User talk:SebastianHelm

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Contents

1 Old Talk 2 Replies 3 Bouton/Seattle 4 Animals and Animalia 5 Exxon Valdez oil spill 6 Redirect Deletion 7 Re: Special Characters 8 Liigagria 9 Pinyin 10 protected user page 11 Re: Please don't start a Revert War! 12 Swing Kids 13 Pearls Before Swine 14 Automagic popup 15 Wrong characters in link 16 avoiding distractions 17 Sig 18 Naming conventions (Chinese) 19 Asian American 20 Yellow Peril 21 14,000 years ago is not 14,000 BC 22 Doctl docs 23 VfD 24 Vole teeth 25 "Sebastian" 26 templates in sigs 27 Thanks from Dralwik 28 categories for dimensionless numbers 29 Paul's nomination 30 RFA 31 Articles needing images 32 Cat speedy 33 Worries about speedies 34 My Rfa 35 Burke and Wills 36 Deleted template? Sorry! 37 :) 38 TOC "screws up" rest of the RfA?

Old Talk

See /archive for talk before 2005.

Replies

Users who replied on their talk page to a question of mine.

Bouton/Seattle

Not sure whether the Bouton book should or should not be at Seattle, Washington: it is about playing for the one and only season of the Seattle Pilots pro baseball team... -- Jmabel | Talk 02:20, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your question. I deleted it for the following reasons: If it is placed in the general "further reading" section then I assume that many users, like me, would expect this to be either generally about Seattle or about a topic which isn't covered elsewhere in the article. This is misleading if the description of the book is correct which only mentions baseball. It is already mentioned in the sport section. Sebastian 08:39, 2005 Jan 23 (UTC)

Animals and Animalia

Hey Sebastian, thanks for your e-mail. I think I can understand that creationists could be offended at being categorized with other animals, though I strongly disagree with excluding humans from the animal category, of course. Having two separate articles is an interesting idea; although I would suggest "animal" and "animal (nonhuman)" or something. The biggest problem I see is what kind of information would go in the "animal (nonhuman)" article? What can be said about animals that does not apply to humans as well? In fact, how does one define animal so that humans are not included? Merriam-Webster's second definition ([1] (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=Animal&x=0&y=0)) states "one of the lower animals as distinguished from human"; it is difficult for me to see how one could construct a definition of nonhuman animals without specifically directly or indirectly excluding humans ("all life-forms that move but cannot speak in words unless they are parrots"?). Having a separate section or article on nonhuman animals to appease the creationists might not be a bad idea—just that I can't imagine what someone would write in there, other than ("And at 6 a.m., God created the donkey, and at 6:05, the elephant, then at 6:08, the hippopatomus" and so on. (I don't mean to offend—I'm actually rather religious, but I don't feel the need to inflict my religious views on others or try to modify science). — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 08:08, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the word "animal" itself has been around long before biologists appropriated the word. People have used it to refer to their lifestock and other animals around them before biology even existed - and the term always excluded humans (as well as sponges).* Even though I like your definition, it doesn't have to be so complicated - "nonhuman animal" as you proposed, suffices. Paraphyletic groups, although discouraged, do not break biology!

There are certainly still uses for the traditional animal category. Ethics, law, art, communication, breeding and use as a food source are areas that fundamentally distinguish animals from humans, just to name a few.

As for the names for the articles, I see the following possible counterparts:

animal	animal (nonhuman)
animal (biology)	animal (non-biological)
animal (scientific)	animal (unscientific)
animalia	animals

Footnote:
* Interestingly though, if people back then, who were in general more deeply religious, had been as offended as today then Linnaeus, who grew up in a clerical family, would probably have named the kingdom differently. Could it be that Christians were more humble back then? Linnaeus even classified Chimpanzees under the genus Homo. Just imagine what hatred he would earn from the advocates of self-importance of our time!

