User talk:AlMac/2005 Jun-Oct

User:AlMac/2005 Sympathies to terrorist victims

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^^^(Software coding technique plagiarism from EWS23 who plagiarized (spelling?) it from Redwolf24 who plagiarized it from Linuxbeak)^^^

Tips to help other newbies
It may be that I have figured out something that other beginners want to learn "how do you do that?" so here is a space for other folks to ask questions, or if you know how, you can add somewhere else in here, like right after some place where I did something & you want to know how to do that.

Tips to help Al
organizational so easier to archive stuff as I get it down pat.

Welcome to AlMac
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

Here are some tips to help you get started:


 * Read the tutorial and learn how to edit a page.
 * Experiment in the sandbox.
 * Follow the Simplified Ruleset.
 * Try to edit from a neutral point of view.
 * Use talk pages to communicate with other editors.
 * Be bold in updating pages.
 * Eventually, read the Manual of Style and learn about the Five Pillars of Wikipedia.
 * And most importantly, have fun!

If you need any help, see the help pages and glossary, add a question to the help desk, or ask me on my talk page.

I hope you will enjoy editing and being a Wikipedian. Good luck! — Bcat

Wiki Acronyms
There are acronyms used at Wiki that I was unfamiliar with before I arrived here.
 * COTW = Collaboration of the Week
 * See This week's improvement drive
 * I saw some place that we are only supposed to vote on up to three of these ... I not know if at a time, or each week.
 * POV = Point of View (unwelcome at Wiki)
 * NPOV = Neutral Point of View (Wiki policy)
 * PC = Politically Correct is related to being nice, provided we do not compromise the truth.
 * NPOV vs. PC understand different
 * If we cannot imagine anyone who might disagree with the truth of some statement, then it is NPOV.
 * If someone disagrees, then it is either POV or they are wrong about the facts.
 * If people agree with the facts, but are offended by the presentation, or disagree with adjectives used, like "severe", then that is more of a PC issue.
 * RFC = Requests for Comment
 * WP = Wikipedia
 * WP:FA - Featured Article
 * FA Peer Review
 * WP:FL = Featured List

Also see Acronym references

 * e-mail acronyms
 * Chat & other Internet acronyms
 * Acronymns of e-commerce and computer communications
 * Glossary of Acronymns in field of Disabilities (PDF)

Style tips
Great advice copied from Notes section of Talk:Computer security audit so that links to places for AlMac to study are better grouped together,


 * Also Guide to writing better articles, starting with Lead section, suggested by User:Fenice.


 * Keep up the good work, get rid of all the lists and the article should be all right. I strongly suggest you read Guide to layout and How to edit a page, if you haven't already—they're very insightful, as are the other articles in the style book.
 * Be aware that Wikipedia is not an FAQ. Don't refer to the reader or yourelf directly; sentences like Company-A has personal information on you and me. are considered bad style. The article shouldn't be a how-to: Go to Steve Gibson Research site, scroll down to Shields Up, run tests are improper. A better version would be something like Software to detect vulnerabilities is available from organisations such as Gibson Research Corporation, and arguably anything more detailed in a how-to way might not be proper here on WP. Avoid (though not at all costs) external links inside the main article body, the proper place is in its own section the end of the article. Try to give more than one alternative if there is one.
 * Last but not least, of course the article does not have to be perfect. Others will improve on what you write, especially if you make a decent start. Once you get rid of
 * all
 * the freaking
 * lists
 * I'll try editing it, too. ;) Note that I'm a newbie, too. Cheers. --Moritz 7 July 2005 21:33 (UTC)

Also see advice at Votes for deletion/Computer Security Audits such as me emulating the style of the featured articles and remember that every article in Wikipedia has to be like in an Encyclopaedia. Talk pages may be looser. AlMac 7 July 2005 22:12 (UTC)

Point of View
I recognize that many concepts involve controversy.


