User talk:TomCerul

Welcome
Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need any questions answered about the project then check out Help or drop me a line. BTW, nice work creating stubs for Dagobah and Analog to digital convertor among other nice edits. Cheers! --maveric149


 * Um, thanks for that very belated welcome. Automated? TomCerul

Just to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong: that welcome above wasn't particularly belated. It was made a mere two days after your first edit, which is generally pretty good. I didn't get a welcome on my page for a good two months after I started editing...

&mdash; Asbestos | Talk  08:00, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I've had an account since 2002. They must have lost my stuff. There was a system revamp when I was idle I think. I actually did the major flesh out of the capoeira article way back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capoeira&diff=87720&oldid=87636 :)  I was contemplating with surprise just how much of what I wrote is still in here.

Thanks for doing the legwork on the African origins of Capoeira. TomCerul 13:42, 12 May 2005 (UTC)


 * That's cool. When I start getting some real time to edit and work on Wikipedia, I'll make a proper effort myself as well. By the way, are you adding to the Roda article you created? At the moment it's just a dictionary definition, and so might be best at wiktionary, but of course if you're working on it then don't worry. &mdash; Asbestos | Talk  14:10, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Nope, there was an link to roda in the capoeira article so I stubbed it. Figured a stub was better than nothing when someone wanted to know what a roda was. I haven't had time to learn the new best practices here. TomCerul 14:13, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Angola
Hi TomCerul &mdash; I thought I'd just give you some sources for the notion that Capoeira didn't come only from Angola. ,, , , and  all note the wide mix of slaves coming in from Angola, Congo, Mozambique, Namibia and so on (though, granted, some of them might have taken their information from our own article). Political boundaries weren't as important to the slave trade as tribal populations, and the Bantu, Yorùbá and Dahomean peoples stretched out across the entire region.

Anyway, thanks for your work on making the section on The Game cleaner. I've been looking at that for a long time and had kept meaning to get around to making it readable...

New users and partisan hacks
The user added extreme right-wing talking points to Amazon Rainforest, which I reverted. A month later he added new nonsense, and I reverted it again. In response to that, he vandlised my Talk page. I reverted his vandalism of my talk page, and posted a test message on his page. He then proceeded to post the Libipedia stuff, in which he accused me of "only left wing propanganda, half baked scientific theories, and anti-capitalist hate speech.". He then posted some comments to my Talk page, but at that point I had no interest in engaging an abusive vandal, so I deleted it and posted the last set of comments. As for the comment about "facts", have a look at the nonsense he insists on posting. You would have to be pretty far from "facts" and "reality" to insert "Others argue that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a good thing, since plant life cannot exsist without it. In most other areas of the earth, the number of trees and forests are actually increasing." If you spout these oil industry/right-wing talking points, either you are getting paid to say them, or you get your news these people who "create their own reality". Anyone who choses to believe the whole "greening earth" idea is both incapable of critical thinking and unwilling to take even the most cursory glance at the literature on the effects of ecosystem level carbon enrichment. Guettarda 15:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * My bad, I misread that diff and somehow interpretted it as adding his message to the bottom. Still though, I'd like to invite that guy to support his proposition. TomCerul 17:31, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I may have overreacted, and I agree with your post to the Amazon talk page. I also have no problem with what he posted to the talk page - the article needs work, it's far to "emotional" in its tone.  But I don't indulge people who resort to childishly vandalising my talk page.  Thanks for intervening though - I am probably not in a position to engage him in constructive conversation.  Guettarda 17:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * My pleasure :)  TomCerul 17:48, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Metal Storm
Gday TomCerul, I have made some edits on top of your edits at Metal Storm. I'd got the impression that your edits were well thought out, and wanted to take a moment to explain my re-edits (and perhaps check your perspectives). Firstly I think we have a 'confusion' amongst readers about whether this is about Metal Storm 'the technology' or 'the company'. I'm not sure if there is a Wiki rule on this, but since the company owns the technology, and the 'name' then it seems that it rates 'equal' if not 'higher' billing than the tech. I liked your creation of a 'financials' section, which uncluttered the leading paragraph and put the financial (company) part on equal footing with the tech. Furthermore having 'got' the financial bit 'out of the way' the rest of the article could be devoted to a more 'rambling' discussion of the tech. I also loved your Roman Candle analogy, but hope you'll agree that it works very well leading the 'technology' section. I have been remiss in not using the hundred(s) of sources I have about MST to properly reference the article and will do something about that asap. I have left the applications section 'as it stands' for the moment. To my mind though it doesn't neeed to get into a debate about how 'valid' each application is (or how each works in detail) - it seems sufficient to me that there are sources that say that the company is 'looking at' (or has looked at) those angles (and not include any that the company is not considering). Cheers, Tban 23:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Metal Storm vs Point Defence
TomCerul, I'm curious why you removed Metal Storm from the list of examples of point defence. I've re-added it, as the Metal Storm article itself points to this as a possible future use. Please advise :) Kisc 06:18, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Metal Storm is a cool new technology with many exciting potential applications. Since these applications are still potential, I believe that it isn't appropriate to link to Metal Storm from the wide variety of places it might one day be used.  These links boil down to statements like "Imagine a MS grenade launcher" or "Imagine a MS point defense system". Those remind me too much of the old Slashdot adage "Imagine a beowolf cluster of these". (Imagine a metal storm beowolf cluster of grenade launchers.)  In addition, the MS technology is not a representative example of point defense systems like the Phalanx is. cheersTomCerul (talk) 21:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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