User talk:LittleDan/Archive

see User talk:LittleDan for the main page

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Hi, LittleDan. Congratulations on becoming a sysop. It's a nice map you put on the Bougainville page, but I was wondering if we have permission to use it. With pictures like that from other websites, there may be problems of copyright. Do you know who owns the map? Danny 00:52 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Okay. I don't know what the rule is though. You may want to check with mav or brion or ed poor first though to make sure we can use it. Danny

Hi again. Someone answered you on Mav's page. Danny 01:48 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

some more on Mav's page. --mav 04:22 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

I'm impressed that a young man has knowledge of, and interest in, Jacquard looms. User:Black Widow

Please slow down a little -- the stuff you are doing with A, B, C really has too many typos...

What typos did I make? LittleDan

Just look at the Older version and see for yourself: Quote signs deleted and imbalanced, missing capitalization, not proper sentences. I don't mind that amount of typos if new and useful content is added, but for pure re-arrangements, any added value is lost. -- Egil 04:47 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

Hi LittleDan. Thanks for those quick links you put in for Leopards, Half Florins and Quarter Florins. I'll have to be quick to put more links in when I do Angels and Nobles (probably tomorrow!). :-) -- Arwel 01:30 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

Dont put links into titlesSusan Mason

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LittleDan, this is in response to your question about whether I copied the Felix the Cat article I sent in. The answer is no. I used Charles Solomon's The History of Animation and some webpages as sources, but everything is in my own words.

I apologize if I should have just replied to this on my own talk page and left it at that. I'm still a bit unfamiliar with the wiki interface!

Um, oh yeah. I should sign this: User talk:BrianSmithson

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θ in TeX: <math>\theta<math>

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Regarding 1 E{n} J pages, content comes next, right now I'm getting them all there so they can be followed in a chain without missing links. -- JohnOwens 23:44 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure. THese were bizarre because they had her living till 9000 AD. I guess it depends on the page. I didn't see the others. Danny

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Please do not vandalize capitalism.org again. Dietary Fiber

Dont forget to sign your name. The capitalism page is big enough as it is, all the quotes were official statements by capitalism.org and are thus related to that website. Dietary Fiber

I'd hardly call removing a huge list of contextless quotes "vandalism", though it would perhaps have been better to replace it with useful information. --Brion 07:36 Apr 5, 2003 (UTC)

Hm, the article is controversial, and 'capitalism.org' does not deserve more coverage simply for racing first to the DNS registry. That shows if anything that they have a bias to presenting it a certain way. It is not vandalism to remove a large number of quotes from one source, when there are so many perspectives to cover. EofT

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Hoom, LittleDan, the World Values Survey is interesting, but have you noticed, our attempts to survey value systems here get little participation. Perhaps you can change that? Else we run the risk of hasty decisions, very bad, hm, hoom, yes, very bad indeed. EofT

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Hi, regarding Open mapping theorem: this is indeed highly specialized and not very relevant to people other than graduate students in math or physics. However, I think all terms that appear in that article are defined or have a link to their definition. If not, let me know. Cheers, AxelBoldt 16:18 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

Please expand BB gun -- Zoe

Ahh, thankyou. You beat me to it, Dan. Tannin

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See my comment on Talk:Kalasin - I'm not sure if these disambiguation is needed. andy 21:02 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

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Dan, it's not spelled Hardon but Hadron :-) looxix 00:31 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

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In response to your Toki Pona language comment: Which Befunge interpreter are you using? -Lament

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Re: homeschooling, have you (or perhaps more importantly, your parents) read any books by John Holt? -- Stephen Gilbert 02:55 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

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Of course I am. Like a Virgin

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Please note that BMP images are not recommended for Wikipedia. The Image:Circumcenter.bmp that you uploaded is over 400 kilobyte in size! The PNG version at Image:Circumcenter.png is just over 2 kilobyte. The difference of Wikipedia load is considerable, as you might understand. -- Egil 04:35 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

And of course, BMP is a fairly strange format to use for someone who claims to hate Microsoft... :) Lament