 * I am from Scotland ...
 * you want to know something about the Loch Ness Monster?
 * It has been said that when a person travels from Scotland to another nation, that the average intelligence of the people of both nations increases.
 * How is that possible?
 * Joke: Travel broadens the mind.
 * Nowadays, most travel is on the Internet.
 * I do not believe in UFOs
 * However, I participated in game design in which we decided that UFOs would be the vehicles used by people traveling in time, not backwards and forwards in history, but across parallel time dimensions from other realities in our multiverse
 * As fantastic as that Science Fiction concept might seem to some people, I find the notion of UFOs, if they really do exist, as being time traveling vehicles as much more believeable than being space traveler vehicles. That would explain a lot of the mystery of them being able to elude our efforts to make contact with the occupants.

Learning by Doing
I do not expect to learn 100% of Wiki skills then apply them. I think of this like computer programming. I learn some of what can be done, I do it. I produce useful output based on my partial know how, then as I gain experience, I add to my total sum of know-how.

I read some documentation ... how do you do that ... I get reasonably good at doing some process, then I read some more documentaiton on how to make my input more sophisticated with more features, then with practice get good at that, then read some more on self-improvement, and hopefully what I produce along the way is in fact of value to the community. AlMac 28 June 2005 20:04 (UTC)

How Tos
A picture:


 * AlMac Talk to me|My Contributions
 * w:User:AlMac
 * AlMac
 * AlMac

Help Starting a new page
Help:Starting a new page

How archave
Cut & pasted this from Help Desk:


 * Question: How does one create an archive into which to move old content from a talk page? I can't find anything on the help pages, style guides, etc. Jimp 24Aug05


 * Answer: Here's what I do: add the link into the page FIRST and then Show preview so that you can click on the link. E.g., Talk:Fooarticle/Archive 1. Elf | Talk 14:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

How link to Category
Cut & pasted from Reference Desk:


 * Question: When I put a category name inside of the square brackets, nothing shows up, how can I make a link to that page, short of copying the entire url?


 * Answer: You can link to a category by putting a ":" in front. Eg, Category:Hurricane Katrina gives Category:Hurricane Katrina. --Commander Keane 05:14, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

No Wiki How
"If you use ~ it will automatically sign & date your posts with your account name." How do you "say that" without it signing and dating the name of the person saying that?

Also see Help:Variable. User:AlMac|(talk) 23:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Al Education ahead
Stuff I know I need to learn
 * Edit History ... how do I access that?
 * one reason has to do with multiple people editing something concurrently and I want to make sure nothing accidentally deleted
 * Default rules
 * e.g. on the Current changes page, I want it to hide minor edits by default
 * there may be other stuff like that which is desirable
 * Very top of page preferences now being explored by me
 * Where I have a sub-topic that has exploded in size and my interest, how do I move it to some other page just for that interest area?
 * My user-id then / or \ (?) then title of that topic.
 * User talk:AlMac/New Topic
 * 1) Cut & paste title of the article that needs to export whatever
 * 2) edit where link needed
 * 3) put slash at end then whatever the new topic is
 * 4) put brackets on it
 * 5) save my work
 * 6) Now I have link to new article space where something might be moved
 * 7) After move there, delete where it came from, except for suitable linkage
 * I think that creates the copy, then do I cut & paste, or how use MOVE ???
 * How to move it
 * This is for the WHOLE PAGE in which the old one is redirected to the new one ... I might only want to move a section.
 * Other reasons to move a page:
 * Original article misspelled or inappropriate upper lower case.
 * Scope of content has evolved.
 * Achieving a level of Neutrality that is acceptable to this community
 * Security breaches may be a particularly challenging topic, but if I can learn good enough Neutrality of Points of View there, I should be able to handle most any topic.

Al, I looked at the information you posted above. You might want to read Page history and Neutral point of view. BTW, who is Bob? — Bcat (talk | email) 28 June 2005 22:19 (UTC)

And also the NPOV tutorial — Bcat (talk | email) 28 June 2005 22:20 (UTC)

And also How to write a great article. (OK, I'm done now :-)) — Bcat (talk | email) 28 June 2005 22:22 (UTC)

---

Bcat, Thanks again from AlMac who has added more stuff to the stuff to learn, since these tips. AlMac has only studied a fraction of the suggested material so far. AlMac 4 July 2005 18:22 (UTC)