Sebastian 10:10, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

Apologies for my late reply (I normally watch talk pages I've edited, but must have missed yours—it's on my watchlist now though). Thanks for the comment; you brought up a number of good points I hadn't considered. You're right of course that animal didn't always have a biological definition. However, since defining animal in this original (?) sense seems to me to involve defining animals as a whole and then excluding humans, I would still feel that Animal should refer to the biological concept—especially since I feel that's what people would expect. Of course, I also have a bias towards science as I've mentioned earlier, but I hope that's not clouding my judgment. I think you've convinced me that a good article could be written on nonhuman animals, and how humans relate with them. Domestication of horses was integral in early human history, and that of wolves/dogs has been a very important part of human society. Also, as you mention, food sources, animal testing, preservation, and so on could make for a very interesting article, and none of these seem to be addressed in the current article. I personally lean towards Animal and Animal (nonhuman), as that seems to reflect their definitions best. I would expect to see the scientific content at Animal, and Animal (nonhuman) would clearly be about nonhuman animals. I'm not too crazy about Animal (unscientific) as it could be interpreted as a slight towards that definition. Also, I do not think it would be clear that Animal (non-biological) or Animal (unscientific) would be about nonhuman animals just from their titles (although that is not the sole factor). Anyway, the big problem is that while I think this is a good idea, I am not sure how much I would be able to contribute to the actual article, since it is somewhat out of my field of knowledge. But I would love to help work on it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:33, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Of course, as you pointed out, the articles seemed to have been merged in the past, so we'd want to discuss this at Talk:Animal before proceeding. Or perhaps even starting a new section (Nonhuman animals) within the Animal article, then splitting it off when it becomes well-developed enough. Regarding your footnote, I am not sure what to make of that. Certainly, I sometimes have trouble understanding the nature of the offense—I suppose one has to think he is quite superior to something else to take offense at being included in the same group. I do think people were more humble then, but self-importance has been taking off lately. It may not solely religious, although that is probably a big part of it. In general I think humans (whether or not they believe in evolution) tend to see themselves as the "best" species on the planet, as the end-product of evolution, the state it's been trying to reach for the past 4 billion years. But as you point out, I am not sure why this would be stronger now. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:40, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! No need to apologize. This isn't urgent; we all do this as a hobby. I'm glad we agree with both word pairs. I don't like the other two either, on second thought. The advantage I see in "animals" over "animal (nonhuman)" is that it may be a bit easier to accept for the creationists - but that's just a baseless assumption.

If I may be open; I do think you have a slight bias for science in this case. What people expect depends on context; on an article about the science of animal husbandry, called animal science, they would expect "animal (nonhuman)". The disadvantage of a section of its own is that you can't start the article with a clear biological definition. You would have to say: "Some - the biologists - understand the term animal to mean such and such. Others say such and such." Or else, your special section doesn't make sense in the article. Either way, I don't think you would need to contribute to such a section or article - that's the task of the creationists. Let them show the value of their view!
Sebastian 07:16, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

Exxon Valdez oil spill

Sorry, I'm not actually a set of geniuses or even one genius.

I'm new to wikiing, so I hope this is the right way to respond to your message. The previous version of the Valdez article said it was the largest spill in the history of the US (and linked to "history of the US". There seems to be great confusion among Americans as to the scale of Valdez vs. other spills. We have a way of equating US=World in the back of our minds.

I'm glad you called me out on this point. I should have researched this fact and determined exactly how many or which spills were larger than Valdez. I have a document from 1992 which indicates 3 or 4 spills of higher volume (several Gulf of Mexico spills occurred, one I know flowed into US territorial waters). I believe that only Wikipedia can objectively cover topics such as this: energy companies won't advertize spill information, and environmental lobbies want to pretend each new spill is the worst ever.

User:NeonGeniuses 02:07, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

Sure, this is certainly a good way to respond. It has the advantage that I get a notification on top of my browser window. I prefer to respond directly below the original contribution, but that's a matter of taste.

The oil spill page lists a few other big ones, and none of the ones in USA have an indication of size or a link. So my guess is that the Exxon Valdez oil spill was either the biggest or the most destructive one. Are the spills your video names in that list?