Which ones, some that I have found have been very confusing and misleading. I've only tried to put in stuff clarifying what I already found to make it more accurate. If you give me a specific example I will try and look at it and get back to you. If you have specific comments about specific articles, please put it on the talk pages there. Alex756 23:31 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, the oldest meaning of estoppel has to do with a rule of evidence which, if you read the brief definition is included, but in the twentieth century it has taken on a much more important general meaning which is what I have tried to summarize here. You are right that it is too brief, but I just started it yesterday as I think anyone who has any background in the law will want to add something. Thanks for your comment Dan, I do want to try and make the Wikipedia readable and useful. Alex756 I've put an example in the article and tried to make it as simple (and accurate) as possible, let me know if it works for you. Thanks. Alex756

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Would you by any chance have Asperger's syndrome? Your interests are atypical (though this is a good thing).

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Zoe's allegation that I was adding inappropriate material to Lynne Thigpen is false. I really can't force you people to take the time to be reasonable and discuss your problems, but all edits are recorded and I think the evidence is quite clearly in support of me, it's a shame that that the wikipedia is so fond of sham trials, such is the legacy of totalitarianism. 172.172.13.108

You have email. 172.172.13.108

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Dan — I've gotten your message and I am quite flattered, but I have only been participating in Wikipeddia for a few weeks. I know that is not necessarily an indication of my ability to contribute but I am not quite sure what being a sysop will change in relation to my contributions. I looked at the mailing list and saw your nomination but I didn't see any negative comments on the list, were these things said off-list? If you could let me know the substance of the comments (you can email me if you don't want to post it on a User talk page) I'll try and check the archive to see if I've missed any postings since your nomination. I am not quite sure it I should accept the nomination or not. Alex756

That's funny about them worrying about discrimination, actually being a white male over 40 (and a lawyer) many people are worried about discriminating against me (not that I try to throw my weight around). I know there is a bit of a pecking order around here and I am perfectly happy to keep making contributions, I find it very relaxing compared to most of the stressful stuff I do in my life and I can fit it in around my busy schedule (except for those bouts of Wikiholism — but that's not for minors like you!) If I accept should I tell you or just post it on the list? I thought someone has to second the nomination for it really to be considered by the other sysops (maybe I should check the page on the Robert's Rules of Order)? — Alex756

Dan, I've thought it over and I'll accept your nomination. I see that it is not a big deal and that it will even help me work on some things (like some queries via SQL that can help find some stuff). I promise you I won't abuse or overuse any of the privileges and I look forward to continued contributing to Wikipedia, isn't it a great project! Alex756 19:00 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Did you take a look at Wikipedia:Database queries? It has some queries written out and a click through link to the query page for administrators. Alex756

Sorry Dan. I was half-way through popping a note about that here for you as a courtesy, when I got distracted and now Alex has beaten me to it. (You know Old Tannin: want to change the subject? Just wave something shiny and he forgets all about whatever he was thinking about a moment ago.) Tannin

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I'm not quite sure what the libel issue you want me to consider is? Do you mean the implications of someone libeling someone on a page? I think that because anyone can post anything here as long as reasonable steps are taken to remove it then how could Wikipedia be held responsible? If the administrators and developers ignore it and the person who is allegedly being libeled complains and no one removes it (and remember if someone is libeled, unless it is on a protected page they can at least remove it from the current version page, and then request to have the history deleted by a sysop). So I don't really see if there is much of a libel problem. But maybe I did not understand you question. Alex756

As far as the 'we' question, I think that even if Wikipedia is considered some kind of association (did you see my page on Meta-Wikipedia, I know it is confusing, tax law is, even to accountants!) the members can't really be held liable, just like a bulletin board the person posting the information is responsible. As far as getting sued, yes, anyone in the US can file a lawsuit (and they often do). Some say it is one of the great things about this country. Others say that it is one of the worst. (how is that for NPOV!) As far as who they would sue, it is probably Bomis Inc. as they own the domain name, of course, Bomis' lawyers would just say that they are not liable for postings on Wikipedia as there is little way to control it beyond having sysops delete the pages (which is probably what you guys are doing if someone does post some libelous stuff. When I get a chance I'll try and look at the mailing list archive and review the discussion. Was it on the general Wikipedia thing or on the english WikiEN-L). Alex756 07:25 16 May 2003 (UTC)