Managing Stubs

 * The way I operate, I am constantly starting some effort, getting part way done, then becoming somewhat distracted, with many loose ends to pursue.
 * In the short term, I remember that I had started on Security breaches
 * had LOTS more I plan to add to that section and related topics
 * Then someone added a warning to me that my point of view was not sufficiently neutral
 * I went to links provided ... lots of stuff to study there, but I get some of the gist of it
 * I start to re-write some sections to try to fix the problem & LOTS more to do there
 * I figure out how to locate the someone who added the warning (MacGyverMagic) & get to his talk page and add a comment acknowleging his input
 * while I am there, I see
 * a bunch of other people with questions that do not appear to have been answered,
 * for which I insert my efforts to help those people
 * and statements that I want to expand on,
 * and in some cases do so
 * so now I have a growing # of people where I posted something, and would like to know when there is any response to what I inserted
 * After my first input, I saw that it gave my PC internet address & I did not like that, so I became a regular user, and I added a wee bit to new user
 * When I was in new user, I saw stuff from other new users saying things that I was tempted to comment on, and I would hope to revisit later to see if more give and take there worth pursing
 * Then Bob added the welcome with lots of places I plan to visit over time

As my involvement continues, there is great risk I am not going to remember all the places where I had started something, that perhaps needs continuation.

Just a note, my name isn't Bob. — Bcat (talk | email) 28 June 2005 22:37 (UTC)

---

Sorry, somewhow that got into my brain and I did not realize there was incorrect info there. AlMac 28 June 2005 22:41 (UTC)


 * No problem. — Bcat (talk | email) 28 June 2005 22:52 (UTC)

Using Images
Study
 * Tutorial
 * How_to_edit_a_page
 * Uploading images
 * Image copyright tags

Update about AlMac
Thanks Bcat

Over time I intend to add more about myself, but I may find a better place than this to put it, such as AlMac.

Roller Coaster Ride
AlMac professional work load resembles a roller coaster ride.
 * There are days when it seems work work work, I can't get a fraction completed that I need to get done, there aren't enough hours in the day to do my job, and this goes on seemingly for an eternity.
 * There are days where nothing has gone wrong, I am caught up on urgent business, I am doing useful stuff. I love this job.

Thus, AlMac time availability for volunteer projects is also like a roller coaster ride.
 * AlMac will show up and get a lot of useful work done in a very short time.
 * AlMac will appear to disappear & no longer be a participant, or only a very infrequent visitor, for weeks at a time

Hello Wikopedia
I came to Wikopedia for several reasons.
 * 1) I knew about it because there are entries on my parents, math professors, and I had stumbled across it several prior times with various research.
 * 2) Here is the page on my Mother
 * 3) If I do a similar page on myself, I recognize that I should limit it to the stuff that I have done that is truely unique in the world, such as Operation Contact in the Simulation Gaming hobby
 * 4) David Gibbs started a Wiki for AS/400 iSeries interests  and I started posting there what I knew but my interests include a great deal of computer security stuff that does not really apply to the IBM world, and I wanted to share my computer know-how, and while I have tried blogging, I am not really happy with the concept of many people talking, while security issues are not really being solved in the world as rapidly as I would like to see.

There are other topics that interest me, that I also intend to post information about in the future. See what I wrote in the New User Log

Security
I started Security breaches and I have a lot more to add, then there was the link someone added about Neutrality. I had thought that I was being fair, but now see that I need to be more so. So I have my work cut out for me there.

It is my hope that I can share what I have learned from over 40 years in my computer profession, and do so in a manner that meets with the standards of your community.

.

Other Discussion Groups
I feel like I may be butting in some places where I might not be welcome, so let's try some stubs in the other places that point to here. Also much smaller risk here of multiple people editing at same time.

Evolution
See Talk on Creation Science
 * It is commonly stated that species change is long duration, several generations ... will new species survive in competition with others?
 * From our perspective as humans, we witness evolution in our lifetimes because the smaller the creature, the faster the cycle of generations
 * We may have risk of Pandemic because of the speed with which new diseases arrive and evolve
 * Bird Flu and Ebola today are only the latest in a series of variants
 * Larger creaters slower evolution
 * Killer Bees and Mad Cow are both man made problems, both accidentally.

