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Hello, Franamax, welcome Misplaced Pages! Hope little Franamax like. Here helpful pages:

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Now that's a welcome page, had to steal it myself. Thanks Bishzilla! Franamax 02:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

My edit History.

Refactored to User talk:Gordonrox24#Your wiki-career to keep discussion in one place, per my preference. Franamax (talk) 01:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I left a typo in here for you....

But you ought to be proud of my refs. Please take a look and advise: User:MichaelQSchmidt/sandbox/Bill Oberst Jr. Thank you., Schmidt, 04:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good to me, sources look appropriate to the milieu in which he performed (southern theatre, ergo southern newspapers). The assertion of notability is there.

A little more about personal life might be nice, married, kids, lives in Podunk when not touring, that kind of thing - but not essential as that is not what he is notable for.

It might be nice to know how widely his shows played - weekly performances in 13 different states vs. twice a year in his hometown. The breadth of newspaper sources indicates that he got around though.

I'm also not clear on what exact role he played in Dismal, there's some glowing reviews but no context.

Looks pretty good though. Did you read the fulltext of the articles sourced to newsbank, or are you just working from the excerpts? Franamax (talk) 05:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Read the ones I could, and did not invent anything on the ones I could not. Will it be considered COI if I contact the man? I did findsome bits about his background in his official bios. Definitely non-contentious background stuff that might be used to expand a biographical section, so SPS should allow it, as everything important is sourced. Schmidt, 07:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

No COI, you are a writer, not a PR shill. If he tries to feed you a puff-piece, that's where your editorial judgement comes in. Same with bio stuff from SPS, it's a judgement call. If he says his parents were German immigrants, probably not lying; if he says his parents were Martians, well... Franamax (talk) 16:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

And yes, I have an account to read newsbank and access my library stuff... but shied away from adding anything not in the excerpts, as that would then require a reader to themselves get a subscription.. and we know what wiki thinks about that. Schmidt, 07:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

You can use anything in the news articles, as long as you know it's there and you are accurately portraying it. newsbank is a convenience link, no-one has to subscribe to it to read the articles. They can go to their public library or fly to the offices of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ask to see their archives. Or they can go to our resource exchange and ask for a Wikipedian who already has newsbank or library access. AGF applies here, there is no requirement that all sources must be freely available online, only that they exist - and God help you if you get caught faking it! Franamax (talk) 16:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and in Dismal he played a park ranger who turns out to be "not quite right". I'll find a way to include it without making it a spoiler. Schmidt, 07:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Enough without being a spoiler: "For Oberst's work as Dale, the slightly "off" backwoods swamp dwelling Ranger in Dismal (2008), reviewer Dustin Hall of Brutal As Hell wrote..." The reviews do not do the tralers justice. Spooky. Schmidt, 07:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. Franamax (talk) 16:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

And looking at its own covergae, there could be a sweet little article on Dismal as well.... Schmidt, 07:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, go for it. You're a sucker for punishment on WP:NF anyway. ;) Franamax (talk) 16:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

re BC talkpage

I am saying this here, because it would be a little provocative at the original space; If BC is editing, is keeping out of trouble, has learned his lesson... then why the fuck didn't he do so during one of the numerous very last chances he had? It pisses me off that he needed to be banned before he made the changes he was capable of all the time... If he is editing, of course. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

What I've said at BC's talk is just hinting around for his benefit, there's a good way to come back and there's a fatal way. I personally think there's little doubt that he's actively editing. If he can stay invisible, fine. I seriously doubt that though, I rather think he hasn't learned any lessons yet - the lad is quite defiant in his outlook. When I saw this thread, guess who I thought of first? Looking at the IP edits now as a non-admin, the metronomic regularity has vanished, which indicates that most of the image tags correctly led to deletion. I still wonder though which of our anonymous contributors have such proficiency... Franamax (talk) 21:40, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I know... Too many such reports, and the quacking may become too insistent to ignore. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Your input is requested...

...on my pre-RfA nomination page, as you requested at an earlier time. I think the answers to question 3 could be beefed up, but phrasing it in such a manner as to cover details but not appear argumentative is another matter altogether. — BQZip01 —  23:11, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Rights

Then we must agree to disagree, rather than debate the issue all over someone else's talk page. Elanthia (talk) 15:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Move to Misplaced Pages name space?

What do you think about moving User:Butwhatdoiknow/Related_information essay from the User namespace to the Misplaced Pages namespace? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of any good reason not to move it to projectspace. It's not shown as a proposal so it won't get marked as Failed within six minutes. ;) It's a valid essay and I wouldn't mind being able to link to it myself. Also, in the project space it's more open to improvement and discussion of the basic concept from others who may be interested.

I'd like to see a little more about the paradox of article: "we can't allow this change because it's not in the layout guideline" vs. guideline: "we can't allow this change because it's not already being done in articles" but I can't think of any good wording myself. There's actually a deeper discussion too about template creep in general, whether one primary navbox should be open in the Related information section (especially if there is only one), category overlinking, in general how that space should be used. But that's for another day.

Make sure you open up the talk page as a blank talk page rather than a redirect. Franamax (talk) 07:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually, I had in mind you setting up the projectspace page. That might eliminate some of the "only one editor" comments the idea has received. Or perhaps I could set it up and then you can do the improvements you have in mind. That would also show that it isn't the idea of a single editor. Your call. (By the way, wp:Layout#Navigational footers, categories, interlanguage links etc. now specifically permits a heading for the navigational aids section.) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Whatever, it's boldly gone where no page has gone before. :) It will stand or fall on its own now, but should still be on both our watchlists, so we'll have to take extra care to address concerns.

And it seems you've made a liar of me at Nyttend's talk page. I said that WP:LAYOUT is silent on the subject, whereas you've actually made the page somewhat vocal about not giving a damn either way. :) I don't know how I missed that change, since the page is on my watchlist (probly laziness). 'Tis all good, we are generally agreeing without talking to each other - that's the best sign of all. Regards! Franamax (talk) 12:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It is also good that it has been on that well-watched page for some time now with nary an objection. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Article size

Hi. There's a discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Article size about the proper ranges to consider splitting. I see you've weighed in on this subject before, and I was stopping by to ask for your input. I know nothing about download times, but I do know you, and you know this: "Ignoring that though, the flaw is that the byte ratio doesn't take into account the overload of WML...." Since I don't even know what that means, I hoped perhaps I could prevail upon you to come by and offer some input on download times. :D --Moonriddengirl 12:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a good spot to jump in there, so I'll opine here instead. :)

I think that my "overload" comment referred to how much more text there is in the wiki-text compared to what you see on the final screen. My point there was about the bit at the top of the edit screen that advises you that maybe this article should be split into separate articles. As far as I'm aware, that's a raw byte count and I bet I could even find the config directive that triggers the warning. The problem with that advisory is that it assumes an arbitrary content ratio.

