User talk:Mike Christie/Archive01

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On the SF side of Wikipedia, please feel free to stop by Portal:Speculative fiction/Article announcements and post the titles of any articles that you have created or significantly revised. We are also discussing various bibliography-related topics on Portal talk:Speculative fiction/Article announcements, which you are welcome to join if you are so inclined :) Ahasuerus 14:20, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Ahasuerus. I appreciate the welcome.  I'm going to try not to get too involved as I already have too many hobbies, but I'm an sf magazine and old book collector and can probably help in some bibliographic areas. Coldchrist 22:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * No hurry, WP, in some form or another, is not going anywhere :-) We do have articles on some Golden Age of Science Fiction magazines and editors (like Merwin and Campbell), but much remains to be done. FYI, there is a companion project, the ISFDB (www.isfdb.org), which has fairly decent coverage of the magazine field and will have public submissions enabled some time in the next couple of months. Happy editing! Ahasuerus 22:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm familiar with the isfdb; I use it a lot in one of my other lives, as part of the OED sf citation project -- are you familiar with that? It's at www.jessesword.com/sf. The isfdb is a great resource and one I'd also like to contribute to -- I have a lot of old magazines that I could provide contents info for.  Coldchrist 22:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I have seen some "OED SF citation project" pages while googling for things. Looks like an interesting undertaking, although a very time consuming one. As far as the ISFDB goes, the submission tools are almost ready according to Al von Ruff, who has done most of the actual work on the project over the last 10 years. But we all know how all-volunteer projects can be sidetracked by emergencies and other unforeseen events, so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed :) Ahasuerus 22:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

A. A. Wyn
Glad to be able to help in a small way! Ace Books looks pretty spiffy right now, but we can make it even better by turning red links into blue :) We should probably add something verifiable about his, er, peculiar views on paying authors as well. Ahasuerus 02:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Ace Books
Well, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28links%29 :


 * An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true: (...)


 * a link is repeated in the same article (although there may be case for duplicating an important link that is distant from the previous occurrence);

so I would say that the rule applies to all links. On the other hand, back when I was putting Leon Trotsky together, I was sorely tempted to double-link when the occurrences were many paragraphs apart. I guess it's an argument for keeping pages reasonably short :) Ahasuerus 03:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Beth Meacham
I think its worthy of a keep, may I assume you are going to expand the article a bit? -- Tawker 03:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, though not immediately as I'm working on Ace Books right now; just got some free refs on the article's talk page from another editor, so that'll help. Thanks.  Mike Christie 03:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

ISFDB
As an FYI, the ISFDB is getting closer to accepting user submissions of bibliographical data. We currently have 3 editors/moderators who are busy entering/cleaning up data and finding bugs in the software. You seem to be hard at work on Ace Books and related subjects at the moment, but if and when you find a little bit of free time, feel free to stop by Al von Ruff's User page either here or at the ISFDB and he will give you moderator privileges :) Ahasuerus 04:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Ace
You're very welcome. I was hoping no one would mind. Cheers, Her Pegship 15:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. Per your comment on the AfD for List of Ace Titles in A and N series, keep up the Ace lists. It's a labor of love, obviously - or extreme obsessive compulsiveness, with which I can identify.  &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 04:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The Lord of the Rings
First of all I would like to thank you for your kind words about my work on the article, I have done my best with it and hope to see it become featured. Secondly I would like to thank you for the ways you stated which I could use to imrpove the article. I believe that they have been generally fixed now. The size of the article is down to 43KB of prose, a large cut. If you believe more needs cutting please say so on the FAC page and I will attempt do so. The Back story problem has been fixed with a longer lead however this may now break WP:LEAD. For further information on this see the FAC page. And for the addition of references I am in the process of adding them throughtout the article and if possible I will address all of yours. At any rate please take the time to look at the article once more, comments on the situation with the lead, and even reconsider your oppose. Thanks again, Sorry Guy 02:19, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Wecome and point
Hi! I see you're relatively new here, and as a member of the WP:Wc, let me add in 'Welcome', hope you enjoy your stay! (Some of us stay too long, too late, too often, but that's another story! ). You might want to look for 'Welcome message' and 'TUP' links on my pages... let's say it's a challage! 

re: Fictional Universes: You said, ''However, I'd then suggest it be merged with the Fictional universes article. The category already exists, after all; either the list duplicates it or it supplies analysis, and I'm not sure why that analysis wouldn't belong in the Fictional universes article. Mike Christie 01:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)''

Generally, List of Articles are split out of textual articles when the list gets to be long and unwieldy. The two get tied together with templates like those in main. In this case, the list article uses the Main template, and the Main article uses the 'see also' template, or the like. You should also see List of Lists. This shows there's ample precedence for list of articles. You might find it illuminating to do a search either using the wiki search engine or Google 'on wikiP' for the words List of. So I fear Fearwig is something of a deletionist. ttfn // Fra nkB 07:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the welcome. I think I'll end up spending more time at the ISFDB Wiki, which is just getting started, but this is certainly an addictive place and I'm looking forward to being part of it.


 * First, I should say that since I'm new I was concerned that I did not have quite enough context and history to vote, so I posted a comment rather than a vote. I don't plan to change that to a vote (though I have voted elsewhere when I thought I had enough background to do so).


 * I understand about lists being split from the articles when they are unwieldy; I've been the author of a some fairly bulky lists too. I'd suggest merging if the list were to be trimmed to only a dozen or two highly notable ones.  I did see the discussion over changing the inclusion criteria to multi-series volumes.  Personally I don't feel that's restrictive enough, though I should post more detailed comments of that nature over on the article's talk page.  Briefly, I think any non-notable series included that way would have no utlitity, and the notable ones would get lost in the morass.  I'd rather see a more restrictive definition that requires the universe to have some evidence of a fan following, or to be important for critical or historical reasons, or something along those lines.  I'll post something to that effect on the talk page. Mike Christie 10:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I could go for THAT solution, I was repulsed by the article in truth&mdash;and started a process to do something about it! But the Solution's problem becomes one of every Tom, Dick and Harry with a favorite wanting to add some one that they think is particularly notable. Thus the problem is enforcement. No one controls things, save loving editors watching over an article set on a watch list. Then that can lead to edit wars. NOT a good idea.


