User talk:JRM/Archive1

Jwrosenzweig 22:20, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
JRM, I posted part of an answer at the reference desk to the Sandman problem. Here is a good reference....if you read the pages that follow it, you'll see several variations on the story. Fascinating stuff. Welcome to Wikipedia, by the way! I hope you stay and edit here -- if you do, I encourage you to try the Tutorial to see how editing works, and to leave a note (for me at User talk:Jwrosenzweig or for anyone at the Help desk) if you have questions. Have fun, Jwrosenzweig 22:20, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~ ~ ~. Four tildes (~ ~ ) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! I know, it's a bit late. Just in case you need some more helpful links. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 21:13, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * How to edit a page
 * Editing tutorial
 * Picture tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style
 * I was almost going to ask what on earth the point of this was until I came to I know, it's a bit late. Just in case you need some more helpful links. Thanks, Mac. :-) In the meantime, I've updated the topical index to include Pages needing translation into English. This, and the alphabetical index should provide me with all the links I need. :-) JRM 21:59, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

Gamefreak99 01:20, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I suppose I'm supposed to reply to people here then? Bit of a strange system you got here but it makes sense in a whacky sort of way :)

Anywho, much thanks JRM! Gamefreak99 01:20, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The sandbox is not a litterbox.
You are hereby awarded the Atlas Award for your work in removing undesirable things from the sandbox and not allowing the bullies of the world to kick sand in our collective face. It is now yours. You are therefore entitled to display it prominently, and are encouraged to award it to other deserving editors who have likewise raked the sand clean.

Thank youPedant 22:30, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

Atlas Award
I love the idea, but we should probably pick a less male-oriented image. I'm sure our female contributors keep the sand clean now and again as well. :-) I'm a little busy translating an article right now, so sorry if I don't respond immediately. Oh, and thanks for awarding me, of course! blush :-) JRM 22:35, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
 * The above is exactly the sort of thing an unselfishly great editor would say, of course. The Atlas award is named after Charles Atlas and is taken from his 'they kicked sand in my face' advertisement, and is in no way merely a masculine image.  It is a symbol of self-empowerment.  Charles Atlas was once a self-styled 98-pound weakling, and through his own diligence and effort, became a very succesful businessperson and body builder.  And his business empire began with the ad that this image is from.
 * In that case, we need a less U.S.-centric image, because that explains why I didn't catch the reference. :-D No, just kidding. As long as we alert people to the context, it's fine.
 * Incidentally, I'm still very much a newbie. Is there an accepted policy for responses on talk pages? I noticed you moved my comment to here, and now my natural inclination is to copy this entire thing back to your page as well. Is that sort of sane or do people generally keep it to one page? JRM 22:55, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

I generally copy the whole thing to the other user's page when responding, and if they delete the text I copied over, that's cool... I generally keep it on my page too. I think my way isn't necessarily the sane way, but generally, replies, or links to replies' go on the user talk page of the user who is intended to read them. Some exceptoins to putting replies on the other user's page are: when the discussion is between two users that each watch each other's page; when the full discussion is on an article talk page and then you just post something like "see Cricism of Wal-Mart page and look over the new edits if you would... and the discuss page, we all responded to your points"; or when the user is someone who is very busy/has a busy talk page, you might leave the discussion on your own page and tell them "I answered on my talk page: Atlas Award sect."; or if you make a separate sub page to keep it a little more private, you might just put the message: "User:Pedant/Ronald" or something, if you don't want to have everyone read it, but they will anyway, if they are keeping an eye on everything you do. lol... but to answer the question you did ask:

Is there an accepted policy for responses on talk pages? the accepted policy is to put at least something on the user talk page of the user who you are talking to. to whom you are talking, whatever... that way the user gets that 'you have new messages' notice.
 * OK, thanks for all that! :-) To prevent confusion, I'll remove the remnants of the original discussion from your page, keeping just my initial question&mdash;I think that's the least redundant and won't clutter up your already cluttered page... Anyhoo, I plan on restyling my user page one of these days, so maybe I'll fit in the award somewhere. On second thought, I'll probably put it on a subpage, because flaunting awards distracts from the actual content... Oh, look at the time, I'd better go catch some Zs. Thanks again, and goodnight. Or whatever it is over on your time zone. :-) JRM 00:00, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)
 * If you got it, flaunt it, is my thought, it's a brand new award, you are one of the first to get it, and awards are great for your user page, they let people know what other editors think about you. If you had like 8 or more awards and it took up too much room, or something, that might need a subpage.  I forgot to mention, if you put something on another users talk page, I think the custom is to leave it there for the other editor to delete or archive.  I'm not picky about my page though, I'm picky only about articles.  I like to leave most of my recent discussions on my talk page, because they let other users get to know something about each other, and what I think about another user. There is a move to make it so that only a user can edit their own user page, but I like it being open.  I wouldn't say something anywhere on wikipedia or it's sister articles that I wouldn't want to show up in a google search.  Anyway, nice to meet you, and thanks for helping to discourage bad sandbox content.Pedant 00:15, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)