For instance, a featured list will often consist of one or several sortable tables, each list entry having a cite template. And CSS styles are applied to make headings have colours, styles are used to emphasize list entries, blah blah. In this case, the byte-count will far exceed the visible character count.

Dr pda's counter on appearances does an accurate count of the actual screen output - though I would love to see the input/output ratios, since they would inform my views on the raw number warning shown at the edit screen. Basically, the raw number has no necessary relation to the length of the article you actually see on the screen.

As far as download times go, those are actually vastly dominated by image download times. For instance my talk page right now shows as 142KB, and the actual HTML download is 233KB. However, put four images in there at 60KB each - you've just doubled the download time. For a dialup user, you'll get 5KB/second at the best of times, so my page with four images will take ~10 seconds to load. Realistically, double that. It's not a pretty picture. Get yourself a dialup connection and have a peek at AN/I at peak drama. I start hacking away at the Reference Desks when I see them topping 800KB - I can tell, 'cause even my system gets shaky.

Another pointer - if you have a pretty good computer and you're noticing that things are getting slow and shaky, the page has already gone long beyond what most of the world can handle. I'm not even going to check if it's right, try clicking on WT:WPSPAM. Actually I did click, 41K on the edit screen, 967K actual HTML. Did I mention templates?

If any of this maundering could be possibly relevant to your discussion, pin it down, I'll research it thoroughly and give up the specifics. I hardly think though that you intended this general and lengthy comment to be placed into a discussion! :) Franamax (talk) 13:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

So, basically, this is way more complicated even that it seems. :) Dr. pda's word counter did give me an idea of how large FAs are, but it doesn't really give me an idea of how large things need to be before they're too unwieldy for a dial-up reader. Somebody on ANI or AN just a day or so ago mentioned that we need to take into account every third world dial-up computer out there. That makes sense to me (even if I can't remember who said it; sorry for the vague attribution :D), but I just don't know enough to guess what a good dividing line might be or how to calculate it. Is there a forum that you can think of where I might invite contributors who are more likely to be clued in on this than I am to participate? I considered publicizing it WT:MOS, but (to me at least) it seems more specialized than that. My response to almost any number shy of where I've noticed problems would probably be, "I guess." I had some trouble reading User:Dcoetzee's talk until he archived recently. I'm pretty sure "250 kilobytes" crosses the line. But I don't know where it was when it crossed it. :) --Moonriddengirl 13:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's complicated. :) Before I moved house two years ago, I could drive to the centre of Canada's largest city in one exact hour, over a first-world transport network, but I lived in the e-3rd-world, telecom people just chuckled when I inquired about high-speed access. (But I had my beautiful backyard with birds and butterflies, none of which edited Misplaced Pages :)

The defining number for download times is what comes "over the wire" and is indeed more complex than what the edit warning reports. I've seen editors unfamiliar with images enthusiastically "improve" image formats with the wrong settings, turning a 5K .gif into a 100K .png. That's 19 more seconds on dialup (thanks for not pointing out my embarassing math error above, where I underestimated the time to load this page by a factor of 10! ;).

The question indeed is what to do, when the speed differential is 100:1. I'm sorry to say, but I know of no established forum for this. Village pump (technical) maybe, for first consideration? Then each village pump in turn as your thread gets archived? I really don't know where to discuss this, if it's a large forum there will likely be exponentially fewer dialup editors participating, since they have actual lives to live while waiting for the 5 minute download.

I will promise to keep thinking about the issue, please let me know if you make any progress or post further anywhere. Franamax (talk) 16:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your taking the time to explain this. I'll start at VPT and see where it goes. It's not really my issue, but I don't mind helping to get the ball rolling for good resolution. --Moonriddengirl 16:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, I just spotted another glaring error I made. The size of the "input" image means nothing at all really, since images are rendered into the "thumbnail" cache. They generally get served up on the page at about 10KB/each, so they add two seconds per image on dialup. You're so polite not to point these mistakes out! Or do I mean, "I put these mistakes in deliberately to see if you're paying attention, I'm very disappointed with you"? :) Franamax (talk) 01:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

You can put these kind of mistakes in all day long, and I'm only going to know if I repeat them to somebody else who goes "Um, no...." :) It's sort of like when I try to read articles about cars and things like that. I know that they're written in English. I know this. But they make no sense to me. What I got out of your conversation was the generality: there's a lot more than pure text size to consider in download time. :) As long as that's right, then you haven't misled me at all. :D --Moonriddengirl 01:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi there. There are several reasons to keep articles small:

1. Download time — not as important for the home user on high speed connections, but very important for dialup. Remember, 56k is 56 kilobits. A byte is 8 bits, so 56k means 7 kilobytes per second. A 100kb page would, on a good day, would take at least 15 seconds to download. Then there's also mobile phone users on GPRS (which can be as bad, if not worse than 56k, as there's also staggering packet latency).
2. Processing power — although a 500kb wiki page might do okay on a modern desktop computer, the goal of wikipedia (and wikimedia in general) is to spread knowledge to all four corners of the earth, the vast majority of which doesn't have "tricked-out, l33t b0xes" :P. The CPU and memory needed for a browser to render that 500kb page can be over a hundred times the page's size, because elements like image handling, indentation, formatting, links, javascript, and other stuff can easily compound to make it bad enough that the even higher end desktops can slow down considerably while trying to navigate a 500kb page with a lot of nested elements. For lower-end desktops and mobile phone browsers, it can make it almost impossible to navigate due to the memory and CPU demands. Moreover, it also makes editing such pages equally difficult, since the content of the text box, and the preview requires additional resources when editors try to edit the page.
3. Readability — If a page is way over 100kb, there's a good chance it needs to be trimmed back or split into several articles. 200kb articles are not acceptable, in my opinion. As a rule of thumb, the average reader's attention span for the article is, at best, 1/4th that of the article's primary contributors. That means that if it were up to those writing the article, 300kb of text would be in it. As a result, the article should actually only have 75kb of text in it. :P From there, people coming for a specific thing can quickly get to that thing, get a summary of that thing, and go to the article detailing that thing.
4. Resource wasting — The entire text of a page is saved with each edit. That means that if 100 edits are made to a 500kb page, 50 megs are gobbled up in the database. In order to edit the page, 500kb are transferred on each preview/edit, so 50 megs in bandwidth is used. Finally, for pages with a lot of intricate templates on them, the templates get re-rendered on each preview, thus wasting CPU as well.

There are other reasons, but long story short, I would suggest the limits that have been WP:SIZE were good guidelines.