 * Wikipedia's biggest weakness is it's biggest strength thus far -- anyone can edit, and are encouraged to do so. That's in fact, what Fearwig and Peter S mean when they talk about maintainence. Such long pieces can secret a lot of vandalism, which is the patroling admins principle focus.  Note this goes back to the Five Pillars of Wikipedia. I happen to believe that someday the foundation will figure a way to assert some editorial control and still allow semi-open editing, but don't hold your breath.


 * It may never happen if Jimbo Wales sticks with wasting hundreds of 'admins' volunteered time instead of some other workable solution. But that's all advanced wikipolitics, so enjoy your new experiences, and if you need a hand shout! Best wishes // Fra nkB  10:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Lord of the Rings FAC comments
Hi there. If you could add some citation tags to The Lord of the Rings, that would be great. I have most of the bibliographical and biographical books (and then some) at home, so would be able to provide most citations needed. Carcharoth 16:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Science fiction stuff
PS. I couldn't help notice the ISFDB comments on your user talk page. I recently came across some Arthur C. Clarke book articles that are in pretty poor shape. I was wondering if it was worth knocking them into shape given this ISFDB and other websites out there? I also found Article_assessment/Hugo_Award-winning_works in case you might be interested. Carcharoth 16:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Lord of the Rings Citing
Thank you for all of the suggestions for referring, I do believe they will improve the article. I have since, as you have seen, found numerous references. Several remain that I am unable to cite and as a result may need be removed. Hopefully some of Carcharoth's books will be able to knock them out but we shall see. If you have any time please try and look for them, if you could. Any help we can get would be great. As for your comments on my book citing I do not actually own the book just read it a few years ago. Hopefully Carcharoth owns it and will be able to cite the pages. At any rate I thank you once more for your suggestions and look forward to continueing working with you, Sorry Guy 06:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Since this message I have added ten or so more references including all of those which you left. If you could please re-evalute your oppose I would thank you. Sorry Guy 03:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Campbell sources
Yup, I just saw that you had made the changes. I've been trying to find some sources for the last couple of days but couldn't. I can't remember if I was the guy who put in the "pen in the hand of Campbell" or not. I definitely read that somewhere years ago. Then when I had lunch with Heinlein back in the early 80s I asked him about it and he was not happy with the concept, hehe. So, unfortunately, that falls under Original Research, I guess. I encountered a similar problem with other comments that I put into the Heinlein article.... Wish I could source this. Hayford Peirce 22:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Future History Scan
I will be the first to admit to a great deal of confusion on the whole copyright issue. I am not in the US and as such am not conversant with US copyright law. I know that in my country this image would be able to be used as fair use - as I believe wikipedia would constitute educational use and because it is a tiny part of the entire published work i.e. it is one page of a 256 page book, and also as public domain - as it is 80 years since it was published. I suggest you tag the image and get someone who knows a lot more about this than I do to settle this issue. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Morgan Leigh 04:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC) - cross posted to user talk:Morgan Leigh

Jordan (model)
Hey no problem. I like helping new users out. :) Actually, any user can leave warnings. In fact, we have a whole group of users called "RC patrol" who mostly do exactly that, i.e. revert and warn vandals. And most of them are not administrators. So we appreciate the help of everyone when it comes to warning. I would suggest reading this page. It has good information on how and when to warn users. For AIV, we generally ask that users be warned twice before they are posted on AIV. The first warning is usually what the vandalism page calls test and test2. They are friendly "hello" type messages that are just meant to tell people that we don't tolerate vandalism. If they continue, then they should be left a final warning, which is test4 or blatant vandalism. And THEN if they continue, post it to AIV.

As for semi-protection, the policy on that is here. I looked at the page you mentioned. There isn't enough vandalism there for semi protection. There is no hard and fast rule on semi protection, but generally, a page is semi protected if it gets by vandalism 4+ times a day. Otherwise, the thinking is that people can just revert vandals.

The main thing is to be bold. Vandalism is a major problem on Wikipedia...any help we get to stop it is appreciated whether you are an admin or not. One more page for ya. :) Here is a list of policies. It should help you get used to what our general policies are. I wish every user was given the list automatically when they start, but they aren't unfortunately. Happy reading! :) If you have any other questions, let me know. --Woohookitty(meow) 03:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to VandalProof!
Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, Mike Christie! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. &mdash;Xyra e l / 16:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC) 16:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Isaac Asimov
Mike, thanks for your note. I've responded on my talk page and will, in just a second, write a note on the Asimov talk page as well. Thanks again, Starwiz 19:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed text from John W. Campbell
The deleted article was Holiday Magazine and I thought at the time of the edit that the rest of the sentence would not have meant much without the link. I have thought about it again and reverted my removal of the whole sentence. Kimchi.sg 12:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Internet Revolution
Why did you revert the edit to the page?

I saw nothing wrong with my entry.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Master Sturm (talk • contribs) 20:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

dear mike
I edited the pacifism article, deleting that line because it made the assumption that solely because certain members of a pacifist christian denomination decided to fight in a war or aid the army medically, this made the entire denomination hypocritical. I am unaware of any pacifist churches which openly support the helping the army, however, I believe the churches should be held unaccountable for members that may have chosen to ignore their teachings. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.224.61.78 (talk • contribs)

Vance
Mike, your help is urgently needed at the Vance page.--PaulRhoads 18:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike, some non-wikipedea-editor, who calls himself 'Alvin Sloan', is interfering with my improvements of the descriptive article about Vance's work, as well as adding contentious allagetions about the VIE on the Vance Integral Edition section. I would much rather not, but I will engage in an 'edit war' with this person if necessary. I think the situation would be helped if the great mass of old discussion now be archived, so that, to the extent proper proceedures and evolutions are going to be hard to enforce in this new phase, there will be maneuvering room and we need not weed past great clumps of stale controversy.--PaulRhoads 17:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, thanks for taking a responsible attitude about this, but what is going on is absurd. The reason for my concern is that, thanks to troll-power, the years of effort of so many people may end up seriously compromized, which can only end up being harmful to Jack Vance. --PaulRhoads 15:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, thanks for your message. I'm not very clear on how wikipedia works, so I hope a reply here is appropriate. If not, instructions would be appreciated.


