipedia, (hopefully not)
 * got the message (hopefully)
 * or is looking for another page on which to declare the 'Australian republic'!!!

Adam, if you feel the urge to veer off-topic now and then and chat about computer stuff in a smaller and more congenial environment than Anand's or Tom's (or HardOCP, for that matter), slip over to Storage Forum. I think you'd like it there. Tannin


 * Tannin, I think this is more a problem with Wikipedia - there's no real place to have those kind of small discussions. They don't really seem in place on the wikipedia mailing list (which I quit reading anyway), there's no wikipedia forums, and no-one seems to use the wikipedia IRC channel. It's a shame. Thanks for the suggestion, but I have too many forums to read every day as it is :) --AW


 * Just so. The list is getting way too cluttered with chit-chat to be useful. Personally I avoid IRQ and all those pop-up IM things on the twin grounds of security and being able to get some work done. -- T

Hi Adam. For a second I thought that I might have met you in England, but quickly dismissed that when I saw the words ¨Mandrake Linux¨ on your user page. Of course, cooker! Seems we´re busy ¨cooking¨ the same things. Cheers, snoyes 02:28 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

History of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union (USSR) was a federated state, containing ~22,402,200km2 in eastern Europe and western Asia, which existed from 1922 to 1991. Its origins date to the October Revolution of 1917, in which the later leaders of the Soviet Union overthrew the Provisional Government of Russia, which itself had replaced the Romanov tsarist regime earlier in the year.

Actually regime not government is the correct word to use regarding the situation under Saddam's rule. A government operates under a clearly defined governmental structure that is constitutionally defined. A less organised governmental structure, in which flexible authority is vested in one individual or an autocracy is generally described as a regime in terms of political science definitions, just as one writes about the Tsarist regime, not the Tsar's government, as government carries with it implicit meanings of governance that simply did not apply under the Tsar, Saddam's rule, the Ancien Regimé of pre-revolutionary France, etc. And 'Saddam' is 100% correct. The fact that many articles on wiki refer to Hussein rather than Saddam is an example of how in some areas wiki falls well short of proper encyclopædic standards. But every time an article is rewritten to replace the ludicrous Husseins by the proper Saddam, some people (mainly American, who rely for information on the ignorance of much of the US media) throw a tantrum and promptly change it back to Hussein, making wiki's articles a laughing stock in the middle east. Hussein is in effect a disambigulation word to clarify that the Iraqi leader was the son of Hussein rather than a different Saddam. But Hussein is not a surname. According to one linguistic expert, using Hussein as a surname is the equivalent, in the case of Queen Elizabeth the second, of treating 'the second' as a surname. ÉÍREman 00:01 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree that "The II" is not the same as "Smith." Nevertheless, don't take for granted the meaning of "surname" -- aren't all surnames "disambiguation names" -- "No I am not that John, he's John Jones, I am John Smith?" Slrubenstein

All surnames are disambigulation names. But not all disambigulation names are surnames. In many cultures a different name is used as the representative name. In Iraq Saddam Hussein means Saddam, son of Hussein. Hussein on its own means. . . well Hussein. Which Hussein? Are you talking about someone called Hussein? If so, who? Saddam however means a specific person, which is why most of the world (but the US and its media) if uses either Saddam Hussein or Saddam, not Hussein. That is the correct format, as advised by linguistic experts and used by the BBC, ITN, Reuters, AP, etc etc. That was how it was used even by the US in the early 1990s. But for some reason the news media chose to abandon the standard format and to its own (inaccurate) thing, which wiki (most of its users being american and so used to hearing CBS, NBC, ABC etc say Hussein) unfortunately copied, though thankfully that linguistic error is now being corrected. ÉÍREman 18:11 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

Re: Monkey Island. Installment is the perfectly correct American English spelling. We add extra l's to lots of words that British English doesn't. There is no need to keep changing words back and forth between dialects. Rmhermen 01:47 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * In that case, my usage should not have been described as an error and "corrected" in the first place. --AW