--slakr 06:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Between the two of you, I think I'm moving beyond generalities! Or, well, at least into deeper generalities. ;) (I'm still not trying to repair a car, though.) If I'm understanding you correctly, the answer to download times is in the question, written into the "k"? So "k" is not an arbitrary measurement like cup but perhaps directly related to access time, allowing differences for methods of access? And we can estimate download times on dialup by roughly a factor of 8—on a "clear day", as it were, but allowing for variances such as user demand and thunderstorms in Siberia? And with processing power, if I'm understanding that, even after this is all downloaded, the ability of the computer to convert it into readable/viewable text & images is also a factor. So when considering rendering time, we have to ask (a) how fast can the computer get it (roughly a division of 7 of the kb size for dial-up, since thunderstorms happen) and (b) how fast can the computer convert it from gibberish into something comprehensible to humans (highly variable depending on the complexity of code)? I hope I've grasped that correctly, because it sounds logical. :D Considering "b" means that determining article size based only on "a" is hopelessly naive (somewhat like me, yesterday). Please let me know, either of you, if I've missed something. I suspect you're both being very clear, but I'm starting at ground zero.

I like your rule of thumb on "contributor interest" vs. "reader interest." :) Maybe we should make TLDR more general and embrace it as a guideline. :D

I'll go see how the conversation is going on article size and if there's any more discussion there about increasing those limits. --Moonriddengirl 11:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks slakr for the quick response to my request for input! Goes to show that even if you don't have a best response, you probably know a 'pediam who does...

MRG, let me try a little more, you've generally got it right, just some details:

• First, watch the Shift key: "b" (little b) means bits, the smallest thing there is. "B" (big B) means a byte, which is eight bits. For the English language, this is the same as the ASCII chacracters. For other language characters, it's different, but don't worry about that. In general, the number of "B"'s is the number of characters in the edit window. When we talk about "k"s and "K"s, we're talking about the same thing - "kilo"s, which are a thousand of something. So when the edit window tells you "This page is 154 kilobytes long", there are 154,000 "bytes" there, which is 8x154,000 "bits" and is also roughly 154,000 characters. When we talk about a dialup modem, we say things like 56Kbps, which means 56,000 "bits" per second. For comparison, a high-speed DSL connection works at around 5 Mbps (five megabits, mega = kilo X 1000).
• Yes, "k" is not a measurement, it's a quantity. "B" and "b" are measurements. Gallons are what you put into the tank, 10 gallons are how many you put in. And there's the transmission rate, bps or "bits per second". If you can pump 2 gallons per second, you will fill your tank in 5 seconds. Dialup users can't pump their gas that fast!
• For dialup access I prefer to use a factor of 10 bits/character and 50kbps for dialup speed, so take the number of kilobytes and divide it by ten, times two, to get the number of seconds to download. If I'm downloading a 50KB file, 50/10 = 5, *2 = 10 seconds to download it. slakr and I could discuss frame sizes and packet retransmissions all day (geez, d'ya think? :) but to me, it's a simple rule: kilobytes divide by ten, times two = download time. That handles thunderstorms and the way dialup works, and it's pretty simple to boot.
• OK, let's say we have a rule now. It does not apply to what you see on the edit screen. Like I said before, it applies to what goes "over-the-wire", which is the HTML language generated through an incredible process we call MediaWiki. If you use Internet Explorer, choose View->Source and you will see what actually gets sent to your browser so that you can see this page. Lots of it is the same as what you see in the edit window, but lots of it isn't - it's the "wrapper" that delivers you the experience of viewing a wiki page. The size of that file is almost certainly larger than the kilobyte size of the wiki-page - and that is what determines the download time (plus two seconds per image).
• This is all quite complex and I defer to slakr's informed opinion. Although his last point on resource wasting we're taught to ignore. It's valid, but theoretically compensated by the $20 I donated last December. ;) And template/preview load really only applies to editors, so imo is a null argument, since we don't really matter at all. We care about our readers.
• In particular, slakr makes some good points on tl;dr and the load on any computer due to sheer length of pages. WP:ANI and especially WT:SPAM can tax even my machine. However, the ANI page-length discussion is perennial, and I've given up on trying to help at WP:SPAM. For general article purposes, I actually think that download time over dialup might be a general correlate of usability.

Hope this helps more, suspecting it probably doesn't! It's like you've asked your auto mechanic to fix your vehicle in ideal conformance with the general laws of physics! Franamax (talk) 02:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It does help. :) I know that b and B are not the same; I've got a rough formula for determining download time, and I understand that the "size" Misplaced Pages announces on an article is deceptive; it's the "source" that matters. (I use Mozilla, but I've had to learn how to use "page source" for other reasons. :)) I was kind of hoping that Mozilla's "page info" might simplify figuring out the difference between the given Wiki-length and the source length, but it doesn't seem to. Using the article Jason Voorhees, it claims to be "80 kilobytes long." Mozilla's "page info" says "54.04 KB (55,334 bytes)." Or maybe that is the source length? Is the "wrapper" for that page, what determines its download time, somehow smaller than the article? Or am I heading in the wrong direction there? If "page info" doesn't help, is there an easy way to determine the size of the source? And if the answer is very complex, feel free to just say, "No." I ask this for my curiosity (I like to learn new things) and not because I expect to have any real world applications for it. :) I appreciate the time you've taken on this already. --Moonriddengirl 11:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I -think- that Mozilla's page info is telling you how many characters are actually on the screen. I tried some stuff to duplicate that info, but it broke my Microsoft. ;) Various tests confirm though that generally, there's about 54KB of actual letters and spaces shown on the screen when you view the article, so I don't think Mozilla is a stinkin' liar.

That number though is not how many bytes were sent to you by the server. For me, I can do either File->Properties, or Edit->View source and save the file to check its size. In both cases, they tell me that about 227KB were sent. By my rule-of-thumb, that's 46 seconds to download, plus 6 images at 2 seconds each, so almost a minute. I think I know a dial-up editor, I'll ask him to test it as a sanity check. If you know of any other dialers, please do the same! We really need empirical evidence on this.

There are two kinds of "wrapper". One is all the infrastructure that comes with a wiki-page that gives you the sidebar menus, the "edit" and "history" links, all that good stuff. This of course comes with every page. You can see what that is by doing the "view source" thingy and searching for "contentSub" and "NewPP". Everything above and below those two markers is part of the "global wrapper". The stuff in between is the actual article.

The other kind of wrapper is the HTML that makes each thing in the article look the way it does. Anything in between angle brackets (<...> doesn't show up on the screen, it just changes what's on the screen. Some of this is "heavy load". Search for "toctitle" and look at how much it actually takes to put those 11 lines on the screen. Navboxes, tables, references, wikilinks - anything in blue and anything fancy takes a whole lot of behind-the-scenes work. Beyond just the time to deliver it over a dialup line, it also puts a strain on underpowered computers, as slakr rightly noted.