 * I'm not sure what you are proposing. Now that removal of the gaean reach and wannek links has been made to stick, I am seeking removal of the 'VIE, crucial for understanding Vance' section. If this can be resolved, I would then hope the bloated discussions leading up to the removal can also be removed.


 * Regarding the page itself, being, if I say so myself, the most prolific and informed writer on Vance, I can be of use for this page, which is currently made up mostly of amaturish and inaccurate, if harmless and symathetic, dilations. The whole thing needs to be seriously tightened up. Regarding all the 'Gaean Reach' speculations; a proper account of this could be made in a brief section, and all the many sections of speculative blather and questioning deleted. I just wrote an article for Extant on this subject (soon to be on-line), which could be restated briefly for this page.


 * However, such good things cannot occur until the primary work has been done. Please let me know how I can be most effective.--PaulRhoads 15:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, I can't figure out how to put a message on the talk page, and I'm not even sure where it is! Do we both have talk pages? Which one... erg....--PaulRhoads 15:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, I think, I hope, I am now in the right place!
 * First of all, I greatly appreciate your civilized attitude, and obvious dedication--a notable contrast to the others! Regarding the 'VIE crucial' section in the discussion area, I fear you do not realize what we are up-against. The people who do these things have been hard at it for many years now. They are fanatically dedicated to harming the VIE any way they can. It is a true case of socio-pathology, which has caused TREMENDOUS headache for the VIE, and in the Vance house-hold itself. The argument given in this section, which concludes that the VIE text of Maske:Thaery is inferior to 'the original' is, as I explain in a reply, and as I am sure you are capable of seeing without any help, not merely foolishness, but actual slander, which gratuitously calls into question the volunteer work of the dozens of people who worked on this text, plus all the supporting structure of the VIE, including our cooperation with the Vances. It is nice that my explanations can be there, but I have a problem when such a page is not regarded as the vandalism it is. If these people have found errors in VIE books, and want to talk about them, I see no problem with that. But;
 * WHY DO IT HERE?
 * And;
 * A SERIOUS PRESENTATION MUST BE GIVEN!
 * They should state what the error is, and argue the issue. But again, this has no place here! It is a sophistocated sort of trolling, and should not be given the time of day.
 * I will add that these issues have real-life consiquences, but wikipedia editors who say 'I don't give a damn about the VIE', who do not include yourself! show no appreciation of such things. If you want to know what some of them are, contact me by e-mai, but it seem to me this issue should be resolved on the face of it. Why tollerate such vandalism? I, who have been dealing with these people for years, know that the only method is firm defence. I led the VIE to the accomplishment of its mission despite thier constant harassment. They made the job much more difficult than it needed to be, and caused us almost a year of delay. It is sickening to see them at work on this page, and getting away with it to any degree. When I see people talking about a 'VIE controvesy' it makes me sick. The VIE had almost 600 subscribers, almost universally delirious with contentement (see thier letters in Cosmopolis) and 300 volunteers, who gave of themselves tremendiously for years. Is nothing sacred?--PaulRhoads 17:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike, thanks for your thoughtful remarks. I have not aswered because a storm in France put out my telephone until now. As I have said, Baphomet is one of the vandals. More later.--PaulRhoads 15:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Vance
Mike, your help is urgently needed at the Vance page.--PaulRhoads 18:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike, some non-wikipedea-editor, who calls himself 'Alvin Sloan', is interfering with my improvements of the descriptive article about Vance's work, as well as adding contentious allagetions about the VIE on the Vance Integral Edition section. I would much rather not, but I will engage in an 'edit war' with this person if necessary. I think the situation would be helped if the great mass of old discussion now be archived, so that, to the extent proper proceedures and evolutions are going to be hard to enforce in this new phase, there will be maneuvering room and we need not weed past great clumps of stale controversy.--PaulRhoads 17:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, thanks for taking a responsible attitude about this, but what is going on is absurd. The reason for my concern is that, thanks to troll-power, the years of effort of so many people may end up seriously compromized, which can only end up being harmful to Jack Vance. --PaulRhoads 15:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, thanks for your message. I'm not very clear on how wikipedia works, so I hope a reply here is appropriate. If not, instructions would be appreciated.


 * I'm not sure what you are proposing. Now that removal of the gaean reach and wannek links has been made to stick, I am seeking removal of the 'VIE, crucial for understanding Vance' section. If this can be resolved, I would then hope the bloated discussions leading up to the removal can also be removed.


 * Regarding the page itself, being, if I say so myself, the most prolific and informed writer on Vance, I can be of use for this page, which is currently made up mostly of amaturish and inaccurate, if harmless and symathetic, dilations. The whole thing needs to be seriously tightened up. Regarding all the 'Gaean Reach' speculations; a proper account of this could be made in a brief section, and all the many sections of speculative blather and questioning deleted. I just wrote an article for Extant on this subject (soon to be on-line), which could be restated briefly for this page.


