User talk:Mike Halterman/archive1

This archive is for notes addressed to me, written from June 5 to June 21, 2004.

Substub Problem?
Hi.

Are you the guy who was creating the substubs about actors, e.g. on Natasha Henstridge, Karen Malina White? You can reply by clicking on the smily face --> Cheers, Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:21, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please, we want you to help Wikipedia, but we want to help you. We can only do that if you talk to us. It may also be considered bad Witiquette to ignore messages. Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:26, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Okay. so you're talking :)

We've had a little problem with a user creating "substubs" i.e. very short articles that we won't delete, but require lots of cleanup. See the listing on Vandalism_in_progress. What I would suggest is that you go through the welcome, newcomers and the manual of style. If you are the same guy, thank whatsit we've caught you :) Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:30, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

PS You can sign your name with four tildes like ~.


 * Alright mate. The other guy wasn't talking back when I was talking to him.  I dont mean to bite you (don't bite the newcomers) - I apologise and will annotate the Vandalims page to include your denial.  When it's like this, we just have to look at people's behaviour to guess who they are. welcome to Wikipedia, and happy editing.  :) Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:35, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You're a newbie. Don't worry about making mistakes, the advantage of a Wiki is that people will come along and correct them. What we tend to prefer though is that one good article is better than five really short ones. You can create a stub by putting in a notice and usually a few sentences, then someone else will come and help finish it off. The only real no-no is one sentence entries. Even those can be tidied up, the problem came in this case where a user was producing lots and lots of extremely short entries, which creates too much to cleanup. Hope that makes sense. I mean no offence, we were all newbies once. Fruitful editing. :) Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:48, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