There's much more, compression, PPP overhead, caching, UTF8-encoding and font rendering - but I'm pretty sure you asked what time it is, not how to build a watch. :) Practical observations from actual dial-up users is the way to go for now, and I'm trying to dream up a VPT question aimed at quantifying the hard numbers on the relation between wiki-text, article-text and emitted-HTML sizes. I like these kind of questions! :)

It's quite possible too that all these factors average out in the end, an article of sufficient size will have enough navboxes and refs that the wikitext byte count is a good indicator of download time, and the current size warning is indeed deemed appropriate by greater minds than ours (thanks again slakr!). Franamax (talk) 19:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Please take no offense at my mistake

Sorry for accidentally reverting your comment at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions. Hit the wrong button at the wrong time. I undid myself, so to speak. It's fixed now. BusterD (talk) 23:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

DC motors

Refactored to originating user talk and responded there, per my prefs. Franamax (talk) 02:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Canadian spelling of "plagiarize"

I believe it's indisputable that the American spelling is "plagiarize," while the British spelling is "plagiarise." What the Canadian version, the Australian version, the New Zealand version, the South African version, the Liberian version, etc., are, I cannot possibly be expected to know off the top of my head and include in an edit comment. I don't think I should be expected to research the origin of the article merely to correct an inconsistent spelling. ThreeOfCups (talk) 01:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

EA1

I just came across your EA1 page from an unrelated user talk page, and I must say I enjoyed reading it :-) What's bad, I suppose, is that I didn't have any trouble understanding it except for "AHI". Good points! Nyttend (talk) 04:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmphh - I had to look that one up myself just now. I guess they're assuming about someone else. :) Those bastards. ;) I really should flesh that out, add a few more potent acronyms, and show the tree structure properly. (Heh, that last bit is apropos to the RD right now)

Feel free to help with it, hydnjo already semi-put it into projectspace, 'tis but a page move away! :) Franamax (talk) 13:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback

Unfortunately, my RFA was closed today with a final tally of 75½/38/10. Though it didn't succeed, I wanted to thank you for your participation in it. I intend to review the support, oppose, and neutral !votes and see what I can do to address those concerns. Special thanks go to Schmidt, , TomStar81, and henrik for their co-nominations and support. — BQZip01 —  20:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

My condolences BQ. I wasn't too happy to see some opposes based on "tried too many times already" - does that mean that personal growth stops at some point, and suddenly you will always be what you were then? I dunno. But I couldn't make that comment, 'cause then it's "oppose-badgering", arggh. Just keep making the valuable edits that all the supporters were talking about! Please. Franamax (talk) 05:18, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how asking someone what they meant is "badgering", but if people can vote any way they wish, then they can do so. I think the whole process misses the points raised in Misplaced Pages:!vote#People:

"In these processes it is preferable if people discuss, ask questions of the candidate, and state their reasonings, rather than simply stating "yes" or "no" with no further comment. While the end result is often obvious based directly on counts of who said yea or nay, it is possible to sway people's opinions by applying solid reasoning and logic. Even so, people new to wikipedia are often confused, due to the strong resemblence between such structured discussion and a majority vote process, which they are not. There is no exact "target" percentage that forms the cutoff point, although some processes, such as WP:RFA, do indicate a rough numerical percentage for establishing consensus."

Sockpuppet Investigation

If you would be so kind as to throw your two cents in here under "Comments by other users", I would appreciate it: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/TomPhan — BQZip01 —  22:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've looked at it for a 2nd time now. BQ, you're all over the map there. When you throw in stuff to the general list from more than a year ago, I'm not sure how that helps a current investigation. I'm pretty sure that if a CU samples a few items and finds them old, they will choose instead to focus elsewhere. And if it's TOR nodes (or other proxies), they'll bail out too, 'cause CU is relatively useless in that case (unless certain conditions apply, but they're rare).

• Can you restructure your SPI to isolate the current stuff? Then show the older stuff separately. I'm not sure, but I think the CU log timeframe is (WP:DNFTT) - I'll check on that separately. Figure on three months at the outside, I believe I've seen that openly stated.
• Which IP's have you identified as TOR nodes? Did you report them for blocking? What tool did you use to identify them as TOR nodes? We have a kind of don't-ask thing with TOR atm I do believe, but you should show which IP's you've identified as TOR or any other open proxy. (Note that I support onion routing as a general principle, but I do see too much opportunity for abuse) (Oh and speaking of abuse, I saw an IP edit geolocating to Arlington VA - the CIA may or may not be operating exit nodes, since TOR is naked at entry and exit, it only works on the inside)
• IMO it's best to list IP's in dot-numeric order so others can see patterns in the IP ranges - I'd still suggest that you keep "current" and "historic" lists separate though.
• And as you started to do, comments for each entry indicating the nature and severity of the abuse are always helpful.

Summary: help out the SPI regulars, structure your presentation, give them a clue on what current stuff they can chase and kill. Franamax (talk) 03:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done — BQZip01 —  05:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

That's way better, and I checked another few. You still haven't split out which ones are "current" and which are "stale". Don't get me wrong, there's a, I dunno, pattern, or system of anarchy in what's been going on - and of course I can't see the deletes/oversights.

Split by >3 mo, <3 mo? Or add notes for latest edit + latest oversight? I'm just thinking from the perspective of someone with the big tools, they need to know where to start looking. And from my own vantage, I already know you've been plagued forever - I'd rather have an easy way to pick out what's current so that I can make a recommendation there. Or in a day or two, I might go through everything, but I can't guarantee that.

SPI/CU says: What's the latest crap you've had to put up with and why do I care as far as the mechanics of en:wiki that I might be able to actually fix? (Try to take that in a good way. :) Franamax (talk) 06:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism: the next step

If you are looking for some good (but inexpensive) sushi, try Robson Sushi in the West End. They have funny vandalism in the men's room. -maclean 06:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No way, I've spent too much time watching series filmed here, trying to spot the locations (two hits I think). That's definitely something connected with the Stargate program, probably a Goa'uld writing on the wall while they (well, technically their human host) had a pee. "All off-world activities are suspended." - "Sir, maybe we should contact the Asgard." ;)

As it happens, my Mom has a BC Guide Dog puppy being trained, he's due for a session downtown next Tuesday, so that sushi place might just get a visit from us and a yellow Lab wearing a blue coat and sporting a very waggy tail! Good to hear from you :) Franamax (talk) 07:19, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Good work on the New York vs. London discussion

		The Half Barnstar
		Franamax and ITOMIC share this barnstar for being able to make their cases so clearly and disagree so politely. Congratulations and good editing in future. Pointillist (talk) 21:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I AM NOT RUSHING YOU, In case you did not notice I respoponed to you on talk:Moon