 * However, such good things cannot occur until the primary work has been done. Please let me know how I can be most effective.--PaulRhoads 15:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, I can't figure out how to put a message on the talk page, and I'm not even sure where it is! Do we both have talk pages? Which one... erg....--PaulRhoads 15:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, I think, I hope, I am now in the right place!
 * First of all, I greatly appreciate your civilized attitude, and obvious dedication--a notable contrast to the others! Regarding the 'VIE crucial' section in the discussion area, I fear you do not realize what we are up-against. The people who do these things have been hard at it for many years now. They are fanatically dedicated to harming the VIE any way they can. It is a true case of socio-pathology, which has caused TREMENDOUS headache for the VIE, and in the Vance house-hold itself. The argument given in this section, which concludes that the VIE text of Maske:Thaery is inferior to 'the original' is, as I explain in a reply, and as I am sure you are capable of seeing without any help, not merely foolishness, but actual slander, which gratuitously calls into question the volunteer work of the dozens of people who worked on this text, plus all the supporting structure of the VIE, including our cooperation with the Vances. It is nice that my explanations can be there, but I have a problem when such a page is not regarded as the vandalism it is. If these people have found errors in VIE books, and want to talk about them, I see no problem with that. But;
 * WHY DO IT HERE?
 * And;
 * A SERIOUS PRESENTATION MUST BE GIVEN!
 * They should state what the error is, and argue the issue. But again, this has no place here! It is a sophistocated sort of trolling, and should not be given the time of day.
 * I will add that these issues have real-life consiquences, but wikipedia editors who say 'I don't give a damn about the VIE', who do not include yourself! show no appreciation of such things. If you want to know what some of them are, contact me by e-mai, but it seem to me this issue should be resolved on the face of it. Why tollerate such vandalism? I, who have been dealing with these people for years, know that the only method is firm defence. I led the VIE to the accomplishment of its mission despite thier constant harassment. They made the job much more difficult than it needed to be, and caused us almost a year of delay. It is sickening to see them at work on this page, and getting away with it to any degree. When I see people talking about a 'VIE controvesy' it makes me sick. The VIE had almost 600 subscribers, almost universally delirious with contentement (see thier letters in Cosmopolis) and 300 volunteers, who gave of themselves tremendiously for years. Is nothing sacred?--PaulRhoads 17:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike, thanks for your thoughtful remarks. I have not aswered because a storm in France put out my telephone until now. As I have said, Baphomet is one of the vandals. More later.--PaulRhoads 15:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Vance
Mike, your help is urgently needed at the Vance page.--PaulRhoads 18:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike, some non-wikipedea-editor, who calls himself 'Alvin Sloan', is interfering with my improvements of the descriptive article about Vance's work, as well as adding contentious allagetions about the VIE on the Vance Integral Edition section. I would much rather not, but I will engage in an 'edit war' with this person if necessary. I think the situation would be helped if the great mass of old discussion now be archived, so that, to the extent proper proceedures and evolutions are going to be hard to enforce in this new phase, there will be maneuvering room and we need not weed past great clumps of stale controversy.--PaulRhoads 17:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, thanks for taking a responsible attitude about this, but what is going on is absurd. The reason for my concern is that, thanks to troll-power, the years of effort of so many people may end up seriously compromized, which can only end up being harmful to Jack Vance. --PaulRhoads 15:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, thanks for your message. I'm not very clear on how wikipedia works, so I hope a reply here is appropriate. If not, instructions would be appreciated.


 * I'm not sure what you are proposing. Now that removal of the gaean reach and wannek links has been made to stick, I am seeking removal of the 'VIE, crucial for understanding Vance' section. If this can be resolved, I would then hope the bloated discussions leading up to the removal can also be removed.


 * Regarding the page itself, being, if I say so myself, the most prolific and informed writer on Vance, I can be of use for this page, which is currently made up mostly of amaturish and inaccurate, if harmless and symathetic, dilations. The whole thing needs to be seriously tightened up. Regarding all the 'Gaean Reach' speculations; a proper account of this could be made in a brief section, and all the many sections of speculative blather and questioning deleted. I just wrote an article for Extant on this subject (soon to be on-line), which could be restated briefly for this page.


 * However, such good things cannot occur until the primary work has been done. Please let me know how I can be most effective.--PaulRhoads 15:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, I can't figure out how to put a message on the talk page, and I'm not even sure where it is! Do we both have talk pages? Which one... erg....--PaulRhoads 15:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, I think, I hope, I am now in the right place!
 * First of all, I greatly appreciate your civilized attitude, and obvious dedication--a notable contrast to the others! Regarding the 'VIE crucial' section in the discussion area, I fear you do not realize what we are up-against. The people who do these things have been hard at it for many years now. They are fanatically dedicated to harming the VIE any way they can. It is a true case of socio-pathology, which has caused TREMENDOUS headache for the VIE, and in the Vance house-hold itself. The argument given in this section, which concludes that the VIE text of Maske:Thaery is inferior to 'the original' is, as I explain in a reply, and as I am sure you are capable of seeing without any help, not merely foolishness, but actual slander, which gratuitously calls into question the volunteer work of the dozens of people who worked on this text, plus all the supporting structure of the VIE, including our cooperation with the Vances. It is nice that my explanations can be there, but I have a problem when such a page is not regarded as the vandalism it is. If these people have found errors in VIE books, and want to talk about them, I see no problem with that. But;
 * WHY DO IT HERE?
 * And;
 * A SERIOUS PRESENTATION MUST BE GIVEN!
 * They should state what the error is, and argue the issue. But again, this has no place here! It is a sophistocated sort of trolling, and should not be given the time of day.
 * I will add that these issues have real-life consiquences, but wikipedia editors who say 'I don't give a damn about the VIE', who do not include yourself! show no appreciation of such things. If you want to know what some of them are, contact me by e-mai, but it seem to me this issue should be resolved on the face of it. Why tollerate such vandalism? I, who have been dealing with these people for years, know that the only method is firm defence. I led the VIE to the accomplishment of its mission despite thier constant harassment. They made the job much more difficult than it needed to be, and caused us almost a year of delay. It is sickening to see them at work on this page, and getting away with it to any degree. When I see people talking about a 'VIE controvesy' it makes me sick. The VIE had almost 600 subscribers, almost universally delirious with contentement (see thier letters in Cosmopolis) and 300 volunteers, who gave of themselves tremendiously for years. Is nothing sacred?--PaulRhoads 17:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mike, thanks for your thoughtful remarks. I have not aswered because a storm in France put out my telephone until now. As I have said, Baphomet is one of the vandals. More later.--PaulRhoads 15:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Claire Sweeney
Why have you removed my link about Claire Sweeney it is just an info page. Why does my link get rmoved it contians info that wikipedia does not have. (Previous unsigned comment by 62.69.37.224)


 * I have replied on your talk page. Mike Christie 12:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Hello, you reverted my previous edit. Why? All I was doing cleaning up the presentation of the page. The pictures were not deleted, but moved to lower in the page to improve presentation.(Previous unsigned comment by 206.197.92.115)


 * I have replied on your talk page. Mike Christie 20:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Will you be fixing this page, or sould I?