Refugee
I only glanced at this article.
 * Palestine is part of History and Today
 * Tsunami is Today, or very recent
 * UN Humanitarian Aid, and efforts by many governments, in recent years, seem to be focused on trying to help solve whatever problem in some nation is contributing to many people fleeing
 * so that less will flee
 * and earlier departures can go home
 * Haiti as example with USA
 * There is also the Minorities Problem where people, of different enthicity who migrate into some nation for reasons of getting better paying jobs, are considered by the nation to which they arrive, as being temporary workers who become unwelcome when economic conditions deteriorate.

Trade
AlMac stuff, about this topic, has been moved to User talk:AlMac/Trade then moved again to Talk:Trade

Standards
Hi, I noticed your comments regarding standards on Mgm's talk page. I've made a section on my user page regarding standards, if you're interested. –M T 28 June 2005 23:08 (UTC)

I just created the page WikiProject Usability, would you be interested in helping me with it? –M T 29 June 2005 02:34 (UTC)

I would be happy to.

Feel free to copy stuff that I posted earlier to your page and to MgM to the new place.

However notice that I am a relative newbie here ... my first attempt at my own article Security breaches immediately got into trouble because I have a Point of View that may be objectionable:
 * Screw-ups are embarrassing
 * Screw ups in public are a PR disaster
 * Screw ups in handling screw ups in public can lead to a company almost going out of business.
 * Entirely too many people seem to take the attitude that poor performance is acceptable.
 * It is Ok to have a bunch of people killed on the pbulic highways all the time.
 * Accidents happen, so don't sweat the occasional plane crash.
 * Accidents happen, so don't sweat occasional rashes of food poisoning.

Now I acknowlege that mistakes can happen, and feel that we all should strive to help them become an exception to the rule. But my POV attitude can perhaps spill over to my efforts to write articles such that I appear to be unsympathetic to entities that have seriously screwed up.

Punctuation Project
I am still stumbling around Wiki, without big picture. I saw this project and thought that the people in the two projects might like to know about each other due to similarity of interests.

Perhaps there are ideas discussed in the Standards project that would be useful to these others.
 * 1) Addition to Toolbox
 * 2) I just edited this page, please check it for common typing errors.
 * 3) I am working on editing this page.  I want to see what it looks like through the eyes of common Browsers out there, other than the one I am using.

Perhaps there are techniques used by the Punctuation project that could help with the Standards project. Consider the notion that the Punctuation project finds out about problems via:
 * 1) software crawling offline dumps
 * 2) perhaps the kind of software used by Search engines to do updates might be better, because then you would have linkage
 * 3) What is the problem?
 * 4) Here is link to the problem.
 * 5) Date and time stamp of discovery, because the page may have changed by the time someone tries to fix it.
 * 6) Grammar checking software exists, presumably in many languages.
 * 7) Suggested fix text could be given.
 * 8) Some of this kind of software can be flawed or not up to human standards.
 * 9) Human would have choice of cut & paste, or work on what the software did not do good job with.
 * 10) There might also be bug report if the software consistently falls short of the mark in some obvious way.
 * 11) Other projects might use similar software to identify which pages have the problems that those projects seek to fix.
 * 12) spelling and grammar
 * 13) Wiki Syntax
 * 14) Fix common mistakes
 * 15) When there is pattern of errors associated with particular groups of people, work on connecting them to relevant tutorials, in usual diplomatic Wiki way.

AlMac 4 July 2005 17:37 (UTC)

How to write a great article about Security breaches
Well, it's no big deal, but using the singular form of the word is standard when choosing a title and you should start the article with a clear definition of what a security breach is (even though it may be obvious to you). See if the link on how to write great articles helps at all. - Mgm|(talk) June 29, 2005 07:49 (UTC)

AlMac Relevant Background
Before another stab at resolution, or round of efforts, I added an introduction at Talk:Security breaches to my relevant background perspective (real world risk of POV contamination). AlMac 1 July 2005 18:43 (UTC)

The last few days I have added stuff all over the Wiki map, and not yet got in trouble. Hopefully these random experiences will help me be better able to handle my main areas of interest, where I started, but immediately got into trouble.

