User talk:David345589

Testing talk page only.

Links to your page
David, you have been writing talk page messages today that point users to what appears to be your personal site. I'm sure you have the best intentions, but Wikipedia is not the place to promote your personal site; one reason is that only reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia are allowable in articles. I've reverted your edits. If you'd like to learn more about Wikipedia, I'll give you a standard welcoming message in a second. -Phoenixrod (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

And some useful links...
Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! -Phoenixrod (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
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Re: My submissions that were deemed promotional
David, thanks for the message on my talk page, and I'm glad my tone came across as intended. You certainly seem reasonable, and I thank you for that. I'll try to explain in more detail why I reverted your edits and what you can do.

Don't worry: it's not a matter of "breaking rules" or anything so serious, and there's no threat of corporal punishment. But please understand that Wikipedia sees a lot of edits that promote personal websites or points of view. Because Wikipedia strives to be neutral and non-promotional, such edits are quickly removed.

Now, that's not to say that your particular edits were ill-intentioned. But one of the core policies here is that articles must be written with sources that are reliable and verifiable. If, as you say, your "perfect pangrams, palindromic verse, and trisection breakthrough, in particular, are regarded by experts in the relevant fields as amazing achievements", then that's fine&mdash;as long as you cite those third-party sources rather than your own site.

The March 2007 issue of the Mathematical Association of America's College Mathematics Journal sounds like a good place to start. If you can provide a citation for your method of trisection, it could possibly be added to the article. I'm not a math expert, so other editors of that article would have to decide if it helps the article without taking up undue weight.

I do have a further concern, however. In looking back at your comment to me, I note that you want to "show that in each of those articles there were better solutions to creative problems than were shown in this encyclopedia." Please realize that this sounds like original research, which is great in academia but not accepted in Wikipedia.

I'd be happy to clarify anything further, and I hope your introduction to editing Wikipedia hasn't been too harsh! -Phoenixrod (talk) 17:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Phoenixrod
Not a question. Just a note to say that my introduction to Wikipedia hasn't been at all "harsh", and to keep related messages on the same page as you suggested. Thanks for your patient advice, Phoenixrod. When I have time, I shall carefully read the links you gave in your introduction, and then perhaps I'll be able to contribute effectively. I'm already an editor at another site (where the proper use of English is also taken very seriously), so I could perhaps fit in here. Right now, though, other interests call insistently. For your amusement, here is the English world's existing arguably-best perfect pangram (it's shown in Wikipedia)...

Cwm fjord bank glyphs vext quiz.

And here is my best one...

Won't Q-glyph's friz vex dumb Jack?

"Friz" is a valid word, and the entire sentence makes so much sense that I was even able to incorporate it in a limerick...

Other signwriters, taken aback

That dim Jack will be painting the plaque,

Because tails on glyph Q's

With their friz (curls) confuse,

Wonder, "Won't Q-glyph's friz vex dumb Jack?"

I must say that I would have thought that the writers of your article would hardly need citations and research to see which one is best. My wordplay colleagues think it's no contest. But I have no article I can cite.

David345589 (talk) 15:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Impressive wordplay! I'm glad you're considering staying and contributing. As to your last point, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. (That's from the first sentence of the policy I just linked.) If you think about it, though, it makes sense: academic work does original synthesis, while an encyclopedia simply aggregates the published knowledge without judging. At least ideally. :)


 * You don't need to use the "helpme" template to talk to me; that's for general questions that anyone might answer. I have your talk page on my watchlist, so I'll see anything you write here or on my talk page. -Phoenixrod (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)