You are making a good point that WP does actually have advantages for finding out the truth - as long as one goes beyond the momentary content of an article. Of course, such articles tend to attract partisan editors, but I find it exciting that the majority really have the best intentions.

As to the article, I see four ways to deal with it:

1. Ideally: If you have the time to do the research - great! You can help improve the article.
2. Leave it as is. I personally don't like it because it raises the question "which one was bigger".
3. Use weasel words like "one of the biggest". That's actually discouraged Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms.
4. Experiment: Put "the biggest" back, and add a comment on the talk page that you're not sure. Eventually someone who knows the facts may take the bait and edit the article.

Sebastian 03:59, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

I made the Exxon Valdez oil spill article a bit more concrete by saying that several American spills were larger in volume. I wrote the oil spill list a week ago from my sources that include estimated spillage data. I ordered the second list of "notable spills" according to volume of oil discharged. I neglected to put in quantitative data until I could make a piped table of what, where, and how much. However, there are scores of major oil spills in the last 40 years. Perhaps the Soviet Union has had some tremendous oil disasters my 1992 source wouldn't mention. It's really beyond the scope of the oil spill article and ought to be a new list of oil spills. No one source has compiled worldwide oil spills and tried to rank them against each other. Different sources have different estimates that may employ units of mass (tons, tonnes) or volume (barrels or gallons)). Crude and other types of oil have unique specific volumes, so it's not always easy to compare them.

I would like to improve my oil spill article as soon as I can. I appreciate your input in what is appropriate on WP and maybe how I should go about this effort.

NeonGeniuses 07:38, 2005 Mar 3

There are several spills that are larger than the Valdez. In the American energy industry it is generally agreed that the Ixtoc I blowout is the largest unintentional oil spill in history. It occurred just beyong American waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, I do not have time to dig up some references I have from conferences. --Csnewton 15:14, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Redirect Deletion

Hello. I wanted to let you know I reverted Aggridant to a redirect. It doesn't qualify as a CSD per WP:CSD#Redirects. If you really believe it needs to be deleted, you can list it at Redirects for deletion. Thank you, and happy editing! SWAdair | Talk 11:09, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, makes sense!
#REDIRECT this discussion to Wikipedia_talk:Redirects_for_deletion#When_should_we_delete_a_redirect.3F

Re: Special Characters

User talk:SebastianHelm/original Hello Szyslak! Your signature displays with two boxes, which I assume are special characters my computer can't display. What are they? Do you know which font can display them? Thanks! Sebastian 09:47, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC) </div>

Since I'm a geeky linguistics major, I wrote my sig as an IPA transcription: a small capital "I" that represents the English "short I" sound, an a-e double ligature (or "ash") for the English "short A" and, at the end, the IPA symbol for an unreleased sound. (That links to my talk page, as a kind of variation on the period at the end of Angela and Pakaran's sigs.) Any Unicode font should be able to display the characters. I've found special symbols usually show up best on Mac browsers and Firefox. Sadly, I might have to go back to a more conventional signature; a lot of browsers and computers can't handle IPA characters. It's great to see that there are people paying attention to my attempt at creativity, though :-) /sɪzlæk˺/ 00:44, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! If you like, pls feel free to move this part of our conversation to the first part on your talk page, where it can satisfy others' curiousity, too.
Sebastian 04:29, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

I just changed my sig so it uses Template:IPA to display the IPA characters. That should make the characters show up correctly on most browsers, thus satisfying the curiosity of all those who've just been seeing boxes where my sig should be. I'm also just about to put up a note about my sig on my user page. Let's see if it works... // 07:53, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Liigagria

User talk:SebastianHelm/original Sorry to bother you about with such a silly request. But it looks like that article was one of the rare gems among all that nonsense. Unfortunately, the pictures are gone now. Any way to get them back? Sebastian 09:13, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC) </div>

The pictures were deleted because we could not verify that we had the copyright rights to use them. That is a valid concern, so if we want them back then we need to argue that we had that right first. If we did so, I don't know how we could get them back, as unlike text images are permanently deleted. But they were funny :). Thue | talk 09:49, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pinyin