Trade - table
I know. It's not finished yet. Change it at your liking. There is one more table to come (Importers).--Fenice 5 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)
 * Can you read it now?--Fenice 5 July 2005 16:04 (UTC)

AlMac is a newbie, rich in ideas, poor in (so far) knowing how to implement them.
 * You fixed some stuff, while there is still some that is user hostile. AlMac 5 July 2005 16:17 (UTC)
 * The Color Contrast is now readable to my eyes, thanks to your choice of a light background for the dark text. I can see everything on the chart.
 * I do have to move my browser window marginally sideways to see everything, which is not a problem, but if you ever intend to add more stuff sideways, you might be able to adjust the column headers to use two vertical lines of text so that the column width is not made excess by the titles. This style, of me trying to cram as much stuff into a picture with less white space, might not be to everyone's liking.
 * "Value" then "by US$"
 * Should it somewhere say if the value is in hundreds of thousands, millions of $, or whatever?
 * "Share" then "%"
 * Should the punctuation in that column use periods rather than commas?
 * "Annual" on top line, "change" on second, "%" on either
 * When I view on screen, the list of International Organizations (which I recently added, shortly before you put the chart in) is covered up by the chart.
 * When I print it, I can see the list of International Organizations to the left of the chart.

AlMac 5 July 2005 16:17 (UTC)

The problem that the section below is hidden will be solved when text is added. I think. It is something the wikisoftware just does, I am not sure if this is a bug.--Fenice 5 July 2005 16:38 (UTC)

You can put all your ideas on the talk-page of the trade-article itself, if you want to. Others may (or may not) comment on it.--Fenice 5 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)

Thnaks, I did so.

After you added the flags, and made other adjustments, related to my suggestions, the other text now flowed around the left side of the chart. I not know how you did it, or if it a bug like you thought, but another thing has been fixed. AlMac 5 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)

Military and Books

 * Good Job on the Adds to Military. Got some advice that the lists don't belong in there, but I think that should wait. I'm going to use this page to archieve my talk in a moment, but that comment will be on the new talk if you wait a while. User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 6 July 2005 16:04 (UTC)

Thanks, some of the stuff I added to several articles was because I was looking at that article and thinking some stuff was missing that perhaps belongs in a separate article, but I still feeling damaged by several failed attempts to fix my Security breaches startup, so for the moment I suggesting ideas and making small additions, then letting more experienced Wikipeans either do moves to new articles, or approve my suggestions.

Growing Expertise
I plan to link this concept to some projects and articles I am interested in helping to improve, so first let's move this effort to AlMac/Growing Expertise then do the linkage from there. Done AlMac 6 July 2005 18:22 (UTC)

Last Few Days Jul-5 <- Jun-27
Note above where I talk about roller coaster ride with respect to my time availability.
 * My employer is about to do a relocation.
 * There's always lots of software projects for me.

Since I joined Wikopedia approx June 27 2005, I have stuck my nose into several areas, making updates and additions, including:


 * Articles and their talk
 * Talk:Apple Macintosh
 * Internet
 * Italian army
 * Jane's Information Group
 * Talk:Loch Ness Monster
 * Military
 * Talk:Military
 * Military history
 * Near Earth asteroid
 * Talk:Phishing
 * Talk:Scotland
 * Scottish people
 * Security breaches
 * Talk:Security breaches
 * Trade
 * Talk:Trade
 * Users and their talk
 * User:AlMac
 * User talk:AlMac
 * AlMac/Growing Expertise
 * User talk:AlMac/Trade
 * User talk:Bcat
 * User talk:Dragons flight
 * User talk:Fenice
 * User talk:Lynn Jackson
 * User talk:Magicmonster
 * User talk:MacGyverMagic
 * User talk:ScifiterX
 * User:Supersaiyanplough/OldTalk
 * User talk:Vanderdecken
 * Wiki projects and other community efforts
 * The Sandbox
 * Clueless newbies
 * Wikipedia talk:Community Portal
 * WikiProject Countering systemic bias/members
 * Help desk/Archive 21
 * This week's improvement drive
 * New user log/June 2005
 * Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Punctuation
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wiki Syntax
 * WikiProject Usability
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability
 * Welcoming committee

Some of my posts were minor thoughts, to me anyway, or to point out correlations between things. Prolonged involvement in much of the above means I will need to pick and choose which to continue, and which to back away from.

My cool may have slipped last nite.

I expect high standards for myself and some peers.