I AM NOT RUSHING YOU! In case you did not notice I respoponed to you on Talk:Moon#Should_the_title_be_.22Moon.22_of_.22Earth.27s_Moon.22--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 18:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Text-Based Copyright

I would appreciate your comment on this crazy little thing I did. Mostly, it is because I'm reacting to a single user. I should probably leave it to those who have more experience, but I've taken an interest in this now. CopoCop (talk) 23:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Replied at project talk and user talk pages. Franamax (talk) 01:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Caution in laying down the law

Duplicate of comment at the other user's talk page, responded there. Franamax (talk) 08:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Other topics

Hi, thanks for your suggestion, but switching topics won't work. I have worked on other topics, and do note that the community ban was unrelated to the topics I am now topic-banned for. But the same users followed me to these other topics and harassed me there. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 10:51, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Ref to other talk page:

Well, the first thing to do is to examine your own actions. Then you can decide whether other people are being unfair to you. It's a pretty brutal process to discover where you yourself have gone wrong, but it's worked for me, well and often. It's just not much fun... Franamax (talk) 10:59, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

A full in-depth examination of my actions has been conducted by SunCreator, who concluded that there was nothing to blame me for. Every user that has worked with me has said the same. Cool hand Luke has recently confirmed that my edits are all done in good faith. Surely, I am not perfect, but based on what people who have investigated my actions are saying, I do not think that I have gone wrong anywhere. What I believe is that there is a mismatch between contributors like me (old-school universal scientist), and what Misplaced Pages has grown into over the years. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 11:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, so you've failed to adapt to changing times and mores. Now we're getting somewhere! (I'm not trying to pull an intellectual trick on you here, I'm just saying that it's not useful to opine that the wiki is wrong) Franamax (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

To changing times I have adapted; mores, I think have changed some in general, but at a much faster pace on Misplaced Pages. I am quite happy not to have adjusted to that. I am not a WP addict, and will simply use other means to do what I have done for 35 years, i.e. freely spread knowledge. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 11:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

(after e/c, without ref to the reply above) Oh, and could you point me to SunCreator's in-depth examination? For some reason I'm not able to find it.

CHL, like myself and many others, acknowledges that you are acting in good faith, but I believe we have in common an impression that you are seriously wrong in the way you comport yourself here. You adopt an argumentative attitude on just about every single point. That's a big problem, because it drives people to distraction and frustration. GdB, you've just said above "I am not perfect" - OK then, can you show me a diff for something you did wrong, and explain why you were wrong? Franamax (talk) 11:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, no, I don't think it is that simple. My imperfection, I guess, is in dealing with other users that have different goals, but I can't pinpoint that. What is perceived by some as argumentative, is the normal way for the learned to get to mutual understanding. It has however the tendency to drag out when the other side doesn't know how to make logical arguments, has no clue about the topic at hand, yet insists on being the authority and having the final word. Perhaps to them I am too much the teacher that they wanted to get away from, I don't know. As for SunCreator, you'd best contact them in private, in view of the restrictions imposed on me. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 12:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

So you can't pinpoint even one single thing you've ever done wrong? Strange that, I can whip up several diffs on myself without much effort. You should take care when bandying about words such as "learned", "logical" and "teacher" - in particular, from my experience the best teacher is also the best learner. That's only from my experience - I've never stopped being aware of when I might be wrong. On the other thing, done privately + signing off for now. Franamax (talk) 12:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, perhaps that inability is my imperfection, then. I'd be happy though to look at any example that you can produce and learn from there. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 12:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Have been prompted by 'Franamax' in email to this topic. The previous investigation that I wrote about can be found here and also here. Hope that helps. If further comment or claification is required please let me know on my wikipedia user page as my checking of email is a rare event. SunCreator (talk) 17:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Is my (Emmette Hernandez Coleman) debating disruptive?

On my taklpage, Jack Merridew has expressed concern that my debating may be disruptive. Because you were in a debate with me, you are in a semi-unique position to comment on this issue. Feel free to express you're opinion on User talk:Emmette Hernandez Coleman#Whales. You're input is welcome and appreciated in advance--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the totality of your edits, so I have no broad opinion. On the debate on naming of Moon, well yes, a tiny bit - you'd apparently already done the same thing on Sun and you made a comment in there like "this debate is fun!" - so those are warning signs that an editor may be taking the piss with other people. But I was happy enough to debate the idea on its merits and you worked diligently towards a resolution. So I'd say, maybe a tiny bit disruptive in that case - but only because you pursued a goal that really has already been decided. But not disruptive to me, I could have cut you off much shorter if you were bugging me. :)

In the broader picture, how often do you find yourself in these kinds of discussions? Are you often the one starting them? That may be a bad sign. And how many long stretches do you have where you're just happily editing article pages, adding references or fixing categories or copyediting or even writing whole sections? That would be the good sign. Franamax (talk) 13:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, but would you please copy you're post to my talk page so the discussion can remain in one place. --Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:53, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Nope, I'm way past my bedtime. Put a pointer to this thread on your talk page so I know where it should go, I'll move it tomorrow. Must - switch - off - computer... :) Franamax (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Done--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 14:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Penny washers

Just saw your follow up question and thought it best to reply here as it's a bit stale on the desk now. No, I don't have a source, I was just speaking from engineering practice familiar to me, but this supplier offers them in sizes from M5 to M12. You are right of course, you would specify the ID and then the OD would follow, not the other way round as I had it. SpinningSpark 02:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I'm always fascinated at the many weird and wonderful words used to describe the minutiae of manufacturing, construction - well, pretty much everything in life really. :) Flanges and spatulas and washers, looms, trunnions, there's a word for everything! Franamax (talk) 06:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You might enjoy this book in that case. SpinningSpark 11:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh thanks, that's gold! Only problem is that it only goes from ABA to KUP! :( But it's got some huge sections on Guns and Coal Gas and now I now what a bumkin is! I found another one like it , but it only goes from Abietine to Ivory Black...

By the way, I was in the hardware store today picking up some 1/4" lag screws to perfect my nephew's swing-set/play centre and they have all sizes of penny washers! Nice work getting them on the shelves within a day, but how did you know I shop at Rona?

I guess the reason we called them "tray washers" and "frictional washers" when we designed trays was so that the customer wouldn't get any fancy ideas when they bumped a column and just drive down to the local hardware store to get the exact same thing. It was much better to pay us outrageous amounts to put the right words on the tag and use priority air-freight. ;) Franamax (talk) 22:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Victims, etc.

I read your message. No more on this, please and thank you. --Anon, 07:07 UTC, June 9, 2009.

O.I.W. Dept.