One thing that might help most is the IMDb which is the Internet Movie Database has entries on most actors. It is usually Wikipedia policy to link to those entries on their offsite website at http://www.imdb.com/ - they usually have biographies which can be rewritten for here. Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:54, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Nobody thinks you're a troll. We're all in this together, and we have little disagreements here and there, but at the end of the day we're just working towards a common goal, and in doing so we try to help each other out.  There appear to be little problems with your entries really, some could do with a stub tag if you think they could be expanded, but that's alright with the way that the 'pedia works. Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 22:59, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Another World
Looks great. Looks like you've covered the beginning and end of production well, along with a thorough plot synopsis. The only other thing I can see adding is more about the back-end stuff; production (for example, did any 'later to become famous' directors, etc. get their start there, like the actors someone added); and if there is anything you can find about the more business end, like ratings (not detailed, probably, but trend over the years, or something like that), etc. Oh, maybe more details on the awards. I guess what I'm getting at is that you've covered the fiction presented by the show quite well, but I think there could be more reality info about the show's impact on, and interaction with, society. (Actually, I'm not trying to say you should feel obligated to--if that's not your thing, it's fine to let some else do it who is more into that end of the show.) To be honest, I don't think I've ever watched it--there was one contributor before me, and what s/he left wasn't up to the minimum Wikipedia standard, so I mostly was trying to polish it into something that wouldn't reflect badly on us. (It was just "The emmy-winning NBC soap Another World air from 1964 to 1999 for 35 years.") I have moved things around at the top a bit; it is standard practice to start with a summary intro before any section heading. Also, the pictures/images at the top go on the righthand side. I wasn't too concerned with the size, but I added the "thumb" mostly because it was the fastest way to make your caption show up (the alternative is to make an HTML table like I did for the Shaw Island map and topo map link). Finally, I inserted the "spoiler" notice to try and let the readers know that that was where the article starts talking mostly about plot. I looked at a few of your other edits. Nice addition to Anne Heche, and thank you for removing the POV rant from O.J. Simpson. As for the actor's articles you started, you made a fine start with the main body (nice formatting, linking, wording, etc.), but the intros are a bit rough. If you look at what I did with Paul Michael Valley, you will see that his name (IE the subject of the article) is stated, in bold, right up front (I don't believe it always has to be the very first words, but certainly early in the first sentence). I added some context by early on making it clear he's an actor. Finally, I changed the presentation of his birthplace from a label: data structure to a flowing sentence. Think of it as trying to write kinda like a newspaper article: in concise sentences, get the key who, what, why, etc. type stuff clear up front. This goes into in more detail, but having just read it, I think it could be more clear in a few areas: Perfect stub article. Oh, I did also add a stub message to the bottom of the Valley article. You might also look at a stub I recently created for John Glen, or one I just formatted, Mike O'Malley, for other ways bio intros can look. Anyway, you're doing great for someone so new, and I look forward to seeing more contributions from you. Niteowlneils 04:31, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Mike, or should I call you "Custom"? No, actually I've never seen "Another World", but I did do a little tidying up on some of the articles which you had obviously written before you got "into" the wikipedia standards - that happens to everyone in the beginning. Personally, I've no objection to the substubs as they call them. I'm now off to look at Amanda Barrie. Cheers. Deb 16:27, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hello again. I'm glad the major outtage didn't make you give up on Wikipedia. It was interesting to read about all the opening titles at Another World. I happened to notice your additions to Anna Stuart--it's great to see that not only do you have a good handle on Wikipedia style for your contributions, but you're willing to help polish other people's, as well. As for "substubs", they don't really bother me, either. If they did, I'd go nuts doing New pages patrol, as many articles get their start that way. Niteowlneils 02:07, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reply. My talk page generally only has in-bound comments to me. The comment above yours on it was in response to a message I left regarding a guide I feel Wikipedia needs. Like I said above (on this page), I think your recent work has been a great contribution--good formatting and polishing both of your original contributions, and entries started by others. I don't have any concerns or issues with your recent work, other than I wonder about the copyright status of the pictures you've added. But since I don't consider myself much of an expert in that area, I've left the issue alone, assuming someone more knowledgable can figure out whether they are covered by "fair use", or should be replaced with ones that are. Other than that possible issue, I think you're doing a great job here--I think the Another World article may be close to qualifying as a Featured article candidate, assuming the pics are OK. (caveat--from what I've seen, nominating an article there tends to invite heavy editing and close scrunity, so it shouldn't be done lightly) Niteowlneils 20:31, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pictures
I wasn't trying to be accusatory, I just didn't think it would be honest to state that I had no issues when I actually had an open question (even if it hadn't concerned me enough to look into it). So, I finally got around to reading some of fair use, Fair use, and Copyrights, and it seems they are probably fine for fair use, so I'll stop wondering about it. Niteowlneils 02:02, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't really have experience with documenting fair use materials here, but based on the notice on the upload page, it seems like it would be good form to site your sources. PS "...a more detailed technical history..." Cool, I'll have to take a look when I get a chance. Niteowlneils 02:10, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The guy who edited Saitama
I am not Japanese. I am a Caucasian American who lives in Texas. I am interested in Japan, however :) WhisperToMe 20:41, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Soap opera sub-stubs
Yeah, I get annoyed when people write tiny little things like that, but there's not much you can do about it if the anon doesn't respond on their talk page. If a pathetic article like that particularly bothers you, the best thing you can do is fix it up and maybe expand it a bit. Remember, the fact that someone else started an article doesn't keep you from expanding or totally rewriting it. Since I know absolutely nothing about soaps, all I did was run a quick IMDB search to make sure Sharon Case existed and really did act in those shows. Isomorphic 22:06, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I sympathize; I've had similar experiences, where I don't really want to work on something at the moment, but I can't stand to let something remain in it's current state.  Unfortunately there isn't much to do about it.  I can't ban someone for writing poorly, and I don't have any way of making an anon listen (or even being sure he knows he has a talk page.)   Isomorphic 22:16, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Venting is fine ;-)

