User talk:Dante Alighieri/Archive 1

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Archived talk: Clovis et al., AE/BE issues (french fries), Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5.

Hello there Dante, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit Wikipedia:How does one edit a page and experiment at Wikipedia:Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Wikipedia:Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

thanks for the note about hurdling, I missed it in all the noise about the pi digits. -- Tarquin

No problem! I'm just trying to be a good wikipedia-citizen... wikipezen... wikipedian... wikicitizen... oh heck with it... --Dante Alighieri

Way to go, on the alphabet! Now this place is starting to look like an encyclopedia!! --Ed Poor

Thanks! It's nice to feel appreciated. :) --Dante Alighieri

I should have mentioned that feature requests should go to SourceForge. The developers don't read Wikipedia:Feature requests] anymore. --mav 03:08 Nov 26, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm on it. --Dante Alighieri

Dante, I started to upload some alphabet graphics. I have the whole alphabet done in Helvetica 55 Roman 48 pt (textbook sans-serif font) and in Times LT 48 pt. They are anti-aliased against a white background. I think having both a serif and sans-serif font is helpful for letters like "L" where the lowercase L could look like a capital I, etc. Would you take a look at them, they are named Latin_alphabet_Aa.png, Latin_alphabet_Bb.png, Latin_alphabet_Cc.png etc. If you like them leave a note here or on my talk page and I'll upload the rest. --Nate

Check your talk page. --Dante Alighieri

Dante, I thought you might enjoy this "review" of Harry Potter by "God's Favorite Christian": [1] -- Someone else 20:12 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

That's hilarious! Someone has QUITE the sense of humor. :) --Dante Alighieri 21:54 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

Please forgive me for bowdlerizing your comment:

Or, better yet, go to their house and kill all of their pets? ;)

It just didn't seem like the right place for that kind of joke. You don't really mind, do you? --Ed Poor

Well, the link wasn't to a person, it was to an article on singular they, but fine, if the humor was in SUCH bad taste...

Not the link, the pet thing... --Uncle Ed

Yeah, no I get that you didn't like the pet thing... I suppose it wasn't as funny to you as I thought it was. I thought it was clear that it was tongue-in-cheek. Hence the winking smiley.

Yeah, I get the winking smiley... I just didn't want to see Mav's experiment messed up. He's cleaning up after this newbie, instead of taking the easy way out and simply banning them. I hope it works. --Uncle Ed

Well, you have more faith in humanity than I do... if you look at the nature of the vandalism I think you'll agree that the odds of this person becoming a productive memeber of the wiki are approximately nil.

Ah, but many others are watching, lurking in the shadows. People judge you by the way you treat others. --Uncle Ed

Call me old-fashioned, I like to fight fire with fire, "vandalize and ye shall BE vandalized!"... But, then again, catch me on a different day and I'll probably be making YOUR argument... sigh... ;) --Dante Alighieri 23:17 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)

You gotta take the long-term view. We're trying to do two things at once:
  • protect the wiki
  • attract new talent
If we allow too much vandalism and too many violations of NPOV, then old hands want to leave. If we jump on people too quick, they don't learn. Or they come back with bigger guns or *shudder* in greater numbers. It's hard to find a balance. --Uncle Ed

I have no idea why we keep writing on this subject since we obviously don't need to. We must have too much time on our hands. ;) That being said... sure, balance is great, but who's to say that kidnapping (not killing) vandals pets and holding them hostage until they make reparations isn't balanced? ;) --Dante Alighieri 23:25 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)

I don't like being in edit wars. So if I can't persuade, I generally let others do as they like. If I'm wrong, that's only fitting. If I'm right, someone else will come along and make the change anyway! It's only an article... --Uncle Ed


Well, it's not that I care, it's just that, well, I'm bored. ;) I clearly have nothing better to do than sit here and pick nits. Although I must say that I do spend a fair amount of time copyediting and writing extremely important articles like the one on candy corn. :) --Dante Alighieri 00:52 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

There really is a book called Changing Colours. A quick search at Google comes up with these results, and the book is the first hit! Um, would you please be more careful? --Uncle Ed

The "style" in which it was written confused me. :) I had just had to revert some very similar vandalism so I was a bit quick on the censor button. --Dante Alighieri 01:11 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it. I checked here, and it was the user's first contribution -- from that IP address, anyway. --Uncle Ed
Yeah.. I had just cleaned up this and the reference to a spouse and the grammar just looked the same. Rookie mistake I suppose. :) --Dante Alighieri 01:17 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

To be serious for a moment (or try to be) I think it is wrong to characterize our calander 9i.e. it is now 2002) as "Christian." It is Christian in origin, but manmy non-Christians use it and it "works" because it is a convention. I think the move to "CE" is not meant to obscure the Christian origins of the calendar, but rather to highlight the fact that those origins are no longer relevant, and people use the calendar because it is a convention, not for theological reasons. Should I post this comment on the CE/Commen Era pages (yikes!) -- well, if you think the above comment is clear and hlps clarify the position, feel free to cut and paste it ono those pages. You are welcome to your own opinion, but to be honest, I do not understand it (I mean, I understand the argument, but I do not understand why you ascribe to it).