"Only In Misplaced Pages" will thoroughly presented evidence and logics being met by obstinate and arbitrary invocations/interpretations of rule-sets be dismissed as "arguing in circles"......I rather wish I'd just raised this at {{NorthAmNative}} instead.....that's what I get for being upfront and detailed in consensus environments...as for mediation or 30, I'll leave it to a CfD for that, I see no reason to contain this to only WP:Canada...gonna sandbox it first to marshall my argument/evience....Skookum1 (talk) 23:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Skookum1, you just spill out too much information, and you're always thinking in 76 different directions at once. I try to read your every word when I come across you in discussions, just 'cause there's so much knowledge packed in - but you even lost me on that last one...

If I could offer any advice to you, keep it focussed on a single issue - or when there are multiple inter-related issues, use bullet points so other readers can know when they should shift focus. It's really hard to keep up with where your thoughts are going. :)

Let me know where your sandbox page is, and I'll also run off to let the server admins know they need to buy another one. :) I think you have a valid point, but I'm honestly not sure. Once you sandbox it, maybe I can make another sandbox where I can use a machete for trimming, so that we can arrive at a definite request for action (or actions).

Regards! Franamax (talk) 01:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for explaining your edit, a lot of people would have done it with out saying anything. I understand why you did it i will be more careful with using the tool and making sure its in the summary. Cheers Kyle1278 03:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Suspend a weight between two poles - Thank you!

Thanks for bringing my blood pressure down and lowering my goose-bump count. The longer I watched that post on the science ref desk the worse it got. I even posted on the talk page while you were writing your response. HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF. I hope no one is going to feed that one. The worst of it is if he had spent his time finding the local DOT in charge they'd probably be quite happy to help him. Hanging signs is what they do for their city. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 21:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually I was writing there in response to your talk post. I have more to say on talk too, but still recovering from a reboot. The problem on SciRef is that so many people approach things from a theoretical standpoint, which is fine when talking about the topology of the universe. Hanging a sign above a public street though - nope, just call your local municipality, where they have actual engineers who will send you the actual specs on the local requirements. Hopefully I restored some sanity, and since my disk-light is not blinking continuously anymore, I'll check in there again. Franamax (talk) 22:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem

While I'm usually a stickler for not fiddling with other editors' signed comments, I'm quite willing to allow exceptions (with respect to my own comments, at any rate) where a) they relate to communicating our policies clearly and effectively, and b) they help me avoid looking like a fat-fingered idiot. Cheers! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Whew.. :) I would never normally do that, ever ever. It just seemed appropriate for the message. I do have a problem though, I'm pretty sure I've already registered fat-fingered-idiot.com, or at least I have prior claim due to my extensive experience in the field. :) Franamax (talk) 01:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

ANI Header format (reply)

I don't want to cause any problems for such a high-usage noticeboard, but I do not see the problems you are experiencing. I have started a discussion of it here, with screenshots of my view of the header, if you want to explore it further:

• Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard/Header#Incidents_header_-_column_widths_not_equal?

DMahalko (talk) 04:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

H1N1

Thanks I replied at User talk:CambridgeBayWeather#H1N1. Cheers. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 05:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Your new Nephew

Congrats. I read your post about the flag and might have an idea about something else you could do. See if you can find someone who knows some of the nation's lore and either visit them with a recorder or get someone else to do recordings for you. (In the culture of my heritage such people were called "story women" I bet something similar exists in his.) It may take a long time for him to appreciate it, but when the kid grows up those stories may become a priceless treasure. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 05:15, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, sis is firmly committed to the region, the boy has been and will be seeing his extended family in (omitted), he recently was playing with his half-brother in (omitted), he's spent lots of time in that thing the moms wear on their back whose name I can't recall just now. He's known to the elders and there is one in particular, an even more than usually awesome one, who knows him, blessed him, and I hope will be around to guide him for a long time yet. This is a serious plan, all shall be provided, especially any traditional knowledge that can be accessed. Thanks for the sentiments and for the ideas. They're strikingly similar to my own, problem being how I can personally implement them several thousand kilometres to the south. Good pointers though on how I could actually accomplish my aims. Franamax (talk) 06:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Amauti? keep an eye on his hips. Hip dysplasia (human) can be caused by some traditional baby carrying methods if used extensively. Don't know if this is one of them. I inherited a story blanket from my great-grandma. Most of the stories that went along with it are sadly lost, but the ones that got passed on are my favorite things. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 07:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, amauti. Thanks, I knew it started with a-m-a, but I'd be embarassed to describe all the search terms I tried. I managed to search for an oil well (Amauligak) in the process. :)

He's a little too large now to be reasonably carried about in a pouch. On shoulders, yes, one of us was foolish enough to do that recently but luckily didn't sustain any nerve damage as a result, unlike building the fort. I never saw any outward signs of discomfort when he was in the amauti, although of course that proves nothing. In a true primal environment, all his 54 lbs would likely still currently being carried around on a woman's back, since he's not tall enough to even see over your average snowdrift (nor as long as a typical snowshoe).

The story blanket thing is cool, if you have a digital image of it, please email me, I can email you back, then you could send me the image. Or better yet, you could register and upload your treasure onto the commons. :) In any case, you've just given me an awesome idea for how I could use the Internet to interact with (omitted)'s extended family to actually do a story-blanket in both physical and cyber form. Must think on this more, but thanks for the spark! :) Franamax (talk) 09:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The blanket is mnemonic device and is, and sounds, better than it looks. It's just a woven cloth with different stripes and bars pattern. (I think of it as a digital recording device, not bad for a nation that didn't make it to writing, no?:-) The original is in storage with one of my aunts. We gave her a digital camera, but frankly I don't think it's made it out of the box since we last visited with her. I'll see what I can do about an image. For the longest time I didn't know how the few stories I knew fragments of and the blanket fit together. (I shudder to think how often it almost got tossed.) It took a couple of decades for the bits and pieces to come together. Now that I know how it's supposed to work I can see there's a lot that didn't make it. So I can appreciate the work you put into your internet search and your efforts deserve the highest praise in my book. Glad I could be of some assistance.71.236.26.74 (talk) 22:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations! You're a winner.