Hi, I am a new comer here, and I found u at Queer wikipedians. I am now working mainly on Chinese verision about gay-related articals. And I think you can help me a lot. Hopefully we can be friends! :D --Gboy 04:05 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Hi Gboy! Sounds like an interesting topic :). I have absolutely no ability to speak Chinese, but if there is anything I can help with, let me know... --AW


 * Thank you! I found that there are so little information about gay in Chinese version that I am so shame of it. I am now planning to translate all the gay-related articles from English into Chinese.Gay can do things perfect too(much better sometimes) ! :D I am now looking for some info about crackdown on gay in any countries, I don't know if you have any? Thanks! :D --Gboy 07:56 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Nothing very specific, no, sorry. I can send you a copy of a lengthy essay I wrote on homosexuality in late nineteenth century England, if it's any help to you? Might have some relevant information, but it's quite dense. --AW


 * That will be so kind of you! :D --Gboy 02:37 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Cool. Uh, what's your email? --AW


 * Sorry, I thought my email address is available! *v*. I've make it available now(in order to avoid the spam, :D) If you can't email to me, just let me know. Thank you again! (I created a new page List of gay-related topics, hope you can fix it or make it better. I don't know if my broken english is understandable. --Gboy 08:51 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I can't see how to get your address - from your user page I can hit "email this user", but that just gives me a form, and I can't attach files from that :). Maybe I'm just missing something? Could you maybe just send me an email at adam.williamson1 AT btinternet.com, so I can get your address that way? Thanks :) --AW


 * Sorry! I thought it was only a text! I will email u throught my emailbox! (I've change the 'at' in ur message so that the spam would catch ur email address) sorry again. :)(by the way, have u put that in wiki?) --Gboy 06:41 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Adam, regarding my edits to the Sandman article - I must confess I didn't read it carefully or realize (realise) that it was written from the British side of the language. I have a spell checker that I use sometimes to check Random Articles when I have a little spare time. The downfall is that sometimes I just go through looking for spelling not reading the article carefully. Since you've pointed this out to me, I will be more careful in the future. Fernkes 02:44, Nov 1, 2003 (UTC)


 * No problem, thanks for understanding :) and teach your spellchecker that "storytelling" is okay ;) --AW


 * Done! -- Fernkes 00:26, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I have been having a problem with the article on counterterrorism. I just don't know enough about it to write a decent article, but it's a useful topic, and since you had contributed to MI6, I thought you might be able t help. Next time you have some spare time, take a look at it? Thanks. Meelar 02:59, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:


 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Articles for deletion nomination of Sandman
I have nominated Sandman, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Sandman. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. --  李博杰   | —Talk contribs email 03:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Requesting your opinion
Hi. I've started a discussion here. (Actually, it's a restart of a prior discussion that went cold; you can just scroll directly down to the first post I made today in that section if you want.) Can you offer your thoughts? I think it's very important. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 01:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Ways to improve Dream (comics)
Hi, I'm Edaham. AdamWill, thanks for creating Dream (comics)!

I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. Can we scale it down a bit. The article should focus on notable details and not contain everything which can be gained from a companion or encyclopedia about the comic genre. Edaham (talk) 01:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse.


 * just an additional note, I’ve done some trimming to remove completely unsourced content. In addition to these edits however, I think the article needs trimming back more, with the idea of independent notability in mind. Independent notability in this case means that the character got mentioned by a source other than a comic book or material published by the owners of the character’s intellectual property. Were we not to use this as a general rule, you could basically use any appearance of the character in a comic as a source leading to a massive article which would be more suitable for a spin off wiki than a general knowledge encyclopedia. (Compare the article on lightsabers in Wikipedia and wookiepedia for example). Edaham (talk) 01:22, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Edaham. I wrote this page many years ago (over a decade) when wikipedia was a rather different thing. I'm not particularly interested in it any more. If you or anyone else want to overhaul it to meet whatever wikipedia's current rules are, please go ahead. AdamW (talk) 05:52, 11 April 2018 (UTC)