Reference

There's no real difference between w&eacute;ny&aacute;n and wényán, I'm just a stickler for consistency. :) It's also slightly easier to read too. And yes, you really are the third person to talk to me (not counting that other guy who vandalized my page yesterday)... the reason is probably because I'm relatively new here, and only started contributing last month. I edited one article and then I was hooked. :) --Umofomia 07:41, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I like the new tables you've added to the Vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese pages. Are you going to start placing them in other Chinese related articles? Perhaps you should bring up their usage in Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (China-related_articles) and get everyone else to start doing it. It seems so much cleaner than having the characters and romanization in parentheses. --Umofomia 08:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your encouragement! I'll do that! Sebastian 19:55, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

protected user page

Hi. Thanks for your note -- I'll consider your suggestion. Deb 21:45, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re: Please don't start a Revert War!

Reference

Hi... please don't take that last revert as an offense, as that was surely not my intent. I performed the revert because I felt it was justified and stated the reason I did so. Reverting is not just for vandals and I don't think anyone should be afraid of performing a revert if they feel it is sufficiently justified by Wikipedia standards. One revert does not make a revert war and am glad you approached me about it rather than reverting it back yourself.

Anyway, I was under the impression that Wikipedia talk pages should proceed vertically, as that is one of the guidelines listed on Wikipedia:Talk page. However, after re-reading that page again, I now see that it does give reasons under which talk page refactoring can occur and I now agree with you and will revert my revert. I do hope you understand my true intent when I did that first revert because I find it difficult to follow conversations when new posts are buried in the middle of talk pages. However, since many of those conversations are now dead, it's probably safe to do the refactoring now.

No hard feelings? --Umofomia 01:47, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your nice reply! It's one of the beauties of wiki wiki webs that no harm is permanent. I agree that no one should be afraid to perform well-intended edits, but I think this goes both ways. If someone tried to fix one problem by introducing another, I talk to them first, and suddenly both problems become our common enemy. Anyway – absolutely no hard feelings remaining! I'm looking forward to more collaboration with you in the future! Sebastian 02:50, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

[Regarding the note you left on my talk page]: Yep, I saw your reply. I've been away for the past several days so I haven't had the chance to reply to everyone. If you want, feel free to consolidate the thread on your own talk page, though I like to keep the version on my talk page the way it is currently. --Umofomia 07:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Swing Kids

Thank you for the hard and nice work you have done there ! Rama 10:17, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pearls Before Swine

User talk:SebastianHelm/original I just wrote I'd ask before I reverted someone's well-meant edits, and then I deleted the reference to Dorothy Parker on Pearls Before Swine. If you feel it is noteworthy feel free to reinsert it, but please write on her page what's special about her using it. — Sebastian 03:39, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC) </div>

The story goes that Dorothy Parker and Clare Booth Luce were entering a building. Both women were famous for their vicious insults; Clare stayed behind and as Dorothy entered the building first, she stated "Age before beauty." Dorothy Parker kept walking in, and immediately retorted "Pearls before swine." The quote is often used to demonstrate Parker's uncommonly quick wit. The quote was originally on the Dorothy Parker article, but it has now been moved to wikiquote here (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker). I'm not really sure it needs to be mentioned in the Pearls Before Swine article, but the quote is quite famous, so I could go either way on it. In either case, that's why it was added to the article, whether or not it should stay is anybody's guess. Cheers, DropDeadGorgias (talk) 16:21, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! I added it back and moved the discussion to Talk:Pearls_Before_Swine. — Sebastian 05:13, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

Automagic popup

Leave your mouse over "automagically" for a couple of seconds and it should appear. (I don't recall for sure, but you may have to have Java enabled for it to work.) Noel (talk) 13:03, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wrong characters in link

(This was about the Conflict/Good faith page.)