A question...
Hi! Thanks for moving the link to a reference on the [Mario_Conti article: was just working out how to do it when you beat me to it! :-)

A question - looking through her contribs, the user Ros Power seems to be a very disruptive editor. All she seems interested in is getting other editors on sexuality related articles to repeatedly undo her work. Is there no way to stop this sort of annoyance? Lost Garden 12:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for your advice, Mike.

Twelve Oaks
I am under the understanding that the plantation home used in the filming of Gone with the Wind...Twelve Oaks has been under the ownership of the same family for at least three generations. It belonged to a doctor and his wife who had three children who are all currently doctors in Atlanta. The original columns were removed from the porch, but the rest is the same. It has a rose garden that up until two or three years ago was on the tour of gardens in the Atlanta society. If I could possibly confirm this much, then I could fill in some history about this actual home that was used in the filming. Thanks, M. Jennings--M. Jennings 04:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)n

'bot restubbings
Hrm, they do look less than intuitive, I'll give you that. It's using existing permanent categorisations, i.e. the hierarchy. It's not wrong as such (those really are in that category), but it's probably too broad to make much actual sense, either. A or  category would be more obvious, but I'm not sure there's the requisite number of stubs to create that at present. If you're familiar with the magazine stubs area you might want to make a suggestion at WP:WSS/P (or at WP:SFD if you want rid of the recently-created stub types entirely). In the short term, I'll probably just change the text on the stub type to make clear how broad it is (literary and visual arts, basically): that seem fair enough? Alai 19:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, done. Hopefully the new wording is vague enough to cover...  well, quite a lot, really!  Alai 19:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Weird VP2 Issue
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. As you could probably guess, I've been beta testing VP2. I suspect the issue is coming from me browsing or something during the process of warning. Incidentally, the reverted edit is indeed vandalism...It's just that I warned the completely wrong user. I'm going to bring it up with AmiDaniel when I speak with him tonight. Thanks Again (and it is your business, by the way....I really appreciate people calling me out on things like that). Regards, alpha Chimp  laudare 20:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Update:I just reported it to AmiDaniel. It's not the only manifestation of the issue, and we're working on it. alpha Chimp  laudare 20:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Jaws
Thanks for the copyedit. I'm encouraged that I've done a thorough enough job on the article to not need too much correcting. I was rereading it though, after I got an automated peer review, and was wondering if it has too much passive voice. The occasional passive is not frowned upon, but still, it's standing out now more than ever. I was wondering if you agree with me, and perhaps if you would help me fix it. Thanks. -Dark Kubrick 03:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

FAR
The objective of Feature article reviews is to maintain and uphold the quality of featured articles. If you wish for a review or assessment of an article which is not yet featured I suggest Peer Review or Requesto for feedback. Joelito (talk) 04:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

AfD for Santorum
Hi - thanks for the message.

Man, is this a mess!

There are two pages here - Santorum and Santorum (disambiguation), which I'll call SantoA and SantoD respectively. The talk page for both is the same, and I'll get to that in a minute.

Here's what I think has happened so far in this saga:


 * The sex page was created two times previously, and both times it didn't survive AfD votes (on 2003-10-23 and 2003-11-28). The archives for those two debates are linked to at the top of the talk page. They're closed, done, finis. The links are just there for the record.


 * Then, one of the AfD votes was appealed to Deletion review, which is fine. AfD always wants to err on the side of caution, and anyone who disagrees with a 'delete' decision can appeal. Somewhere in the ensuing months a disambig page was created (Santorum), which hummed along more or less for a long time. Most of the talk page is given to discussing that review, but it's non-binding.


 * Life hums along for many, many months.


 * Next, an edit war started between two people, one of which was Santorummm. I think he wanted to put his neologism on the Santorum page. It got ugly so a third opinion was requested, and sometime this week Santorummm moved Santorum to SantoD, then created another Santorum (SantoA) page after that move, (because Santorum was then vacant). He did not move the talk page when he made the move, which left the talk page right where it was, linked to both SantoA and SantoD. (I hope that's clear - if you've ever moved a page, you'll follow along. Maybe. :-/)

The discussion on the talk page isn't part of the AfD process. Santorum (SantoA) was nominated today for deletion officially. The link to the discussion is at the top of the Santorum page - not the talk page, the page page, where it says "this article's entry". That's where you need to go to voice your opinion and discuss the deletion.

A good way to understand AfD is to just prowl through the AfD submissions and debates for any given date. It's not a binding vote. Consensus drives it, just like consensus drives WP:RFA. As I said, they err on the 'keep' side. Let me know if you have more questions or need help. This really is a quagmire, and it's hard to follow all the players. I guess we'll let the AfD process play itself out. Don't let Santorummm get away with removing the AfD tag - that's not allowed. He could get blocked if he keeps removing it, or they could protect the page until AfD is over. Happy editing! - Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  04:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You did the nom procedure perfectly - all's well! BTW, I took another look at the way he did this page move, and I think I'm wrong about the way he moved it - but now I can't figure out what in the world he did do. *sigh* Hopefully the AfD will close like you want and it will all be a memory in a week or so. See ya - Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  04:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yo.
Come get me next time we're talking about an Englishman's penis!

Comments to your concerns at the MedCab page. Thanks for chipping in with your opinion.

CQJ 15:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That's the fun thing about MedCab. There are no set ways to attack an issue, as long as you're within the trifecta. Kind of like WP:IAR on a different level, you know. CQJ 16:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm Not Sure What to Title This
First off, thanks for the RfA congrats. I really hope it keeps going well, and I appreciate your support.

I applied both of those templates using Vandalproof. The first is the venerable template. The second is the less heard of Template:Nn-warn. Hope that helps! alpha Chimp laudare 23:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

My RfA
Hey Mike, just a quick note to let you know I withdrew my RfA at 13/11/10. I really appreciate your nice comments, thanks for the support :) --jam  es (talk) 11:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You're welcome; I think you'll be a successful candidate in future. Please feel free to notify me of your candidacy if you decide to run again in the future.  Mike Christie 11:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

What's your present position on whether or not there should be an article with the title Santorum?
I ask this because properly speaking that's what an AfD should be discussing.