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I've found the Wikipedia:libel page and will try to read over it carefully. Thank's for the tip on the ampersands. I am assuming you are not talking about using them as special characters, but only in the actual text of a document thus you do not see <ampersand>copy; but © (the copyright symbol), this is what special characters seems to say. BTW, do you know how I can create a SM to look like the ™ mark (not the ® mark, that legally can only be used with registered trademarks)? Alex756

I get it now, it is not the ampersand but the mdash that I shouldn't use. I started using it when I saw someone else had used it, can I use the ndash? I looked on the spec char page again and it states: "commonly used and present in both Macintosh Roman and Windows code page 1252 character sets, are proper English quotation marks and dashes." What you are saying seems contrary to what is contained there, I thought it was o.k. to use these punctuation marks. Can you explain this descrepancy? Maybe you should change the spec. char page? Alex756

I'll go back to using the double dash, I just hate the overuse of parenthesis that I have seen here. Sometimes people put whole sentences in parenthesis, this is not good usage. sometimes the dashes work, but I though the long dashes would look better on the screen. I thought they were part of the default character set, thanks for setting me straight. Do you know how I can create a SM - for service mark - that looks like ™?Alex756

LittleDan did you see the note that tannin put about the EM and EN dash on my talk page ? Alex756 12:06 20 May 2003 (UTC)

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I merged Linux and GNU/Linux, which is your offer in wikimoney. If you still think the article needs more work, let me know. -- Taku 15:51 15 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the message. Sorry if you were in any way offended by what I had on my page. It was just me in editorialising mode! It happens just occasionally. I've been impressed by your work before I realised you were so young. Now I am deeply impressed. And you survived a savaging up above by Dietary Fiber, but then being savaged by Dietary Fiber is like discussing Aristotle with George W. Bush. It is a fun experience, but not for the reason they thought! Anyway, keep up the good work. ÉÍREman 02:18 16 May 2003 (UTC)

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Damn! you deleted Larry's text (in the Knowledge article) so easily! it took me endless debates over the WikiEN mailing-list to come to the conclusion it shouldn't be deleted :) (but I still think it should have been, though, thanks) --Rotem Dan 15:49 18 May 2003 (UTC)

That's exactly what I thought, thanks for being bold for me ;) --Rotem Dan 15:59 18 May 2003 (UTC)

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Hey, thanks for the edits to List of Emulators. Looks like the article is shaping up nicely. However, I'm thinking that a categorization by emulated system (Amiga/Atari/NES/etc.) would be a lot more concise. Emulators are ported to new platforms all the time, so I'm worried there'll be lots of duplication of info. Comment at Talk:List of Emulators. Thanks! -- Wapcaplet 17:55 22 May 2003 (UTC)

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Out of interest, since you are a Linux user, have you thought about getting into PHP and hacking on the Wikipedia code (http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net)? There's a lot of work to do, and we can always use fresh brainzzzzzzz ... It's quite easy to get into, really. ---Eloquence 23:00 26 May 2003 (UTC)

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Not, however, a stub by someone with a penchant for lies and misinformation. -- John Owens 22:33 31 May 2003 (UTC)

I could hardly have said it better than User:Ams80 did at User talk:KF. -- John Owens 23:01 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dan, please read what I have written on KF's talk page. If you decide to revert all the reversions that I have made then please check all the information is correct. Michael has a bad history of being not entirely accurate as many users will tell you. Good night -- Ams80 23:05 31 May 2003 (UTC)

For instance, he added The Rescuers and The Spy Who Loved Me to 1978 in film, and Grease (film) to 1977 in film. While not a completely authoritative source, IMDB (http://www.imdb.com) puts Grease in 1978, and The Rescuers and The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. If you're going to start reverting his edits, you should be prepared to fact-check each and every datum in there, like the 1978 date also given to The Rescuers in The Rescuers Down Under. -- John Owens 23:16 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Shoot, even The Rescuers article at least had the right 1977 date on it. You've been had. -- John Owens 23:20 31 May 2003 (UTC)