Iron Gate translation
Thanks! I'll proof as soon as I can. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 08:14, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Wandering Jew
Thanx for the cleanup at Wandering Jew. gK [[User talk:GK|&iquest;?]] 12:09, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Exploding Wales
Yes, it was funny :-). But please don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a joke or a point. &mdash; David Remahl 02:59, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I'll never do it to make a point. But I can't promise you I'll never do it again to make a joke. I would have tagged it for speedy myself&mdash;eventually. I'm sorry, I really am... I have no excuse. I guess I should feel shame at this point. I promise to work on that.
 * On the bright side User:Hoary has gotten his or her first taste of the deletion process. All's well that ends well. JRM 03:04, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)
 * Hahah :-). Yeah. No harm done at all, we can all use a laugh every now and then. &mdash; David Remahl 03:07, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * That was your article? Sorry 'bout that. I was much too serious. Well, as soon as I learnt how to suggest deletion, I forgot it. I can't be bothered to relearn the process, so potential authors of "Exploding Males", "Exploding Weals", etc. are safe from me! I now see about ten articles per day that I think should be deleted, but ignore eight of them and simply advocate "speedy" deletion for those whose vacuousness is so stunningly obvious that even the most fanatic of "inclusionists" wouldn't defend it. Boringly yours, Hoary 08:22, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ROTFL! I was the original author Exploding whale, and I got it to Featured article status, but I must say that I nearly wet myself when I saw your joke article on BJAODN! Too funny :) And I thought the original article was hilarious! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Couldn't help myself. I always liked Exploding whale, but then I just saw the redirect Exploding whales, and I just had to use the pun... JRM 13:35, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

BJAODN
I don't understand. There's no way we can put every bit of vandalism into BJAODN. Why was what I did wrong? RickK 21:04, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * My bad, my bad. I was misreading the edit history. I thought a genuine editor had put nonsense in, an anon took it out, and you had to put it back in again. That would have been truly surreal. Only two mistakes out of three actions, not a bad track record for me. :-) Anyway, carry on... JRM 22:15, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Red/white/blue flags
User:JRM/Notes/List of national flags in red, white and blue states:


 * Countries formerly part of (some instance of) Yugoslavia cannot be said to have original designs as such

However, this is incorrect, because at least some of those flags predate the Yugoslav flag. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   00:29, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Red, white and blue in combination are the so-called Pan-Slavic colours. The Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian flags were created sometime in the 19th century when the others were, too, and then when they were joined into Yugoslavia then the Yugoslav flag became used in addition to those three. Now that Yugoslavia's gone, these three reverted to their old flags. I'm not sure if Montenegrin flag was exactly the same in the 19th century, but it's possible. Only the Bosnian and the Macedonian (the Slavic republic's) flags were invented in Yugoslavia after World War II. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   12:08, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WiseGuy H.E.C.
In regard to your comments on my articles, High Erisian Church and Erisism it seems that you view them as some elaborate hoaxes or something which does not deserve to be on Wikipedia. I obviously do not agree with this opinion. If you would like to explain more clearly your arguement then I would love to hear it. Please email/MSNM me on wiseguyhec@hotmail.com --by WiseGuy H.E.C. 19:53, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dates
Hi, JRM. If something has already been said, you can generally assume I've already read it. Yes, ignoring date articles is on my todo list, but quite far down compared to everything else I want to do. It'll probably happen eventually. &mdash; Kate Turner | Talk 12:27, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Talk page
Well, I just want to keep the talk page empty. So there is no particular reason. --ThomasK 16:30, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Orange
Would you agree that your additions to Orange more properly belong with Orange (word)?

Orange (word) is a specialized page which centers on the process of trying to find rhymes for the word. As the two etymologies apply to all the meanings of the word ""orange"", I thought that it was better to put the etymology in with the list of all the meanings.

See the talk page for why I think Orange Order doesn't belong here.

There needs to be a link from here to Orange Order.

I have deleted the words "which originated among Protestants in Ulster in Ireland".

''And finally, Orange is not the surname of the Dutch royal family: they have many surnames. They belong to the House of Orange-Nassau, but that's not the same thing. JRM 18:53, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)''

I have corrected this.