Do you currently feel that there should be no entry at all for the topic Santorum, not even a redirect or the disambiguation page (which was presently there and is now at Santorum (disambiguation)?

Or is your objection, not to the existence of an article entitled Santorum, but to User:Santorummm's transformation of it from a dab page to an article about Savage's would-be neologism?

You should probably comment at Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Santorum because I think the discussion has morphed from an AfD discussion into a discussion how the material in several articles should best be organized for balance, perspective, and neutrality. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Rotten.com
Hi, Mike -

I'll keep working on the front end - it's up to 292 links as of 1445 CDT (1945 UCT) today, so someone has been busy. (Special:Linksearch is a wonderful thing, isn't it?) I check most of the IP edits when I'm on IRC - hopefully the guy will show up while I'm there, but I won't be on until later this evening. If you figure out who it is, let me know so I can have him blacklisted on #vandalism-en-wp. (Are you on that channel? It's amazing - when I make an edit to a page that's watched on IRC, I'll see it in IRC before the browser finishes refreshing the page. It's very weird, but very cool. :-D)

I don't want to mess with talk pages, archives, or image sources, so I'm leaving those alone. The rest (with the exception of Rotten.com) are fair game. Link spammers should have to spend the rest of their online lives on slow dialup connections. ;-) Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  19:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, here's what he said (be sure to look at the edit summaries - they're relevant here), then he said this, then he blanked it to remove your question and left a personal attack in its place, which Gadflum spotted. Gadflum gave him an NPA warning.
 * Listen, I don't intimidate easily, but the guy bothers me because of some of the edit summaries he's left in the past. I suppose he wants to frighten and intimidate women (I don't know if that's his purpose – that's just my instinct as a woman), so I"m definitely interested in his response to you. He probably shouldn't have been allowed to act in this manner for so long, but that's just one semi-newbie's opinion. Regardless of him or what he says, any EL that has 40 more links Monday than it had Sunday should be carefully scrutinized, and there are definitely some articles that benefit from an EL to Rotten.com, and while I was going through yesterday I left about a dozen mainspace links alone because of that. The links on talk pages should definitely stay, too. There are others, though, that link to the site seemingly for no particular reason - why does Mister Rogers' Neighborhood link to rotten.com? (I'm not sure I want the answer to that question.;-) Other Rotten.com links contradict the article and other published sources as well. Each EL should be evaluated and removed if it's inaccurate or not necessary, and no one should be allowed to drive other editors away from any WP project or work by sheer intimidation.
 * Listen, I don't intimidate easily, but the guy bothers me because of some of the edit summaries he's left in the past. I suppose he wants to frighten and intimidate women (I don't know if that's his purpose – that's just my instinct as a woman), so I"m definitely interested in his response to you. He probably shouldn't have been allowed to act in this manner for so long, but that's just one semi-newbie's opinion. Regardless of him or what he says, any EL that has 40 more links Monday than it had Sunday should be carefully scrutinized, and there are definitely some articles that benefit from an EL to Rotten.com, and while I was going through yesterday I left about a dozen mainspace links alone because of that. The links on talk pages should definitely stay, too. There are others, though, that link to the site seemingly for no particular reason - why does Mister Rogers' Neighborhood link to rotten.com? (I'm not sure I want the answer to that question.;-) Other Rotten.com links contradict the article and other published sources as well. Each EL should be evaluated and removed if it's inaccurate or not necessary, and no one should be allowed to drive other editors away from any WP project or work by sheer intimidation.


 * IRC clients: I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm trying. :-) I use a Mac so I use Conversation. I've heard it's the best Mac IRC app and it works fine for me - if you're a Mac user, it looks and acts like iChat. I don't know much about Windows clients, but some of the people on #vandalism-en use Chatzilla, which is a Firefox extension, and are happy with it. Chatzilla works with all versions of Firefox but I haven't tried it. I might give it a whirl if Conversation starts giving me trouble or something, but so far I'm pretty pleased with what I've got.


 * Keep me posted on the rotten thing. :-) Thanks - Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  17:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I checked again about an hour ago because the subject crossed my mind for some reason, and it's back up to 295 from 260-something this morning. I don't mind having my page vandalized either (I'm up to 28 times now, I think :-D), so I'll jump in after you tomorrow. I've been kicked and hit and vomited on and all kinds of stuff during my career and I'm still here, so I just have to step back and remember that he's not next door with a sledge hammer waiting to pounce on me. The guy removed the warning and left something he thinks is obnoxious in its place, but you should let that go. When it's about bad behavior, he's going to do all the heavy lifting himself, and you won't have to do anything but sit back and watch the implosion. Too bad, really, but one of the first things you realize in nursing school is that you can't save the world. (Sigh.)
 * If I'm on IRC tomorrow when you start, let me know - otherwise I'll just keep an eye out. Now I'm going to go look at your FCA. :-) 'Night - Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  03:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm on IRC right now, as it turns out... come on in. It's not too busy right now, either. Basically you're seeing one or more of the bots showing the changes it's programmed to show. You'll figure it out just by watching the window for a while - that's how I learned. If you can read the 'Recent Changes' page, you can read the bot traffic. The URLs are the 'diff' pages in the history, and you click on the one you want to see. The channel is private so channel members can talk to each other and everyone else. Right now Pschemp, Cyde, Chris (Crazycomputers), TAwker, and some others are in the channel, so come on in! Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  01:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Wangi/RFA
Thanks for your support on my RfA. Give me shout if I can be of help. Thanks/wangi 00:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

nasty edit summaries
I thought about reporting him somewhere, somehow, and the only thing that stopped me was that those were a couple of months ago, not recent behavior. If nobody says anything, however, he's going to continue behaving in that manner.

Maybe the best way to start would be to ping an admin on IRC, like you suggested, and hear what he/she has to say about the proper course of action. I don't know if they can do anything now since so much time has gone by. OTOH, he tried to mess with your head just a few days ago, so maybe they can act based on his behavior toward you, which prompted you (and me) to investigate further. He's still got one of his wisecracks up on his talk page. His user name certainly does seem appropriate, but it doesn't give him carte blanche to act like a jerk.