Hi! Sebastian, Umm , What wrong pages?--Jondel 11:35, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• The names do not appear with the correct characters on my computer anymore, and the new, changed names link to messages that apparently say in the respective languages: Page not found — Sebastian 11:48, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

Ok. You're the second person today to mention something wrong with my browser. Time for me to take a break.--Jondel 12:10, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

avoiding distractions

The term biped forms - like most English words - the plural by adding "s". Someone (who presumably wasn't aware we can create links like "bipeds") created a page bipeds. This page was listed on User:Nickj/Redirects/redirects-066.txt as requiring attention. To avoid this sort of distraction, wouldn't it be good if we deleted all such pages?

No. The way to avoid distraction is to have a redirect from bipeds to biped; that way anyone who tries to create a page called bipeds will find the biped page. If there's no such redirect page, it will happen again! Michael Hardy 01:00, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sig

Thank you for the kind words! Feel free to adapt to my signature style any way you like. --Merovingian (t) (c) 05:32, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I am trying it out now. It looks nice, but it does add a lot of characters to the text. A pity that it's not possible to use templates. — Sebastian (T) 07:43, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

Naming conventions (Chinese)

Regarding your comment at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/NPOV " I guess I'm still confused. I still don't know if the naming convention has been decided. Either way, it seems, if it's still open for discussion or already decided, I don't see why we're voting on the conversion. If open, then we should either wait till it's closed or present a complete case with the consequences. If decided, then i don't see why we should vote about implementing it. User:SebastianHelm/sig-t 19:18, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC) </font>"

The naming conventions have been decided since last year. Some people do not agree with it, and attempted to revised it early this year, but there was no consensus to change it.

Under normal circumstances retitling according to naming conventions does not require polling. But under this case as some users thought that each case is different, and therefore we have agreed to assess the applicability of the naming conventions to each of the cases.

By the way, this matter is now relevant to a nomination on WP:RFAr, and I will have to refrain from the pages in contention. — Instantnood 22:38, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

User:SebastianHelm/pilcrow Thanks for your reply. I looked through the archive of Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese), but I couldn't find the vote. Could you please provide me with a link to it? Thanks! —User:SebastianHelm/sig0 User:SebastianHelm/dusttail 00:32, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC) </font>

Asian American

• Thank you for taking care of this article. Re the link to Wing Luke Asian Museum: I agree that it probably shouldn't be linked directly from this page. But my question is: You wrote that it can be accessed by category. Now call me stupid – i've been on Wikipedia for quite a while, but i don't see a straightforward way to get there (other than the detour over Category: U.S. ethnic groups, which is not intuitive for someone who would want to find this museum). Am i overlooking something? Are you aware of a category (or overarching article) that might fit? User:SebastianHelm/sig 09:07, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC) </font>

Hi Sebastian. I think an Asian-American-related topics category will be useful for these kinds of things. I created one, but the category link to it on the Wing Luke page currently links to editing the category page, even though it already has content. I'm not sure why the software is doing this, and it seems inconsistent with the category link's normal functioning on the Asian-american page. If it doesn't fix itself I'll ask for help at the help desk. Best, --Nectarflowed ^(talk) 10:43, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)Nectarflowed

It works fine for me now. Apparently this was just a caching problem. Thank you! — User:SebastianHelm/sig0 18:04, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC) </font>

Yellow Peril

(moved to Talk: Asian American — Link to Yellow Peril?)

14,000 years ago is not 14,000 BC

Regarding 14th millennium BC, the article Hovenweep National Monument states that "Paleo-Indians searched for big game throughout the Hovenweep country as early as 14,000 years ago". That's not 14,000 BC. Brunnock 02:16, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks – i'll correct it. User:SebastianHelm/sig0 User:SebastianHelm/dusttail 02:41, 2005 Apr 24 (UTC) </font>

Doctl docs

Just about to jump salty all over you -- WP is not paper, your edit sucks, blah blah blah. I'm really on edge lately. I looked, and I have to agree with you that a concrete example is not most helpful on Wikipedia:Template messages/General. On the other hand, an example is wanted on Template talk:Doctl. That documentation was created with an early version of {doctl}, which did not include an Example section, because I hadn't thought of it yet -- too much background noise in my head, I guess.