Now, about wraps .....

Really, this is a topic that deserves a page of its own (and then a much much longer talk page). But you know, in the end it is all just some form or another of the Chinese egg roll.... Slrubenstein

You know that the paragraph with wraps in it wasn't from me, right?
yeah,
Anyway, I think that having a calender that uses the birth of Christ (yeah, yeah, we all know he wasn't really born in 1 AD) is inherently biased. And I think that to continue to use that system while changing its name doesn't accomplish much. Worse, it can lead people to forget about or ignore the bias. I like to look bias in the face and know that its there. You can change the cover on a book, but it doesn't alter the contents. Personally, I don't actually care that much about the issue, I just jumped into the middle of a pre-existing argument. :) --Dante Alighieri 11:14 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
I gues we just disagree -- not that there is/isn't a bias, but over the nature of the bias. I do not think that the bias is really about using Jesus' alleged birthday as point of reference; the bias is in using a calendar that is of European origin. But as long as the world is dominated by European (and Euro-American) culture (including political and economic forms), this is the calendar we will use. And who knows, even after the end of European domination, people around the world will still use it merely because there is a need for a convention. Look, people use "meters" whether they would have been Jacobins or not -- it is just a standard.
I am perfectly happy using the Hebrew calendar in my personal life. But the fact is, when I am out and about in the world I need to use a calendar that non-Jews use. I do not mind that. But no way am I going to say that the reason I am using another calendar is because Jesus is my Lord. I will use it solely as a convention.
In other words, trhe Christian calendar simply does not belong to Christians any more. Maybe this is why so many (not you) are upset at "CE and BCE," it is a sign that in winning the battle (world domination) they have in some way lost the war (people around the world celebrate Christmas as a holiday without really caring at all about Jesus; people use the Gregorian calendar without caring about Jesus, etc). Using CE and BCE is a way of saying: "Yes, we will use your calendar, if you insist. But once we start using it, it is no longer yours." Slrubenstein
You see, that last paragraph makes sense! That's the first really cogent and articulate objection to my POV that I've received. I can certainly respect your position, and even agree with your conclusion in the last two sentences. That being said, I'm STILL worried about that bias, but hey, anything that'll piss of the Religious Right is OK with me. ;) --Dante Alighieri 11:52 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Hi Dante, could you look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds/General? Thanks :) -- sannse 19:20 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

Sigs: "~~~" for "John Owens", "~~~~" for "John Owens 19:32 May 1, 2003 (UTC)". Wikipedia:How does one edit a page -- John Owens 19:32 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, tilde. Duh! Thanks! Dante Alighieri 19:34 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

Hey, I'm not taking any CS classes this semester, but I'm starting on upper divs in the fall. -- Minesweeper 23:38 14 May 2003 (UTC)

I graduated Cal in 2002. I didn't major in CS, but I took a few courses. I have friends who were heavy into the CS department though. If you end up in a course where you have a course of GSIs and one of them is Melvin Tsai, go with him. He's a buddy of mine, and he knows his stuff. --Dante Alighieri 23:40 14 May 2003 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind! -- Minesweeper 05:19 17 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dante, I've just seen your pigeon/dove comment. Worldwide there are several hundred Columbidae species, fairly arbitarily named "pigeon" or "dove" even in the same genus, eg Speckled Pigeon, Columba guinea and Stock Dove C. oenas. My feeling was that the redirect should be for the group as a whole. The problem comes in that "pigeon" to many city dwellers in the West means only the feral pigeon, which is domesticated Rock Dove. I realise that people are more likely to search for "pigeon" than "feral pigeon", but they can get to feral pigeon from the Dove article.

If they are looking for pigeons in general, it is my view that pigeon-->dove, and feral pigeon-->Rock Dove. it's a tricky one though.

Not sure where the edit war comes in-I wasn't consciously reverting anything jimfbleak 15:22 19 May 2003 (UTC)

No real edit war, just needed something to label the message. ;) OK, that makes sense I suppose. It looks like the big problem is that people worldwide don't seem to have a good handle on precisely what a pigeon is, except that it seems to be one or more species of dove. Oh well. ;) --Dante Alighieri 21:47 19 May 2003 (UTC)

23:10 19 May 2003, Maveric149 blocked 64.180.186.148 (contribs) (unblock) (repeated vandalism at Maoism)

Thanks mav! --Dante Alighieri 23:14 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Congratulations, you are now a sysop. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Administrators before using your new privileges. --Eloquence 22:54 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Re the OED: cool, but was it teenager that I was checking? In any case, I'll let others quibble about it but if you can find it in there, go for it! -- Someone else 00:49 22 May 2003 (UTC)