Another World
That is an amazingly detailed article. Good work. I am going to nominate this to be a featured article. To see the resulting discussion, go to Featured article candidates. The folks there will likely pick the article apart and make a lot of suggestions and changes, but I think that your work is definitely the basis for a good featured article. Thanks, Isomorphic 00:46, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * You beat me to it. :) I was going to do it once it seemed Mike was done with it (and from the History it looks like that has happened). One thing that I was thinking might help keep the number of edits down would be to swap the storyline section to below the 'technical history' section (and make sure the technical section covers some of the production-type info that was originally put in-line with the plot synopsis (such as the top of the "Jill Farren Phelps and AW's downfall" section), since some Wikipedians are more fiction-adverse than others. Also, people trying to avoid spoilers will stop reading when they hit plot info, and I'd hate them to miss all the production details you've added, Mike. And, if Isomorphic does list it, you need to be prepared to not take it personally if dozens of people suddenly descend on it, making edits here and there; happens to EVERY article I've seen get nominated. Niteowlneils 06:28, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Oh, no, I wasn't suggesting adding more. I agree with your assessment that Another World is basically done, at least as far as adding content. Interesting little article on Jif--being in the US, I knew it had heavy ad backing, but I didn't realize it has been the best-seller all these years. Niteowlneils 16:33, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Generations (television)
Hi. I was wondering if you could help me a bit with this article if you find a few moments--I was trying to bring a one-liner up to snuff, but both IMDb and TVtome have a long, alphabetical cast list, so I have no idea which were the main stars. Since it sounds like you have a lot of soap opera reference material, I am hoping you can figure out the 5, to maybe 10, members of the core cast, and adjust the list I threw together. If it's one you watched and feel like adding more, that's cool, but if you just want to fix the cast list, and move on, that would be great, too. Niteowlneils 06:51, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Great, that's just the sort of thing I was hoping you could help with. Now it's in good enuf shape to leave alone until someone more knowledgeble/interested finds it. Thanks! Niteowlneils 18:34, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reply
I've replied at my talk page: User_talk:Matt_Crypto. &mdash; Matt 01:26, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Ditto. &mdash; Matt 01:33, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Eric Braeden
The "style" edit summary was because I was changing the bit about when he was born. From the Manual of Style: "For those still alive, it's clearer and less morbid to use the word "born", rather than leaving a hungry space for the death date." I typed that summary before I made the other edits. The other edits were just to polish the wikilinks. You're right, they were trivial but not every edit must be substantial. Sorry about the "television actor" thing, but I think it's better now that it says "television and film actor" rather than just "actor". --Rory &#9786; 18:54, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've created over 40 profiles and I refuse to edit them all because of what "The Manual of Style" says. TheCustomOfLife 18:52, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * You don't have to, just let others do it. Some of us tend to work as copy editors, some as article writers. I've seen your other work and I think you're doing a great job adding to the project. Don't take offence when someone changes a little thing like that. --Rory &#9786; 18:54, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * My apologies. I just get a little overprotective of my "babies," especially the soap opera ones since I like them so much. TheCustomOfLife 18:56, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * No need to apologise, you have reason to be proud of your contributions. Also - as demonstrated by my minor mishap when editing this article - it's a good idea to keep an eye on the "copy editors" too, we sometimes inadvertently make more significant changes. Good catch on television/film actor. Also, just to clarify - since I messed up the link originally - I was refering to the Wikipedia manual of style, rather than some arbitrary text. --Rory &#9786; 19:01, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * I was aware of what the text was. I may be new but I'm not that new. TheCustomOfLife 22:00, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I saw your changes to the most recent articles and it inspired me to change all the other ones in one fell swoop. :D TheCustomOfLife 00:55, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

And conversely your impressive contribution list inspired me to go and write some content instead of just tweaking others' work. There's a reason Wikipedia was voted Best Online Community. --Rory &#9786; 17:01, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yay! Aren't we all feeling good about ourselves? It's like  Oprah! :D TheCustomOfLife 17:06, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Don't let it get out, I have a reputation as a cynic to uphold --Rory &#9786; 00:04, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * Secret's safe with me, mate. ;) TheCustomOfLife 00:05, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Response to your comments

 * I've replied on my talk page. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:36, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Attack of the B movie actors
Don't let the guy's stubs get you down. :) RickK 23:56, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, if it were that simple! :) Right now I'm ignoring those because I have some soap opera magazine covers I'd really like to add to potential profiles. If you'd like to see the covers in other profiles, go to my user page. I'm sure I have over a dozen there now. TheCustomOfLife 23:57, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup message removal
See reply on my talk page. Fredrik (talk) 20:11, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Jacksonville
Actually, I've only moved to Florida relatively recently - I'm from New Jersey. Thanks for your contributions to the Jacksonville article and Hurricane Dora, they're great. --"D ICK " C HENEY 16:46, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pensacola
Yes, I do live there. blankfaze | •­• 01:17, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

AW POV
Hi Custom -

You asked for instances of POV in your article. These are the ones that stand out in particular. I have not included examples of the many, many characterizations you have used, because even though describing someone as "villianous" is a POV statement, it seems to me you are using it to describe how a character was intended to be portrayed, not how you feel about that character. You do need to be careful, though - POV is one of the Big Wiki Issues.

Here are some examples from some sections. None of them will require any great effort to repair.


 * Mac, Rachel, and Iris: was splendidly portrayed at this time


 * Mac, Rachel, Janice and Mitch: a spectacular fight scene


 * The 80's: Adam dumped her unceremoniously, (this is also an example of the real problem with this article: the serious overuse of idiomatic language. Remember that it is not just Americans who read these article. It is not even mostly Americans - this is an international publication, and every effort should be made to use standard English and unambiguous language.)