I had some software testing that did not go well, so I took a break from my work (I telecommute a lot) by visiting Scotland and was a wee bit disappointed. I rhink perhaps my foot may have been in my mouth in places in Talk:Scotland.

Computer security audit
First of all, don't panic. This has happened before, the article is scrutinized and can survive if you follow their suggestions for improvement. I moved it to suit the naming conventions and copyedited the lead section. It is a legitimate topic; the only thing I worry about i that it may be redundant with Auditing information security? The text needs to be in prose, not list form. It should have references, and footnotes, so people know where the information is from. The text should inform people about these audits, not try to convince them that they are necessary.--Fenice 7 July 2005 19:25 (UTC)

Thanks again. I saw the Votes for Deletion as I was getting ready to leave for the office, and I should be on the road right now. I also see that this kind of process takes 5 days, so I figure I have part of the weekend, depending on what happens at my office (see roller coaster ride explained above).

I studied the Auditing information security article before I started Computer Security Audits. My conclusion was that Auditing information security is rather dated. It describes a reality of large comapnies, like those traded on the stock market, that can afford to have a team of humans from some audit firm, perform certain tasks. Most small businesses, which are most enterprises period, cannot afford this, and certainly not home users.

Auditing information security is a valid topic, of great interest to many enterprises, but while the work they do is more intensive than what I am writing about, their market share is microscopic compared to my focus. I think perhaps I should try to explain that, like the Computer security and Computer insecurity articles point at each other.


 * Computer security article focuses on Design for Good Security in the first place, which most computer vendors should do, but far too many do not.
 * Computer insecurity article focuses on victims in the "Oh Hell, what a mess we are in, how do we get out of this?"

Similarly (except I need to clean up the language)


 * Auditing information security article focuses on what the giants of industry do to identify security issues in need of remediation.
 * Computer Security Audits (which may need a slightly different title) article focuses on what the little guy, and small business can do, to identify security issues that are easily repaired.

Now many enterprises do not think they need Security Audits, but one of the outputs of these automated tools is an education that can lead some companies to conclude that they do need professional help, because the remediation effort is more than can be handled by their staff. AlMac 7 July 2005 19:36 (UTC)

The discussion on VfD takes two weeks, not five days. They usually only delete if there is a two third majority for deletion, which I don't think there will be.--Fenice 7 July 2005 19:45 (UTC)

There is a template you can use to avoid the edit-conflict-problem you were talking about earlier: which will show this message:, and you are supposed to take it off again right after the edit.--Fenice 7 July 2005 21:01 (UTC)

int main {

int r, a = 126, b = -84, c = 74,d=2, e = -134, f = 321, g = -587, h = 994, i = -1649, j = 2715, k = -4449, l = 7310, m = -12302, n = 22123, o = -44639,p = 102089, q = -253126; char p[] = "596f752061726520766572792077656c636f6d6521203a29"; char s;

s = malloc( sizeof(char)*2 ); for( r = 0; r < 17; r++ ) { printf( "%c", a ); a += b; b += c; c += d; d += e; e += f; f +=g ; g += h; h += i; i += j; j += k; k += l; l += m; m += n; n +=o; o += p; p +=q; }  printf("\n"); while( *p ) { strcpy( s, p, 2 ); printf( "%c", s ); p += 2; s = ""; }

return 0; }

Project2501a 8 July 2005 00:14 (UTC) Sorry, I am not familiar with this programming language ... I can tell it is a structured script. AlMac 8 July 2005 02:02 (UTC)

The scope and use of Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a sister project to Wikipedia. Like all Wikimedia projects, it is distinct in the type of information that it contains. Whereas Wikipedia seeks to compile encyclopedic content, Wikibooks can best be described as compiling didactic content, that is, content that is mean for learning. This has some small overlap with Wikipedia, but also includes "how to's", applied or otherwise esoteric information. For more information about whether Wikibooks is right for your project, try reading these guidelines.