I guess my sources must be wrong. -- well in all seriousness Dan, what are your sources? I cannot find a single site on the internet with 78 as a release date and I find it hard to believe that a book with the information in would be wrong, it's not really the kind of mistake published works make. If you unrevert removal of Michael's work please, please, please check each and every fact. Even if 90% of what he adds is correct the other 10% seriously damages Wikipedia. If I choose to look something up on Wikipedia then I want the information I find to be as accurate as possible. If I get the impression that Michael's additions to film and music are being kept just because they 'look OK' then my faith in the film and music sections will be all but gone. I've just written a quite extensive email to the mailing list about this. The main point was that Michael has outstayed his welcome (indeed is banned) and it is the responsibility of no one here to in effect babysit him. I strongly believe in this project and want it to be as accurate as possible, Michael is not accurate and in my opinion it is better to reduce our content by removing his additions than to let the place grow with incorrect information embedded in it. With this in mind I am certainly not just going to leave his additions if I don't have time to check them and assume that someone else will check them for me, there are lots of pages here which don't get changed for months and I am not going to risk leaving Michael's rubbish festering here. -- Ams80 09:40 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

With regard to Karl Rove, I listen often to Book TV (http://www.booktv.org) and put books featured there into Wikipedia articles; in some cases where no article exists. Fred Bauder 15:42 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't support the Wikipedia policy on stubs. A tiny bit is much better than nothing. A wonderful article could be written by someone who checks that book out and reads it. My addition to the article is like planting a seed. Fred Bauder 15:54 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Quit fooling around chatting and get onto Book TV (http://www.booktv.org) (C-Span II) and catch the last half of Noam Chomsky's interview ;

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From Wikipedia:Votes for deletion:

you're right, but I don't approve of your signature, it's just stupid. LittleDan

Please don't be mean to Antonio. -- Oliver P. 01:36 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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For the record, the word you removed from the South Park article was "irreverent", not "irrelevant". Something that is irreverent is sort of a disrespectful satire, which South Park certainly is. I think it's a bit redundant since the article states the show as "bawdy" and "satirical" (among several other things) so I have no problem with the omission. Just wanted you to know it wasn't the word you thought. -- goatasaur

You think the article is POV against South Park? I'm a fan of the show, and I honestly can't see any cause for complaint. -- goatasaur

Hi LD. Thanks for inserting the Republic of Ireland temp page. We have a problem there. Some months ago a user called Scipius got involved in a nasty edit war there when he tried to ignore the consensus on the page and bulldoze his version on to the page. (For example, he insisted that the page be called 'Ireland' not the 'Republic of Ireland' even though there was agreement that it should be called the R of I.) Now he is back again, trying to change an agreed version of the page to the one he wants, even though his version is littered with inaccuracies, blatently wrong facts, simplicities that completely mispresent the facts, etc. The more people tell him to stop the better, before another full scale edit war erupts, with him ignoring everyone else and going ahead with his rewrite anyway to a version he wants but which every Irish person tells him is wrong. wikilove. FearÉIREANN 03:20 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. If you think prostration or prostrate can be turned into an encyclopaedic article, then do so. Otherwise a one sentence defintion of what the word means is not a suitable article for wikipedia. Mintguy

Prostration was only linked as a redirect by prostrate, and the only thing linking to prostrate was satan. As I stated above, if you can write an encyclopaedic article under prostrate that shouldn't be listed under something else then go ahead and write it. I'd be interested to know what subjects you intend to cover on this page. Simple definitions of what a word means are not suitable for Wikipedia. Mintguy