That said, the example needs improvement -- it should be an actual example, not just an inclusion of the template contents. On the other hand, the template's own documentation is an example (!) Anyway, my jock is chafing. Sorry if my finger stinks. You're headed in the right direction. Thank you. — Xiong熊talk 17:40, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

User talk:Alphax/20050427-02

VfD

Hi there! Regarding your questions on VfD, 1. Coming from Wikipedia:Template_messages/Deletion, i simply inserted the template. I wasn't aware that i had to read the footer section first. So maybe that page should be adapted to the new process.

• If you think it's unclear, you are welcome to clarify it. Be bold and change it :)
  • I know – that's what i usually do. I am not timid or lazy when something is dear to my heart. However, this is a different situation. Since i am new to this process, it feels a lot like bureaucracy, something i wouldn't want to exacerbate. Normally, i would just comply and move on. But i respect your efforts, and i am aware that you probably have good reasons for requiring that it be followed by the letter. So i wrote this, because i believe that feedback can be a gift that empowers anyone who tries to be good. — Sebastian (talk) 04:36, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

2. When I finally found the footer, i was really impressed with the nice layout. The technical description is well done. However, i think the process could be much easier. It requires several repeated, detailed actions. Couldn't this be avoided? 1. Could page name come from the template, which could take it from the original page?

• Not really, because the template doesn't know what page you came from. What we'd need is a macro for that, but current software doesn't support macros. It really isn't that much work though.
  • I just looked it up on m:Template: What i had in mind was thought the variable {{PAGENAME}}. Sebastian (talk) 04:36, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

2. If the template contained a link to a (already existing?) "VfD" category, wouldn't that eliminate all of step III?

• No, because the category doesn't list things by day. People want to be able to check, daily, what is newly VfD'ed.
  • Hmm, is there really no way to display this in something like "Related Changes"? Sebastian (talk) 04:36, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

3. Why is it necessary to create a new page in step II? Couldn't we just use the article's talk page?

• Because the talk page is also used for other things, and we don't want to confuse them. VfD is a short process and should be over in a week; after that, we want it archived and not bogging down the talk page. Conversely, VfD voters shouldn't have to read through the entire talk page to find the VfD process.
  • I see. Now i personally prefer to give people a little leeway by saying something like: "When necessary, such as when there already are sizeable unrelated discussions." But as i said, i do respect your efforts and have no intention to complicate things for you through a prolonged discussion. — Sebastian (talk) 04:36, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

HTH. Yours, Radiant_* 15:06, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Vole teeth

Happy to help. And thank you for the compliment. --Aranae 05:01, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

"Sebastian"

Sebastian is my middle name. Just out of curiosity, where did you make the connection with "LightningRod"? I'm not trying to evade a connection, but I am looking to die-off that handle at some point, and reemerge with something closer to my real name. Currently I'm a bit divided among a number of projects, under a number of otherwise separate wikis. I'm looking to build a convergence, and launch back into the encyclopedia, or at least highlight its existence to the wikipedian community at large. TTLightningRod

This is the way you introduced yourself at Wikipedia:New_user_log/April_2005#Erin_Sebastian. I hope you'll enjoy contributing and wish you good luck with your projects! — Sebastian (talk) 05:58, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

That's right... Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know if others actually looked at what was written there. Looking for a better word than "Janis" to express my point, some spelling and punc too. I'll edit it some time. I should have more info about the names, handles, and project convergence up on the LightningRod page soon. Take care, TTLightningRod 18:05, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

templates in sigs

I made a post on that talk page (Wikipedia talk:Sign your posts on talk pages#templates in sigs) which explains it. I'm not a developer, so I can give "hard numbers", but consider this. If, by reading the post I mentioned and the associated links, you acknowledge that there is any server/database "cost" to your template signature.... can't you agree that any cost is not worth it for such a thing as a signature? The cost is bigger than you'd first think, but I'd think that any cost would make a templated signature unnattractive and unnecessary. -- Netoholic @ 06:35, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt and to the point reply. I agree that there likely is some server cost. This is a valid argument right now since we are currently experiencing a server shortage. (Which is also why i'm refraining from using such a "vanity" sig for now.)

