User talk:Kershner

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[edit] Hawking and Thorne bet

Hawking bet Thorne that black holes don't exist, so at least he'd have something if they don't after having done years of work on them. If Hawking won (ie black holes don't exist), he got two(?) years subscription to Private Eye. If Thorne won, he got a year's(?) subscription to Penthouse (or something vaguely equivalent). There's a paragraph or so on it in A Brief History of Time (which is what I'm paraphrasing here) – I don't know if it's paid our or not yet. Cheers --Pak21 11:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Or in fact, just Stephen Hawking#Losing an old bet. Maybe I should read Wikipedia first :-) Cheers --Pak21 11:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is WP:BIO Policy?

I don't think WP:BIO is policy.. pretty near the top of that page, it explicitly says that WP:BIO is not policy. I don't accept the criterion of notability. No obvious point of view, verifiability, and absence of copyright are sufficient. I don't trust myself, you, or anyone else to be a fair and accurate judge of notability. Which is not to say I do not see a measure of validity to the notability concept... I just think that the concept is outdated, and appropriate for a paper world. Snugspout 17:55 16 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Thanks for your comment about WP:BIO and notability. I think the threshold for notability should be infinitesimal, because a)Wikipedia is not paper b)any judgement made now cannot account for all the new events that will transpire in the next 100 or 1000 years; something that seems trivial today might be viewed as crucial in the future c)judgements made on current information are subject to huge errors of ignorance, absence of availability of info, and bias d)people's time would be better spent researching and bringing in new information, rather than wasting time on debating whether to include or not. Each point could be buttressed with examples, but perhaps I should try to address the `Wikipedia is not the white pages' or `Wikipedia is not a data warehouse' argument. Those are true, but the reason is because very good and careful articles and information are present in Wikipedia, and are never present in the white pages or in a data warehouse. If Wikipedia has arms and branches that resemble white pages and data warehouses, I feel there is no harm done, just as long as there are huge segments of Wikipedia that resemble old paper encyclopedias. I'd argue, `Wikipedia is not just a data warehouse' and `Wikipedia is not just white pages' Actually, I've gotten a huge amount of research benefit out of old telephone book white pages, generally 30 or more years after those white pages were published. Why shouldn't Wikipedia also include such information... think big, there is no horizon with the data storage now available! snug 17:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Fundementally, all content in Wikipedia must satisfy the Five Pillars of Wikipedia. This is not just policy, this is the creator's mandate and not open to discussion.
From Pillar 1: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" and not a "vanity publisher".
From Pillar 2: Wikipedia uses the neutral point-of-view "It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources" (Information about non-notable individuals cannot be verified because their lives are not in the public record)
Straight from your oft-cited Wikipedia is not paper page is this text "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety."
These issues are settled within the community. Kershner 18:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your edit to Acamprosate

I cannot thank you enough for the shiny infobox and the addition of information to the Acamprosate article. —THIS IS MESSEDImage:R with umlaut.pngOCKER (TALK) 00:52, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I've responded to your request for a third opinion

I hope you find my informal and unofficial "resolution" satisfactory. The other involved party seems to find it sufficient and I'm hoping we can agree on a version of the article and take the page off of third opinion. :) I must also commend you for your civility in dealing with the other user (and the other user seems to have been quite civil in return). People tend to get too worked up about little disputes; it's good to see that you're level-headed and stay cool. :) Keep up the great work!! Srose (talk) 14:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I am generally satisfied with the current state of the article, I appreciate the removal of the childrens' ages, but I still have concerns over both the acceptability and the copyright status of the mug shot. Functionally, a photo of this type casts the subject in a poor light. While factually correct it imposes a negative impression that acts to bias the reader. If there were an additional non-mug-shot photo to counterbalance I would have no pause about the current photo. The mug-shot is representative of the incident, not the person and should not be used for the latter purpose. Kershner 20:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Disambiguation Talk Request

This is a form message being sent to all WikiProject Disambiguation participants. I may have found your page based on your contributions or your link repair user box on your user page. If you are not a member, please consider including your name on the project page. I recently left a proposed banner idea on the WikiProject Disambiguation talk page and I would appreciate any input you could provide. Before it can be approved or denied, I would prefer a lot of feedback from multiple participants in the project. So if you have the time please join in the discussion to help improve the WikiProject. Keep up the good work in link repair and thanks for your time. Nehrams2020 23:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Spam" Label

Can you for one second explain to me how this is labeled spam? I've read the guidelines. The site I linked to is no more commercial than the magazines the article refers to. The site simply has a one-form mechanism for subscribing to multiple magazines and happens to have a good deal of information on the magazines, including advertising information, that is likely of use to the reader.--Tim Raines 16:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  • You exclusively edited categories and not articles. External links, and the one you added may be appropriate in that section of an article, belong solely at the end of legitimate articles. Categories are used solely as lists of other articles on Wikipedia. As such, by editing the categories and placing what functionally represented an advertisement of a website, you engaged in behavior classified as spam on Wikipedia. Kershner 19:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the feedback. From what you're saying, then, this site could be pointed to on individual articles...? --Tim Raines 21:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I won't go so far as to say it is appropriate on individual articles, but I will say that it is inappropriate in Categories and Templates. For the official policy on including links in the External Links sections of articles, refer to this policy: WP:EL
The two key points here are the policy in a nutshell:
  • Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article.
and the primary restriction on including an external link:
  • You are restricted from including A website that you own, maintain or are acting as an agent for; even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked to. This is in line with the conflict of interests guidelines. If it is a relevant and informative link that should otherwise be included, mention it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it.
Kershner 21:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
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