Congratulations! You've won first prize in the "A sock puppet, meat puppet and Jimbo walk into a bar ..." sweepstakes! See here for details. Paul August ☎ 16:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Lede

My spelling is terrible, so as you were using lede and I "lead", I looked them up in the OED: lede "A people, nation, race. Also, persons collectively, ‘people’." Lead "f. Journalism. A summary or outline of a newspaper story; a guide to a story that needs further development or exploration; ..." --PBS (talk) 15:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh, you're doubtless right. I've just been copying what many other people use to refer to that first part of the page. I try to be excellent in my spelling and it's foolish of me to use a spelling which I have not personally researched. Until I can find some basis, I will drop the affectation and use "lead", which I always thought was right too. Thanks for the heads up! Franamax (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

A talkpage stalker adds:I have worked in printing and pre-press for many years. I think (I have no citation) that the spelling "lede" may have come about as a phonetic way of distinguishing it from "leading" pronounced "ledding" which refers to the space between the baselines of consecutive lines of text. Pronunciation is incidentally the reason that Led Zeppelin spelt their name the way they did. The two spellings for the lead paragraph appear to be interchangeable on Misplaced Pages.  pablo_hablo. 22:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'd actually already looked it up on (who woulda thunk) Wiktionary, which sent me into a reverie about what those days must have been like, people actually arranging little molds for the molten lead, poking in the actual steel em-space and en-space bits sitting in the tray, using the combination molds to make certain letter combinations look right - and all that stuff was wiped away, first by Linotype, then by Compugraphic, then by desktop publishing. All made obsolete. It's kind of comforting to know WML, we still get to do a little typesetting, but that too shall pass. Then I thought about all those people at Keuffel & Esser who knew how to make precision slide rules, and the whole vacuum tube industry. Then I had to go to my job in the cyberworld. I love that traditional stuff, with all its own specialised languages! Since it appears to be US-only slang though, and I'm Canadian, I'll still reconsider my general use of the spelling. Thanks though for the information. :) Franamax (talk) 02:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Lol! I never thought to check Wiktionary!  pablo_hablo. 15:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Sea Shepherd

Thank you for weighing in on the “violent direct action” dispute. I can hardly believe the trouble this Fhue guy is giving me on this issue. — NRen2k5, 19:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

If you have a minute or two...

A new editor, User:MysteMyst, has found him/herself in a bit of a content dispute, and requested arbitration to address it. Knowing that you've got a deft touch with new users, I wonder if you might have a chance to help MysteMyst learn the ropes a bit and navigate through the dispute. Hope you're well! Thanks, Risker (talk) 03:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I had a shot at dropping a note on the strict day-page issue and I'll keep an eye out. Can you shoot me a copy of the deleted Misste Rivera article (or temp userfy it into my space) so I can see if it was anywhere even close to being usable? It might help me to draw parallels, context, etc. If they return to editing, I'll do my best. Franamax (talk) 08:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		Thank you for answering my Catastrophe Code question on the Miscellaneous Reference Desk! --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 06:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Darko Trifunović problems again

I noticed you had recently reverted some vandalism at Darko Trifunović. Could you please take a look at WP:AN/I#Darko Trifunović? I think we need to get this issue sorted for good. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you have some kind of a bot...

...that searches for Misplaced Pages for fatuous first amendment claims? Steve Smith (talk) (formerly Sarcasticidealist) 01:55, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Nahh, that would be one busy bot. ;) Just a sharp eye on my watchlist and having seen the issue arise oh-so-many-times. It's not actually fatuous, it stems from genuine belief that US constitutional fair-use and Misplaced Pages non-free use are one and the same. They are definitely not, but some editors take longer to convince of that fact. Franamax (talk) 08:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Vancouver article needs help

Did you know that Vancouver may lose FA status? The article was listed for FAR on June 18 but there wasn't much response. It has since been listed as a Featured Article Removal Candidate. I am contacting you because you are one of the top ten editors of the article by number of edits. Would you be willing to work on improving the article? If so, you may wish to comment on the review page and join the discussion on the talk page here. Sunray (talk) 08:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

medical advice

Hi, I saw where you had stricken some content because it was construed as medical advice. Is this part of the WP:NOT policies or something? I've seen medical advice in many, many articles ranging from dietary to first aid. Should I also remove all this content or is there a line that gets crossed at some point? I just figured that "advice" on a talk page (that's not listed as advice) should be fair game. It is a talk page afterall, with suggestions to improve the article. IMO, maybe you should have left that on the talk page and just replied "Nope, don't put it in." and link to the NOT that says no medical advice instead of removing the material. A little bit of curiousity mixed with indignation here I guess.167.7.17.3 (talk) 16:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi there and sorry for the late response. I didn't rely on any specific guideline or policy, I suppose a mix of WP:IAR, WP:OR and WP:MEDICAL. Mostly though, since I do a fair bit of work on the WP:Reference desks, I was thinking more of the RefDesk medical advice guideline which disallows content that includes diagnosis of a medical condition. It's true that guideline doesn't apply to an article talk page.

Basically, we likely wouldn't include that information in the article, not least because it is unsourced and original research. If there is a source (written by a doctor or health department), then maybe. I suppose I should have responded per your suggestion when the first comment was made. What spurred me to action was actually your own comment, which was definitely original research. Reading the combination of the two, my worry was that we would end up encouraging someone to stick a hot safety pin into their fingernail, talk page or not. Now it might certainly be a valid method, but think too of the ways it could go wrong, like if someone did it to a healthy nail or poked it in too far or who knows what else. Yes, we have a medical disclaimer and yes it's a talk page, but it just seemed safer to me, on balance, to remove the whole thread based on the principle of "do no harm".

I'll think about it some more and maybe change my mind. If you feel really strongly about it, I'll put it back and leave a comment instead. I can see where you'd be a bit indignant. If you have other specific examples of similar medical advice in articles, I'd be curious myself to know what they are, for my own interest. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 05:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand that we (meaning editors in general) don't want to give medical advise concerning a diagnosis or a treatment. I guess I'm headed back to "where do we draw the line". From what I can tell, it's drawn where there's the possiblity to do harm, and I can certainly agree with that. For example, the article on acorns that I was reading a minute ago gives what I would consider indirect medical advise in the form of dietary guidelines. In the article in question, it mentions that acorns are edible, but that they contain a small amount of a toxic chemical and that they were traditionally (guess that could make it not medical advise but more historical observation) soaked several times to leech the toxins out. From what I can tell, that's basically saying that acorns are dangerous to eat unless you do it this particular way. Couldn't someone just as easily eat a ton of acorns, get really sick, and blame wikipedia in the same way they could poke a hot safety pin through their toe?

I can see where my particular comment came off as straight medical advise. It's definitely worded as OR. However, I have no doubt that you could find a source for this advise pretty quickly. I didn't bother to do so because 1- my internet is filtered and it's a pain to look up sources, and 2- it was a talk page and I had no intention of adding that info to the article. But all that aside, it could have added with references as to what happens to injured nails instead of what you should do to an injured nail. I can see from the examples you linked to on the RD that wording is key. In changing the wording, you can go from advise to definition quickly.