Once we got the new servers, we should reevaluate this statement. There are benefits, too. In some discussion (not on the above page), other users presented arguments for vanity sigs that convinced me, such as that it's good for Wikipedia if people identify with their contributions. I, for one, think Wikipedia gains more if i use a nice sig than it looses.

But i know how it feels if one restrains oneself for the sake of the community only to find that others, who don't restrain themselves, get all the glory. Flashy advertizement doesn't guarantee a good product. I have an idea: How about if we had a policy that everybody who uses a vanity sig had to pay a reasonable amount, say $50, to the Wiki foundation? I think this could be done without much administration. That would allay "sig envy", and it would help Wikipedia. — Sebastian (talk) 07:26, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

ACtually, one can be very creative with their signature in other, less obtrusive ways. The only reason someone would use a template for a signature is so that in the future they can change its appearance in all locations at once. I fail to see how that is very important at all. Once you've signed something, that siganture shouldn't be open for change. -- Netoholic @ 15:28, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

Thanks from Dralwik

Thanks for the help at the Help Desk. About "use sparingly", that's the only template I'll make, at least for the foreseeable future. Dralwik 12:09, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

categories for dimensionless numbers

Dear Mr. Helm, Glad that attention is going to those pages. I think you should restore engineering and science as categories. In engineering, the usage of dimensionless numbers reduces large families of problems that do not seem identical into single cases. It's an approach that many engineers have trouble dealing with; they will produce charts with a half dozen parallel lines that could be collapsed to one by scaling the axes. So it is educational to reference the page from engineering. In science the usage is just as important and more frequent. Unfortunately, there's an apparent (but largely fictitious) difference between pure maths constants and physical dimensionless numbers. For example, pi=3.1415926535... seems to be a mathematical constant with no dimensions, but it can be regarded as having the dimensions of inverse radians. To get a perimeter from a radius you have to measure the included angle in radians and use that value of pi I gave. If you measure the angle in degrees, you must use a constant numerically equal to pi/180, not the number just quoted. (I know this is arguable as you can define pi as the ratio of the circumference to the diameter, but for practical use it comes out as I said.) Anyway, I don't see where it hurts to leave the old categories and just add new ones, too. Pdn 14:57, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your nice message! I'll reply on Category talk:Dimensionless numbers. — Sebastian (talk) 19:12, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

Paul's nomination

Nominating Paul August for adminship was an excellent idea. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship has a good explanation of how to do that, but let me know if you need any help. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov 04:31, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I submitted it. Thank you for your offer to help. One thing i don't know: Am i supposed to vote, myself? — Sebastian (talk) 22:29, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

Thanks, Sebastion for your nomination and kind words. Paul August ☎ 03:17, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

RFA

Hi there! I'm not sure if I understood this... you've opposed my adminship because I archived my user page? I wasn't even thinking of Neto when I did that, it was simply a matter of cleaning up the lengthy page. Besides, I'm sure you've read it by now and it isn't evidence of any of Neto's allegations. I should hope Wikipedia is not a court of law. Radiant_* 19:20, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for asking! I take this as a sign that you're willing to learn, and it's always the best in these situations, which actually alleviates some of my concerns.

Of course, Wikipedia is not a court of law, and I am sure nothing you did warrants any punishment or penalty. This is not what VfA is about. Someone who's on VfA has to meet different standards than someone tried at court.

"Different" can mean "higher": An admin needs certain qualities. The most neglected admin quality IMHO is conflict resolution skills. The case Neto cites was a case of, let's say, "suboptimal" conflict resolution.