''Since you haven't replied but have changed Orange (disambiguation), I'll take it as a "no, I don't agree". See the talk page at Orange (disambiguation) for my detailed arguments. I'd appreciate it if you could respond to them. JRM 13:40, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)''

Sorry. I had other things to do. And see Talk:Orange. Anthony Appleyard 18:31, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, I enjoyed reading your description of events at User:JRM/Orange. ^_^ -- 00:18, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You learn French? You are brave! ;-)
Hello JRM! Je te propose quelques modifications pour ta page personnelle sur Wikipédia en français (en:User:JRM). Ma page de discussion fr:User:Æ t'attend si tu a des questions! (Note: utilise celle sur fr: car celle sur en: n'existe pas encore.) Ton humble serviteur, Æ fr 19:01, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

(le texte modifié est sur ta page de discussion, je n'ai pas modifié directement ta page personnelle) Æ fr

I put some thoughts in the fancruft talk page
as a fellow more-or-less inclusionist.

Yours in service,

Morris 03:33, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

WP:VIP
I appreciate the WikiThanks. It is in fact my first "award". Rest assured that my work is not taking away from content edits. I'm just adminning a lot because my powers are new. Once I get used to them, I should return to some more content edits. :-) [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 12:32, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Quan
This article was tagged as a speedy, but I'm having doubts. I think it should be VfD. However, my browser keeps crashing as soon as I try to enter VfD. Can you add the subpage I created for this article to the list? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 13:15, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

VfD
I know, it's far too unwieldy. I tried to suggest an idea to move the nominations to a subpage by date for inclusion to shorten the page. But apparently one click extra to place your vote is too hard. :( If they were paged by date, I could make my own VfD page, by simply only including the latest submission. Maybe I should try a detailed plan... [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 14:28, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary tip
No problem, I'll try and remember to do so. Tuf-Kat 20:39, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

My Apologies
My apologies Lieutenant Blue 01:22 (UTC)

Surreal barnstar
Khehehe... That Sandbox barnstar was a good one. Seeing it acctually made me smile. And that doesn't happen often at 2:30 AM, believe me. :) Well... I'm off to bed now so I'll leave you with the Satan guy. Good luck and have fun. :P --TOR 01:31, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mess
By mess, do you mean the mess I made trying to add items to VfD? If so, then yes, I cleaned up after myself. (If you meant something else, what?)   – Quadell (talk) (help)   15:20, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for your help! I'll try reading the directions next time. :)   – Quadell (talk) (help)   15:36, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)


 * Smart-ass. ;-)

Same-sex marriage
I can try, but the douchebag isn't discussing it. He keeps adding that stuff in that isn't relevant. Spinboy 22:21, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * That's a good idea, I'll try to take a breath. The dialogue now seems to be happening, I even game him a suggestion to start his own article. Spinboy 22:28, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the assistance.

 * Thanks A Lot Thanks for showing me scoring out method. Good luck to you. rturus 01:54, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project
Hi. You've helped with the WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Blunsdon United
It's the sort of article that can help make wiki readable and truly rewarding. Wyss 21:09, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

oops....
Thanks for pointing out my leetle problem with dates on Votes for deletion/Sahafism. And, not to make my 'impersonal attack' personal, but just to clarify, I wasn't thinking of you, I was thinking of a certain trio of posters who ... tend to show up whenever a neologism that embodies a far-right point of view comes up for VfD and assure us that yes, yes, of course this insult that only applies to children of Communists who are drug abusers is a notable term.... -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:40, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. More elaborate thanks on my talk page. --MarkSweep 01:32, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Re: Assuming you are done, Mark? Sorry, I left on there for so long.  I was in fact basically done. --MarkSweep 06:44, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"allegedly"
Perhaps this is nit-picking, but just to clarify what I meant by adding "allegedly". Consider the following two statements:


 * (1) A claims B is responsible for the murder of C.


 * (2) A claims B is responsible for the alleged murder of C.

Suppose C was found dead, but the circumstances of C's death have not been established; it could have been murder, manslaughter, suicide, accident, etc. Now it could be that A actually said "B is responsible for the death of C". Reporting A's utterance using statement (1) is fair if whoever uses that statement somehow knows that C was murdered. On the other hand, if A actually said "B is responsible for the murder of C", it is A who claims that C was murdered, in which case (2) is a less ambiguous description. In other words, if I use (1), there is a potential for misunderstanding, since it's not fully clear where the claim that C was murdered came from. If in reality C was not murdered, then (1) could be considered POV by nit-pickers. --MarkSweep 01:36, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, I see what you mean. However, (2) looks strange because A is claiming B's responsibility for an alleged action&mdash;but alleged by whom? And if you think the final version is completely out of the woods: no, because the second "they" in "the As claim each of the Bs is responsible for what they consider a murder" is ambiguous: is it the As or te Bs doing the considering? However, this "ambiguity" is very easy to resolve, and does not involve NPOV issues. (Plus, I can't think of any way to improve it without completely rolling out the loquaciousness. :-) JRM 02:27, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is still the ambiguity of "they", but I couldn't think of a way to rephrase that sentence to avoid it. Oh well, it should be clear enough from context. Cheers, --MarkSweep 04:27, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