As much as I dislike thinking about the guy, I think this is a "for the greater good" kind of thing. There's no telling how many newbies (or even established editors) he's intimidated. With Wikipedia's luck and reputation in mainstream media, the next person he tries to scare may be a reporter for The New York Times, and that would be Very Bad. Let me know what happens and if you need help. *ducks behind Mike where it's safe * :-D Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  02:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Santorum
Hi,

If the user in question had reverted only to the sexual slang term, I would have come very close to considering his action disruptive; however, I suppose there is a legitimate discussion to be had about whether the disamb. or the Senator is appropriate. Talk page consensus for these matters trumps a determination at AfD, but it is usually considered polite to leave an AfD consensus on an editorial question in place while discussion at the talk page occurs. In sum, I'll revert the switch myself, and you should raise the question on the talk page. Don't edit-war over the question, but if this fellow editor of yours refuses to discuss things, let me know. Incidentally, thanks for the friendly note the other day; as an idiot, I don't deserve such nice compliments. :) Best wishes, Xoloz 05:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Santorum (New issue)
Why don't you want credit? You have put substantial effort into maintaining the relationship between Santorum the politician and santorum the substance in proper order.. If you find it distasteful, why get involved at all? Please do explain Santorummm 05:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ballantine LOTR
Hi. I don't have any of the Ballantine LOTR editions myself, but I only recently saw a set of the "authorized by Tolkien" editions at a used book store (both American AND Canadian editions as it turned out). Since they are primary sources themselves, I'm not sure what citations you could use for this. If you checked Bookfinder.com or Abebooks.com or even Ebay, or a LOTR fan site you can probably find publishing info on the books (as in dates of release, etc). If basically you're trying to find a source that someone who doubts the truth of the matter can check easily, the only one I can suggest is the documentary "Ringers: Lord of the Fans" which was released to DVD last year; it devotes a few minutes to the whole Ace vs. Ballantine controversy. I'm willing to bet any of the biographies on Tolkien that have surfaced in recent years probably touch on it as well. 23skidoo 04:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

SCG International Risk
Mr. Christie - thanks for doing a great job editing. But since you've looked at the contribution I've continued to add to it and feel that it actually does comply with WP:CORP which states that:

The criteria for companies and corporations requires that the company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations.

As you can see there are considerably more than just the third party article you. I just hadn't the time to finish adding everything - the contribution is only a few hours old. Please review these lists - they are comparable to article and pubs used to justify the inclusion of several other companies. Here's a list:

Jamie@scgonline.net 13:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Licensed to Kill, Hired Guns in the War on Terror by Robert Young Pelton (Crown, September 2006)
 * National Public Radio broadcast of Marketplace. Subject: Recruiting soldiers for private security work worldwide describing SCG's recruiting and hiring practices in Iraq and Afghanistan by Steve Henn (April 13, 2004)
 * Good Housekeeping "Rescuing Lilly" article about SCG's role in assisting with recovery of kidnapped children. Author Amy Engeler (Date: May 1, 2004)
 * The Virginia-Pilot Newspaper. Beach man wounded in mideast. A Virginia Beach security contractor was shot and wounded near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border this week. Jamie Smith, the owner of SCG International Risk, was hit in the arm Monday night...(April 10, 2004 in FRONT section, page A13 by Joanne Kimberlin)
 * CNN Reporter Kevin Sites interview SCG CEO Jamie Smith. (Subject: Kidnapping of Robert Pelton, Meg Smaker and Mark Wedeven) (Date: 28Jan03)
 * Chicago Tribune article Published April 2, 2004 describing the company's role in the Iraq War and in providing contractors in support
 * The Left Coaster article entitled The New And Improved Hessian published April 2, 2005 describing the company's role in the Iraq War
 * National Public Radio interview with company CEO regarding company's training of Air Marshals in wake of Miami shooting. Aired December 5, 2005
 * Article describing the company's role in the Iraq and Afghanistan war
 * Robert Young Pelton's World: Traveling Right about SCG's training courses for those traveling to war zones
 * ABC News, Air Marshal Followed Training, Spokesman Says, SCG International Risk's CEO discussing training and actions of Air Marshals
 * SWAT Magazine article October 2003 edition. (Subject: SCG High Threat Vehicle Dismount training).
 * People Magazine article on SCG International Risk CEO Jamie Smith and private security firms in Afghanistan and Iraq. Date: April 2004
 * Nuts Magazine (UK) SWAT training discussed in interview with SCG Training Division Instructor Todd Smith. (Date: March Issue 2004)
 * FHM Magazine (UK) article on SCG training SWAT teams. Author goes through SWAT training in USA w/SCG Training Division Instructors Todd Smith and Randy Lewis. (Date: March Issue 2004)
 * Company press release describing deployment to US Gulf Coast to provide support in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
 * SCG International Risk website70.160.189.59 15:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Lord of the Rings edits
YO MIKE, LOOK DOWN HERE. i have no clue how to use this. But dude, it's August 28th. Someone just sent me this message saying i wrote "F*** GAY PEOPLE" in the "Lord of the Rings" page. I haev no clue what is going on. I swear on my honor as a man that i didnt change that lord of the rings page. Why would i even do that. I'll admit that i dont like gay people, but i'm no homophobe. I have no clue how you thought it was me, but youve got to believe me, i didnt do it. I'm actually kind of pissed off at whoever did do it and now i'm getting blamed for it. If there's any way you can find out who really did it let me know please. Sorry i'm editing another person's thing, i dont know how to use this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.72.227.3 (talk • contribs)