Other important qualities are integrity and conscientiousness. I don't know what you thought when you did your "cleanup", but if you were indeed not aware that much of what you deleted pertained to the VfA discussion then it doesn't give a very conscientious impression, either. It doesn't improve the impression that you described the change as "rm old stuff" when in fact it included even the most recent contributions.

Anyway, I hope that you will learn to become a fair and levelheaded administrator and that you will have and give others lots of fun with Wikipedia. Sebastian (talk) 08:24, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

• Okay thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Radiant_>|< 07:31, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Articles needing images

Hi, I hope I did not seem to crast in any of my responses. We were all just leaning on the standardization of the category names already in use in Category:Wikipedia requests. Other than that there wouldn't be much reason to change Articles needing images, especially if a lot of articles were cat'd there, but luckily they are only there by means of template. So renaming would only make it look better. ;) Thanks for the input. <>Who?¿? 01:22, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No worries! All your replies were completely factual; I have no problem whatsoever with such replies. I only bowed out because I realized that the issue was more complicated than I had originally assumed, and I don't have enough experience to cast an authoritative vote. After your explanation here I tend to agree. I also see another argument in favour of your proposed name: "requested" is more accurate than "needing". — Sebastian (talk) 23:38, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC)

Cat speedy

"Category:Mozart symphonies - The contents have been moved to Category:Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to match the naming scheme." - there was some talk on CSD whether this should be a speedy deletion criterion. Since a proposal for expanding speedy criteria is likely going to happen soon, I'd like to have your feedback on wording one for cases such as this. Yours, Radiant_>|< 07:38, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

With pleasure! Actually, Pavel Vozenilek already worded it nicely. Slightly more exact maybe: "Speedy renaming of a category should be allowed when content (text and linked articles) has been moved to a new name which has been approved on CfD." Is this more or less what you had in mind?

BTW, I'm just going through m:Category math, and I now remember that I liked your proposal on Wikipedia_talk:Categorization_policy#The_Finnish_botanist_question. — Sebastian (talk) 08:15, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

Worries about speedies

You asked if we should be discussing that in a public place. Actually we are... Wikipedia:Deletion_policy/Reducing_VfD_load. Based on that discussion, I will put on a proposal for some speedy deletion criteria within the next week. The proposed categories are things that always get near-unanimous delete votes, and removing those from VFD should reduce its load, thus allowing more people to vote on the things that actually matter. Your feedback is, of coruse, welcome. Radiant_>|< 09:24, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

My Rfa

Thank you for supporting me! --Kbdank71 13:39, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Burke and Wills

Burke and Wills are probably most well known for that fateful expedition, but they're also entirely notable in and of themselves, and deserving of seperate articles. The redirects discourage people from writing those articles, so I deleted the redirects, as part of cleaning up a list of Australian biography articles we don't have, in the hope that someone will indeed write them. Ambi 06:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply and the explanation. I'm no expert, but this doesn't sound like an effective way to achieve this goal to me. Why is deleting better than just writing a brief note that they're also noticable in [[XYZ]] and adding a bio-stub tag? — Sebastian (talk) 06:45, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC) copying this discussion on User_talk:Ambi since I prefer to keep conversations together.

Deleted template? Sorry!

[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Templates_for_deletion&diff=0&oldid=15487461). I'd have explained earlier except that I didn't have that talk page on my watchlist. Yours, Radiant_>|< 09:31, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

:)

Just noticed your comment on Eequor's RFA... thanks for the compliment! ({curly} boxing champ?! :) Grutness...wha? 13:37, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

TOC "screws up" rest of the RfA?

Sorry if I messed up anything. What happened to the rest of the RfA? — Sebastian (talk) 00:51, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

The main RfA page has a table of contents at the top. By putting __TOC__ in an RfA, that moves the table of content into that RfA (if you're viewing the main RfA page instead of just the single subpage).

As for not having the support/oppose/neutral sections be real sections, this is done to avoid cluttering up the table of contents. RfA isn't too busy at the moment, but when there's twenty people on RfA having each have three subsections in the toc makes it rather unwieldy. --W(t) 00:55, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

Replied on User talk:Weyes