sockpuppets
Juste un mot pour dire qu'apres avoir vu votre addition au sujet des sockpuppets, je suis pour le plupart tres content avec l'article- bien fait! Wyss 02:46, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Only thing is... my German sucks (as my cousins are wont to remind)! English'll do. Wyss 05:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation
Looks like I've screwed the pooch... check Asdfa d. Anyhow... the actual page looks fine, but after surfing around, I wasn't able to figure out how to set up a new page from anything other than the search function. I typed in a dummy title because DR/dr/Dr already had a page thinking the actual page would take its title from text surrounded by ""x"". The page I made needs to be deleted or modified. Preference would be to modify the title. Nothing like demonstrating limited intelligence... Revmachine21 06:11, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks JRM... you have no idea how much time I wasted surfing around trying to figure out how to do this on my own. I would say the Doctor page is the dominate meaning of 'dr' regardless of dr's capitalization followed by disaster recovery.  If you are interested, please take a look at my current endeavor, Business continuity planning, I'm giving it a major redraft.Revmachine21 14:25, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Barnstars
is fine, it's |left| that doesn't work. It creates an unsightly white border around the images, in Monobook, anyway. Even check Template:In the news. They use the same system to avoid getting a white border on the front page, where the background is colored orange. - Vague | Rant 12:37, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * You know, I've always assumed someone has asked for it to be fixed, but I've never really checked. Perhaps it's on Bugzilla somewhere? - Vague | Rant 12:43, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * Out of interest, I went and found it: . - Vague | Rant 12:46, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

Dr Zoidberg dispute
Thanks for intervening in my dispute...but the "humour him" in your message on his talkpage, I have to say I find rather offensive. As far as I remember, I'm not a lunatic nor any kind of monomaniac.--[[User:Honeycake|Honeycake (please reply on my talkpage!!)]] 13:34, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * OK, you're forgiven!! :-) --[[User:Honeycake|Honeycake (please reply on my talkpage!!)]] 13:44, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't realize talkpage discussions worked back and forth like that. Thanks for the info. DrZoidberg 17:02, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Cool, exclamation marks make something more important? YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DrZoidberg 17:17, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

F.E.C.E.S.
Yes, I'm quite aware that the term is more than a little insulting, and there are people who don't appreciate this kind of humor. My basic belief is that if people don't have a sense of humor that's their problem. I sort of object to this notion that contributors, no matter how bad, should be encouraged to contribute more no matter what as long as they're not obvious vandals. I think people who pile fancruft into wikipedia need not be encourgaed to do so. I'm not saying they need to be actively discouraged from contributing, but it's no major loss if and when they stop. I think the term also serves as a warning to everyone (particularly those who openly say "I wish people would stop using the term 'fancruft'") to be careful what you wish for. Anyway, I imagine I won't use the term much or for long, just until I feel I've made my point. I'd also like to point out that I don't consider this term a personal attack, just an attack on content. Oh, and I liked the V.A.N.D.A.L. acronym, is that yours? -R. fiend 20:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I do know the term is insulting; I won't pretend I came up with the words and then suddenly thought "Gosh, looks what that spells." But I still maintain that you can insult someone's work without insulting that person. In fact, it happens all the time. A comment like "awful article. Delete" is just a nicer way of saying the same thing. Any criticism of any work is not tantamount to a personal attack. And as for it being a joke, well, most jokes are jokes on people; they have a subject of ridicule, as does this. Sure it's a little harsh, bit that's a matter of degree. (I don't know exactly what Jimbo would think; I was sort of hoping to meet him today, but couldn't really make it down to the city.) Anyway, as I said, I came up with the term to make a point, and I think the point is being made, though in all likelihood all I'll accomplish is to sabotage any hope I may have had of ever being made admin. Though that's hardly a bug deal; I wouldn't want to pander anyway. Well, off to sharpen my horns. Take care. -R. fiend 21:05, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Nice! I should have hired you to come up with my fecal acronym; I bet you would've found something a bit better. Anyway, you have my permission to use that as you like, without inflicting insult; hope it doesn't defeat the purpose (though I won't lose any sleep if it does). -R. fiend 23:19, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words
As you may have seen, it's gotten a lot worse today; now he has posted stolen photos of my little girl, insulting her. What kind of people would do such a thing? The thing about wikipedia -- giving away free knowledge, trying hard to get it right, trying hard to be neutral and fair -- is that you can't imagine how anyone sane could not love us, much less descend to this kind of level of personal attack.

It's so bizarre that it's a little bit frightening. Support from friendly people like you is something that I really appreciate. Jimbo Wales 04:37, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)