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Hello User:LittleDan. Like you suggested I got a username, mainly because I wanted to upload an image to an article. Taking credit for contributions doesn't interest me, I don't really understand why it would:)
You may like to know more about what causes asperger's syndrome, basically it is from mercury exposure, mercury being the 2nd most toxic element to humans. Thimerosol, which they have put in immunisations for babies as a preservative since the 1930s, contains alot of mercury, as does fish (pollution) and some dental fillings (mercury in the mother can be passed to the child). Since it gives babies about several thousand times more exposure to mercury that they're meant to receive, those at the end of the spectrum who have more difficult in processing the mercury end up with a higher exposure, that meaning the production of a certain neuroprotein is further deminished (if my memory serves me right), leading to the autistic brain. There can be causes other than mercury, but they're rare. The symptomlist of mercury and autism overlap nearly perfectly. Mercury also affects the body's production of the things required for proper dietary mineral absorbsion, which is probably why autistics usually are deficient in zinc, which also elevates levels of copper. Zinc deficiency is very bad for the body and has negative neuropsychological effects, as does excess copper. If you've ever wondered why so many programmers have got glasses, you know now why.
I know about this because I've had minor asperger's syndrome myself, and mercury poisoning with the accompanying difficulties in being mineral deficient. It'd be worth your while researching up thoroughly on all this, there is plenty to find on google. One forewarning: never ever get amalgam fillings, and don't eat tuna, they will ruin your health (an interesting thing is that electromagnetic discharges from CRT monitors increase the release of mercury from amalgam fillings, this is probably why women who worked in front of computers before monitors got proper radiation shielding in the mid 1990s had a 1/3rd increased incidence of having offspring with birthdefects, yes now I am rambling). You wouldn't believe all the things that have got mercury in them (hair dyes, fabric softeners, fugicides, pesticides etc).
But don't get too worried, it isn't as bad as it sounds.
PS I have no idea how to sign a comment

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Hi there Daniel. I see you have moved the content from the /temp of the article on Turkey to the article itself, and likewise for the UAE. Could I ask you to please not do that? In particular the Turkish one was very much incomplete and inaccurate in places. I have now completed that one and I will do likewise for the UAE article, but would please not move the /temp pages when they do not yet resemble the finished pages? You also did so with the RoI page, despite the fact that its many inconsistencies had been pointed out by Jeronimo (and don't place too much credit in JTD's theatrics above ;)). You've signed up for the WikiProject, so why not try to edit and complete the /temp pages yourself before you move them over? Thanks. -Scipius 21:17 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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I know I shouldn't have done this, but I couldn't help myself. MB

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That was an interesting piece you wrote about eventualism v. immediatism on the sandbox page, buy why didn't you post it on the meta? I agree with what you've written there, but you left out a third position. Let's call it constructivism. With a constructivist attitude, instead of merely blanking or ignoring a page, one fixes it. That's what I usually do, unless it is one of those "hdfyhxhnjrhgk" type pages that come up so often. LittleDan 00:49 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Belated reply... it was just an idle piece of whimsy, really. Not something I'd want to sign my name to in seriousness... but if you want to grab a copy and totally edit it and post it somewhere, then go ahead. :) Martin 21:04, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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Regarding annonymous copyright, well it is possible to have anonymous or pseudononymous copyright. Copyright is created when fixation occurs, thus in a wiki space when someone is typing into the edit window the moment the key is released copyright is created, of course until the "save page" button is pressed it could be lost, but that is a question of reconstruction. If someone wants to keep their identity from others hidden, that is perfectly within the ambit of international copyright norms and the copyright laws of all the countries that follow the Berne Convention. I am not sure why you would want to take someone's copyright away under a GNU Free Documentation License, that should be enough of a license to allow people to reuse the material - maybe you can clarify the underlying reason for wanting to take it away, doing so seems to me to be contrary to the philosophy of the open copyright movement, maybe I don't understand the question. Alex756 17:07, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If someone appears only in public as an anon. person (with their address, of course) the proper approach IMLO would be to list them with any identifying information and link it to their Wikipedia User page. That is, after all, how they have decided to be identified, to the extent they want to be identified. Saying it belongs to Wikipedia (or Wikimedia) would be a material mistatement of fact and would, in fact, be a violation of the GNU license, even if they granted other licenses to Wikimedia. Only with a fulll grant of copyright (as in Jimmy Wale's grant of June 20, 3003) would Wikimedia be able to say that it holds full copyright (their is also a question of moral rights, if the work originated in a moral rights jurisdiction, so even then attribution may be preserved with a full grant of the economic rights only). I would see nothing wrong in linking to the Wikipedia page and stating that author attribution can be verified by reference to the associated history pages, no? That seems simple to me and the reference includes all previous authors in the Wikipedia space. Alex756 03:00, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I've responded to the last few comments on my talk page on my talk page. Alex756 23:35, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you about the GNU FDL, it is not the greatest way to openly license content that is not technical. It was really written for software manuals and I was even wondering if someone puts something into Wikipedia and states that it is an invariant section is Wikipedia bound by that and must Wikipedia not modify it? If there has been a discussion about this somewhere please let me know, it would seem that Wikipedia is accepting the terms of the GNU FDL for material posted on any WIkipedia space, though I haven't thought about it a lot, perhaps there is something I don't quite understand about it since Wikipedia does not own the copyright of the underlying contributions (unlike GNU which demands ownership of all contributions, Jimbo has only suggested it here).