 * Age of Supercouples: Luckily, he succeeded,


 * Jill Farren Phelps and AW's downfall: who was in a very popular relationship; The story had become more nonsensical; ended up being a stinker

Please note that even though I have never been a soaps fan, I do recognise their cultural importance. I'm not just beeing picky here - I would like your article to succeed as an encyclopedic work. But that requires you to approach it with an encyclopedic writing style. Hope this helps. Denni &#9775; 18:24, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)


 * You've covered the POV terms well. Denni &#9775; 19:16, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)

Photos
I know Niteowlneils had some questions about the photos; so too do I. One component of fair use is "have you made any effort to get permission for use?" I'm thinking that pretty much all the photos I've seen have been scanned from publications currently on the newsstands. Had you just used one or two, I doubt there would be any issue at all, though of course it is always up to the copyright holder to determine how they wish to respond. I see, though, that you have reproduced (could it be?) dozens of pictures. Here is a useful document: Boilerplate request for permission. I use this regularly when I need to obtain permission to use an image (and I have yet to be refused!) I think letting the publication know that they'll get a little free advertising doesn't hurt either. Denni &#9775; 19:02, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)


 * I wasn't taking the photos and passing them off as my own. I was using them for informational purposes, which I do believe are covered under fair use. It's simply a "what do you look like? Oh, there's the picture!" thing. TheCustomOfLife 19:03, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Let me begin by saying that I am not attacking you, I'm trying to keep you out of trouble. The unauthorized use of copyrighted material has become a very serious issue in the last twenty years. The magazines from which you reproduce your images make money by selling these images and may take a dim view of your reproducing them, for whatever reason, without permission. The best thing to do, always, is ask for permission first. If you cannot get it, then there may be other means of acquiring necessary images. "Informational purposes" is most explicitly NOT a blanket permission for "fair use." For instance, I have an article on a Canadian artist. I cannot include a photo of one of her works because I do not have permission to do so. No matter how clear I make it that this is not my own work, and that it was created by someone else, I must have authorization from the owner of the work before I reproduce it. On the other hand, the opening image of Crash test dummy is one for which, despite my best efforts, I was unable to obtain permission for use. Neither of the two users of the image responded to my request for more information. Having made my best effort, I can thereby proceed to some credible claim of "fair use." Copyright laws are very, very clear, and many publishers will respond vigorously to copyright violation. That is why you need to be proactive. When the lawyers descend on you, a defense of "I was just using them for informational purposes" will definitely not cut it.


 * As always, it is your choice as to how to proceed. If you wish to take the risk, I will not go out of my way to stop you. However, I would much rather you did not find yourself in hot water over something easily preventable. Have you read the Wikipedia documents regarding copyright and fair use? If not, I would recommend you do at least a quick browse. Note particularly the section on celebrity photographs. Denni &#9775; 20:49, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)


 * Believe me, I understand your frustration in thinking about removing the images you've placed, but all I can say is that what's done is done, and it's your choice in what action you take now, if any. One way around actually removing the images is to keep them in the article, but as "hidden text". That's done like this: . So rather than actually removing the images, you can just add a few characters before and after the image code which will hide the image until you figure out what you want to do. (To show you what it looks like in use, I've hidden Steve and Alice at their wedding, the first picture in your article. Check the edit page for "The 60's.")


 * As far as getting permission is concerned, look in the first few pages of the magazine from which you want to use an image. Somewhere near the front of the magazine there will be publisher/subscriber/contact info. I don't have any fan mags around, but I =do= have a copy of Time magazine, which has in that section a website for getting, yes, permissions. I think you will be surprised at how easy it is to get permisson to use an image for this sort of purpose. Most publications will be pleased that you took the time to ask, and, as I mentioned in a previous comment, it should be rare you are refused. Hope this helps. Denni &#9775; 21:53, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)


 * I wish you luck in getting permission. Good illustrations can make or break an article. In future, you might want to try requesting jpegs/gifs, which some sites offer, and which will look much better than the (frankly horrid) 85 lpi photos which only suffer further from being scanned. (BTW, too late now, but I'd not have offered to remove the images you already have. That increases the odds they'll say no. While I want to be able to show goodwill, I also want to make it as hard as possible for them to refuse a reasonable request.) 23:59, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)


 * The form letter already said as much. I'm not going to be so bold as to request pictures from the people. I'd call that a bit rude. But for someone who wants to help me, you're really not helping a whole lot, giving information to me after I've already done. TheCustomOfLife 00:01, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)