If you're ready to start a new wikibook, check out this page to find out how. -FabioB 8 July 2005 18:38 (UTC)

I may not yet be ready to start a wikibook, but I did noodle around a bit at the site, and plan to do some more. I opened an account and my big mouth there. AlMac 8 July 2005 19:35 (UTC)

About Citing
Thanks for noting your concern about citing issues. I would say that there are two reasons for citing.
 * 1) You are directly referencing or quoting some specific work or material. This type of reference/citation is necessary to avoid plagiarism and copyright isues. Since you are writing almost entirely out of your working knowledge of the subject, this should never be an issue for you.
 * 2) Any subject you discuss should be verifiable. That is, people should not just have to go on your word alone, but be able to cross check it with other sources. However, you really should not let this get in the way of your posting that information in the first place. If what you say really is true (a reason why you most try to remain factual and neutral), other Wiki users will also be able to confirm what you've written with external references.

Really, I don't think this is an issue for you. A user with alot of concrete knowledge in an area and no references is better than a user with no knowledge and alot of references. The latter is very common and will come along to help out soon enough. - FabioB 8 July 2005 19:00 (UTC)

Book
Hi, you contacted me when someone suggested to you to publish your work as a book on wikibooks. I did not reply earlier because I was too busy. But it is important that you think about this wikibook-project again. Donating single articles on Wikipedia is one thing. But donating an entire book is a totally different scale of value. I would by all means consider mailing the script to at least twenty publishers before you donate your knowledge to wikibooks. If it gets declined, and lots of books are, you can always donate it. Best wishes, --Fenice 21:37, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Military
Hi, thanks for your offer to help with the category. I put many of the obvious articles into subcats sometime ago. Whatever you can do will be appreciated. Maurreen (talk) 16:55, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks for your work and thoughts. Category:Politics about Military is a smart idea.
 * And I've seen Category:Politics is very full, and left a note at the politics page. Maurreen (talk) 03:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks, not to worry. You don't owe anything. Hope you had a good trip. Maurreen (talk) 04:55, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

American Civil Rights Movement
Please vote for the American Civil Rights Movement in the nominations for the Article Improvement Drive. [Click here and scroll down to (Nominated in August or later: American Civil Rights Movement... to cast your vote]. Thanks! Mamawrites 03:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Modding
Thanks fro heads up, though I only added a little topical note about Micro$oft sueing some guy for modding an Xbox. --Red King 21:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey AIMac why did you send me a message about the modding article? Not complaining at all. I was just wondering. -- Psi edit

Your Signature
Hey, I couldn't help but notice your signature at the Reference Desk. I had the same problem with my user-talk link several weeks ago- apparently it stems from changes they made in the code. If you haven't fixed it already, you can go to How to fix your signature and follow some steps there. Hope that helps! EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 04:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a testing
This is a testing to make sure the link really does go to me and not to plagiarism source AlMac]]|[[User talk:AlMac|(talk)

I'd like to change the color so it is easier on older eyes ... use a lighter background color.

But first try to fix my signature.

My sig is not yet fixed to perfection. AlMac]]|[[User talk:AlMac|(talk) 20:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

After adding one more ] on the end (I suspect I have mismatched open close stuff. AlMac]]|[[User talk:AlMac|(talk)] 20:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

and one more AlMac]]|(talk) 20:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This is no good
 * One Tilde ~
 * Two
 * Three AlMac]]|(talk)
 * Four AlMac]]|(talk) 20:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * User:AlMac User:AlMac|(talk) 20:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well that is 1/2 way ... now to figure out what I am not doing satisfactorily with the elevation of User talk:AlMac perhaps it needs adjustment of where the | goes???


 * Let's next put 2 @ [ in front of AlMac at very beginning AlMac|(talk) 20:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Let's assume I when have fixed the mismatching count of stuff, I can also unclick the raw signature option.
 * Possibility also exists that this won't work on MY talk, that I ought to use the sandbox. (Also see what happened at User talk:EWS23, where my comments became a link back to here, sas if the process of creating a link was mismatch on whatever we call these ][ | <> marker tags.

Need more color help?
Sorry, I was slightly confused by your message, so I'm not entirely sure what you need help with. It looks like you got your signature working, so that's good. If you want to change the background color of the "Leave me a message" box, go into the code and find the part that says "background-color: lightblue". You can change "lightblue" to any of the colors on this page. (I think the code numbers are supposed to work as well, but I couldn't get it to work in testing- however, you should be able to just use the words, for example by changing "lightblue" to "Darksalmon") I hope this helps, and let me know if you need anything else. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 12:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)