If anyone asked me I would come up with a much simipler and straightforward open content copyright license that incorporated copyleft thinking, i.e.

All contributors hereby grant Wikimedia Foundation Inc. a non-exclusive license in perpetuity to allow this material to be freely modified, republished or redistributed. All contributors grant an non-exclusive license to any and all third parties to allow this material to be freely modified, republished or redistributed on the specific conditions that (1) such third parties acknowledge that the material comes from Wikipedia (or another Wikimedia Foundation project if applicable) and (2) allow the material to be freely copied or adapted under terms similar to this license. In order to apply the license retroactively you would need something like this included: This license has been approved by the Free Software Foundation as a successor version to the GNU FDL version 1.2 but only as applying to materials posted on any or all Wikimedia Foundation projects from the beginning of time until the adoption of this license by Wikimedia Foundation Inc. as the default licensing scheme of all its projects. The contributor agrees that the license hereunder may be modified by Wikimedia Foundation Inc. as long as any modification is less restrictive (i.e. allows for more copying and redistribution) that granted herein.

-- Alex756 01:12, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It is vague LtlDan, but that is to allow relicensing under similar circumstances. I doubt if that will prevent anyone from relicensing, but some will say that it might be too vague and thus prevent anyone from relicensing. I wonder how much relicensing actually goes on, most people will just come back to Wikipedia and use the content they find here and readapt it to their use, don't you think? Certainly similar includes a license that is identical to the license stated above. A modified license might be more liberal and thus similar, but a more restrictive license would not be similar. It is, of course, open to interpretation, but then practically all relicensing schemes are subject to interpretation. As far as contacting FSF, maybe you should leave that to the board of Wikimedia Foundation once they get going, they may not agree with me or you don't you think? Alex756 01:52, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How about asking FSF if they will allow Wikipedia to have a special version of the GDU FDL that can be an update to ver. 1.2 that Wikipedia is currently using that will only apply to Wikipedia and will make it easier to use Wikimedia materials without some of the documentation type limitations found in their licenses. If they say yes, then maybe we can have a more general discussion about it and get more input on exactly how far people want the license to go, we can make it as specific as we want. Alex756 02:06, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Woah!
Main Page/Temp4 is deprecated in favour of Main Page/Temp5
Also, earlier votes were on a work-in-progress - I want a specific new vote to switch over to the new version, lest anyone challenge the democratic legitimacy of the change and we get another edit war.
-Martin ("dynamic content" fan)

You can use __NOTOC__ to prevent a table of contents appearing. Angela 16:58, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Main Page

LDan - the "vote" for the layout design of the Main Page is fatally flawed and meaningless; the vote went on as different options were added and dramatically changed and there was a great deal of confusion over what the term "new design" meant. We need to have a contest for the design akin to how the logo contest is being held. That way designers have a good deal of time to submit their ideas and refine them before a carefully run and fair vote. --mav 19:01, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)