 * I just saw your note; I'll leave a reply on your talk page too, in case you check there. You are editing anonymously, which means that there is no way for other editors to distinguish between you and any other user from this same IP.  Someone using this IP address vandalized the Lord of the Rings article; you are now using that IP, so you're seeing the warnings.  I've added a welcome template at the top of your talk page, which includes some useful advice; the most useful thing you could do would be to create an account, which only takes a second and requires no personal information.  If you do that, there'll be no risk of you being mistaken for another editor.  Please leave a message at my talk page if you have any other questions.  Mike Christie (talk) 02:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Your work and patience much appreciated
The thought just occurred to me that I should also express my appreciation for the excellent job you've been doing trying to mediate the CSICOP article - a job that to most sane people would seem like herding rattle snakes. I'm still not optimistic much good will come from this effort (in my short experience here, I've learned to expect not much). But as cynical as I may be, as long as I've any matches left, I'll try to light the candle while cursing the darkness. Askolnick 04:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

No thanks necessary 'cause I calls 'em like I sees 'em. (However, it's still nice to hear because more than a few do not appreciate the calls I make :-) Askolnick 12:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Mike, thank you again for the superbly throrough and thoughful job you are doing. Nice catch on the possibility of his using a sockpuppet. The possibility didn't cross my mind at first. Your statement on Davkal's page was extremely fair and appropriate and, just as important, inducive for civil discussion leading toward a consensus. I don't have a clue how to do a user check. Help? Or have you asked for one? Askolnick 17:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

A RfA thank you from en:User:Xyrael
I'd like to thank you  Mike Christie  for either supporting, opposing, commenting, nominating, reading, editing, promoting and/or anything else that you may have done for my successful request for adminship (I've broken the one thousand sysop barrier!); I'm thanking you for getting involved, and for this I am very grateful. I hope to be able to serve Wikipedia more effectively with my new tools and that we can continue to build our free encyclopedia, for knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty. Please do feel free to get in touch if you feel you can improve me in any way; I will be glad to listen to all comments. Again, thanks 8)            &mdash;Xyra e l / 11:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I didnt get what you mean by your message
I got your message but I am not quiet sure what you mean you were mistaken it seems like my article is still on deletion is there anything wrong I have listed can I place a URL to my Article please kindly let me know as I didnt see any Spam issues. Please guide if you were mistaken than why again it showing me that my article will be deleted.

User:Leonovski blocked
Hi, Mike. I noticed your conversation with Davkal on his talkpage, and blocked User:Leonovski indefinitely as a sock- or meatpuppet confessedly used by Davkal to evade his 3RR block. Obviously there's also very good reason to extend Davkal's block. But if you'd rather I didn't, I won't, out of respect for your efforts on behalf of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal page; I don't want to throw a spanner in the works. Please reply here and let me know what you think. Best wishes, Bishonen | talk 23:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC).
 * I really appreciate you asking my opinion; thanks. I think, on the whole, that we should give Davkal the benefit of the doubt here -- after all he acknowledged what was going on immediately he was asked.  I leave it up to you as to whether to post an admonition on Davkal's page.  I don't think he'll do it again, now he understands policy -- my impression is that he is not an expert user, but rather a user focused on one issue without a lot of interest in Wikipedia policy.  And the situation on that page is rather fraught; I won't bore you with details but it is rather a difficult situation for him right now.  Thanks again.  Mike Christie (talk) 23:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Bishonen, Davkal has pointed out this and this request from KarlBunker for more editors at a couple of articles, including CSICOP. This seems to me to be a violation of this piece of the sockpuppet policy.  I understand that WikiProjects are formed in order to bring likeminded editors together to cooperate on articles, but I don't like this.  My experience in this policy is quite limited, though, so I'd appreciate your opinion. Mike Christie (talk) 00:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Mike - Bishonen, busy, asked if I would try to say something here. Asking people to come to this or that article to defend a POV is wrong. However, asking them to come to an article to defend it against violations of WP:V, as Askolnick did with Natasha Demkina, is, I believe, generally OK -- but there's a caveat about where one asks. Asking them to come to an article to defend WP:NPOV, like KarlBunker and CSICOP... again, mostly OK but even more crucially than with the often-more-clear-cut WP:V issues, the question must be asked in a neutral area. So there's the problem: WikiProject Rational Skepticism isn't a neutral area for those questions. In fact, I was thinking about this a little bit and in my opinion it is (or should be) a policy violation that we have both WikiProject Paranormal and WikiProject Rational Skepticism: what we have here are two wikiprojects interested in the same set articles with differing POVs: badness. Not that I'm going to tackle it, or that I'm asking anybody to, but I think the two need to be merged. If they were, their talk page would provide a neutral place to go to ask for this kind of assistance. Maybe a point of agreement in your mediation could be that such messages should for now be posted at both projects, or not at all. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 02:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Bunch, I think that's an excellent suggestion to fix the problem. Although, I'm not sure that it will be that easy to agree on a joint purpose. The purpose of Wikiproject Paranormal (as stated in its template) is to expand paranormal articles. It's difficult to expand many if not most paranormal articles with information from reputable sources because there's often little or none (the edit war going on for more than half a year in Natasha Demkina is a example of that problem - a member of Wikiproject Paranormal is insisting on using disreputable sources to expand the article with information favorable to Demkina.) Editors on the side of science and skepticism would probably not agree to the purpose of expanding paranormal articles. In most cases, the only way to do that would be to add information from disreputable sources, such as sleazy news tabloids and self-published personal web sites, to the great detriment of Wikipedia's credibility and reputation. Still, if a skilled and interested mediator could work out a joining of the two Wikiprojects, it might work. For one thing, it might move some of the fights there and away from the articles themselves. Askolnick 14:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Re:Adminship
Thanks for the message and the kind offer! You aren't the first one to ask, but right now I have to tell you what I've told the others: I'm still learning, and I'm not ready yet. Honestly, I think that in about another month or so I'll be prepared, but right now I'm still puzzled when I come across some terms and procedures, and I have to go look them up. At least now I know where to look for the info, so that's a plus. :-D

I've been on a little Wikibreak for the last week, but I'm starting to write more and get back into the swing of things. If you still think I'm admin material in another few weeks, let me know and I'll probably say okay. Not yet, though - I have more crawling through Wikiminutia to do. ;-) You're very kind to offer, and it's much appreciated. See ya - Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  22:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for the congratulations. I just want to let you know that your suggestions and comments were essential in getting the article to GA and now FA, so thank you very much for those.--Dark Kubrick 19:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

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