But no, I do not have a heavy interest in this. I think I just left the comment after reading where someone would try to poke a hot paper clip through the nail, and remembered having to do that on my big toenail once in high school and the school trainer using a safety pin. I figured safety pin was better than paper clip, but I wouldn't have even put that if not for the other comment. I completely agree that we don't want to put information that people could use to hurt themselves if at all possible, but I think that discussion of such advise is fair-game to leave on a talk page.

No need to put it back in, I'll just try to word anything I add so that it doesn't sound like advise, but simply defines a procedure often associated with the condition. I certainly wouldn't add anything like that to the article... I was just surprised to see material removed from a talk page (got in trouble for that first time using wikipedia, assumed it was a big no-no).

thanks,167.7.17.3 (talk) 16:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, this kind of stuff is always a judgement call, and I just try to use my best judgement. I certainly don't claim to be 100% correct, I just try to aim for the middle ground where the least potential damage can happen either way. In this case, I was acting from my own experience at the RefDesks, where the medical guideline looks at the presence of diagnosis, prognosis, treatment. "Black and blue" nails is a diagnosis, and a hot safety pin is a treatment - IMO anyway, so that's what prompted me. If there were existing talk archives there, I could have shuffled the thread off there (which would have been legitimate I think, since no-one was expressing an interest in adding sourced information).

And to be honest, I was also looking at the somewhat frivolous nature with which both the article and talk pages are treated. I've removed more than one "eww, GROSS" post there. And unfortunately, yes, I was responding to posts by anonymour editors, who quite often make very helpful contributions but also make, umm, unhelpful ones - so they get extra scrutiny. Have you ever thought about signing up for an account? You build a track record that way and there's a place to communicate with you personally. Just a thought...

The acorn article is a little different since the acorn as a food source is fundamental to an encyclopedia article, and constituents which interfere with protein metabolism in multiple animals are equally so. The advice there to soak the nuts in water is at least on the safe side, since it advises a rather complete removal of tannins. It does make me a little uncomfortable, but I can't think of too many scary stories on how it can go wrong. If it said "soak until the water is less brown than a piece of mountain ash wood" - now that assumes the reader has judgement. This is why we love reliable sources, so that we know it's not just one person's opinion.

And yes, normally we almost never remove posts from talk pages. Maybe I'm not normal, it's been suggested to me before. :) The general idea is to try to make this the best possible encyclopedia, so that's what I try to do. Thanks for your comments, you've given me things to think about in future! Franamax (talk) 04:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the civil explanation, you're probably the least belligerant editor I've crossed at somepoint. I do have an account (User:Eganjt) but I access wikipedia from work and don't bother to log in most of the time. Actually, I've gone ahead and asked that Sinebot not sign for me, and I plan to use the IP address for most of my wikipedia browsing. I like helping out, but the formatting is hard for me to remember, and there seems to be a lot of squabbling between editors. Thanks for explanations, and I'll be sure to keep on helping out, just within the rules!

Misplaced Pages:Governance review

There is a page you should know about, Misplaced Pages:Governance review.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 02:00, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I get the feeling that page will descend into a huge talking shop/shouting match, but I'll keep an eye on it. Franamax (talk) 05:51, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, whatever gave you that idea? :) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

being haunted by the spirits...

Check this diff. I am being listed as a disruptive editor. Anything that can be done other that my request to the creator to remove my name from his list? MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 03:51, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

It's part of a long discussion about the effectiveness of the civility policy as written. Your presence on that list is purely statistical, they are trying to look at hard examples of blocks for civility. It's actually a good example of the problems with civility blocks, Gwalla issued a general warning on a talk page, you commented in a different part of the discussion, someone else snarked back, and you were blocked in a "must be both of them" sweep. It's worthy of note that Gwalla rescinded the block immediately on my and another editor's request. Don't worry about it. Although you could read the whole discussion in the poll and make comments as you see fit. IMO it was a wrong block, I'd have to look again but I didn't see any incivility on your part. Illustrates the problems with the policy. Anyway, don't take your presence in the data personally, they just checked the block logs for the presence of "civil" and listed all of them. Franamax (talk) 06:24, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I have commented at the discussion... pertty much toward how WP:CIV is fine if evenly and properly applied. I do agree with your suggestion that showing it as an example of how CIV sometimes applied incorrectly would do much to molify. Sigh. Thanks for being aboard. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 06:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Advising medically

Hey Franamax. I was out of town for the last couple of days, so it looks like your request on my talk is probably stale — but I wouldn't want you to feel ignored. :D My sole area of expertise is with the compromise worked out for the operation of the Ref Desks, I don't think there is any broad consensus on the best way to handle these sorts of cases on the rest of Misplaced Pages. (Either such cases are very rare, or nobody notices them.)

I'd say the style of your approach – calm, cool, unconfrontational, and willing to explain your reasoning – matters far more than whatever alphabet soup of policies one might cite one way or the other. A number of our articles on medical topics do address first aid questions (including explicit instructions) so I'm not sure where article talk page discussions should draw the line. We should encourage any discussions to rely on reliable external sources, and we should probably move to cut off discussions which appear to be giving specific advice to readers/editors (as opposed to general discussions about what first aid and treatments ought to go into the article). This is one of those things that probably has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Cheers! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:34, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Just a question...

What is the proper ettiquette when anonymous IPs decide to edit something I had userfied to a sandbox in the hopes of later return to mainspace? diff. They have done nothing I would consider vandalism, as they have acted to silently improve the article... so I am simply wondering what the policy is in this instance. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 04:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, the editing is not disruptive to the encyclopedia or yourself, so I think proper etiquette is to just smile. Of course, it could be a banned or blocked editor, it could be the original author still trying to keep their baby alive, but again, if the edits are good, nod 'n a wink. Technically you have the authority to revert edits in your own user space, but you are preserving a BLP article, so you also have a responsibility to ensure the information is accurate - especially since your page is the fifth result on Google. You should probably {{noindex}} it or blank it, since technically we've decided it doesn't belong on the encyclopedia. You've had it there long enough, maybe it's time to give up and just copy it to your local disk until sufficient notability develops. Franamax (talk) 04:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

A new term! What is {{noindex}}?? MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 05:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

On a sidenote, I have had occasional email exchange with the original author over the last few months and he understands (now) what merits notability for inclusion. It seems our young Dominic is gaining (slowly) what might meet criteria. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 05:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

{{noindex}} means it won't be picked up by search engines. — BQZip01 —  00:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Notification of arbcom discussion

Your actions have been discussed here as relevant to an ongoing arbitration case. You may wish to comment. I have linked a prior version of the page because the person who added this material reverted it and then incorporated the material by reference to the reversion, so as to make it impossible for you simply to search for your name. (Hope that's not too confusing.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

"Committee of Experts"

You asked on the RfC talk page about what ever happened to the Committee of Experts. See WP:AEE. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)