It was something along the lines of "Squawk ('squocken' not a real German word as far as I can tell) journey, be suited for Bonnie. On travel, 17th century (1665-1687), little Bonnie born 1632 on Munich, and 1637 on Berlin. Little Bonnie is the a mathematical woman (English word, not German, of course)." Very bad German, and it's the testprog/BethPageHillBrier/stillbirth/Breanna NC fellow at work. (He seems to go by the names Bob, Lenny, and Wilma, depending which personality is in charge, I guess.) Surprised he didn't try to link Bonnie to Jayne Bryleigh. Oh, look, and now he's made another lovely contribution to mucous membrane. -- John Owens 08:10 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Of course, about the blocklist comment, it wouldn't really be fair to count the times two or three of us all banned him at once separately, would it? ;) -- John Owens 08:20 23 May 2003 (UTC)
Hehe... turns out that I'm not a huge fan of vandals. I propose we ship them all to Antarctica and deal with them that way. --Dante Alighieri 08:21 23 May 2003 (UTC)
I guess you aren't, you managed to beat me to the punch on Mary Reibey, after all. ;) But I don't think I'd condemn the penguins to have to put up with that kind of thing. -- John Owens 08:25 23 May 2003 (UTC)
We'll bring the penguins here. I'd rather have them around than the vandals... Hell, I think I'd rather have Vandals than vandals... --Dante Alighieri 08:28 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Slight change of subject: personally, I've been tempted to make a page for gratuitous wikification or something like that. Examples and such, not much of a definition to be had. -- John Owens 08:38 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Check the Wikipedia:Sandbox. There's a cute little sentence on there courtesy of yours truly... total wikification! ;) --Dante Alighieri 08:53 23 May 2003 (UTC)

On a related note, why does it make me nervous when I see you playing in the sandbox with the only edit summary being "hehe"? -- John Owens 19:56 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Hey, we all have our vices... mine seems to be doing fun little things in the sandbox. ;) --Dante Alighieri 19:58 24 May 2003 (UTC)
You and my cats should get along well, then.... -- John Owens 20:05 24 May 2003 (UTC)
Now that, my friend, is disgusting. Hehe... --Dante Alighieri 20:08 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Woo, finally someone uses my anonymous talk page feature to greet new users and not just to warn them about vandalism :-). Note that they get the "new messages" notification like everyone else. Let me know if this works. --Eloquence 10:27 23 May 2003 (UTC)

DA, I appreciate your comment on the neutral theory etc. page. You are welcome to look at the page history, but I want to sum it up for you:

An earlier version of the article had this section:

A second assertion or hypothesis of the neutral theory is that most evolutionary change is the result of genetic drift acting on neutral alleles. Through drift, these alleles rise to dominance or become "fixed" in populations.

The implication is that drift involves solely a rise to dominance or fixation.That is misleading, and I changed it to:

Through drift, some alleles rise to dominance or become "fixed" in populations, while others disappear.

I believe it is a clear, well-written, and entirely accurate change that in no way diminishes the rest of the article – and 168 reverted it. I want to be very clear: I only added content, and not much content at that (and it is accurate); 168 simply will not allow me to add content. I believe he views that article as his property, and that he has effectively banned me from working on it. I can go on correcting the article, but it gets silly after a while. I need some sort of support – and whether you agree with me or 168, the article needs some sort of intervention. Thanks, Slrubenstein 20:24 23 May 2003 (UTC)


Re: Marathon (computer game) - you're quite sure you're not thinking of Marathon 2 being ported to Windows? I know it was. But http://marathon.bungie.org/story/releasedates.html and other websites I find on Google say nothing about the first, causing my confusion... Evercat 20:00 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, heck, now you've got me questioning it... I was sure that I'd played Marathon on my comp at some point... See, in the dorms, two of my friends had Macs so we were always playing Bungie games over there. I remember being thrilled when Marathon came out for PC, but ticked because they were playing Marathon2 by that point... Unless, of course, I'm misremembering it and when Marathon2 came out they were busy playing Marathon Infinity...
Sigh, I'll remove it for now and try to find out from my Mac guru friends.
--Dante Alighieri 20:08 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Heh. Wouldn't a PC guru be a better bet? :) Evercat 20:10 24 May 2003 (UTC)

I hate to tell you this, but 64.12.9x.xx is usually Michael, too. -- John Owens 23:47 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Ugh.. I'll get rid of that too, just to be safe. --Dante Alighieri 00:11 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Dante, please don't make links that only those with administrative powers can use such as the undelete links which you have put on the Vandalism in progress page. It tends to promote the idea that Wikipedia is run by a clique who don't want the ordinary user to see what they're doing. Better just to describe what the vandal was up to. Then everyone is included in the big picture. -- Derek Ross 01:09 28 May 2003 (UTC)


Hello, Dante. I was the one who added "apparent" to the article on sailing. There is a mistake there that needs to be corrected. Not even America's cup boats can sail within 16 degrees of the [i]actual[/i] wind. How close a boat can sail to the wind depends on the wind speed, since what the boat "sees" is the apparent wind, i.e., the vector sum of the actual wind and the boat's own velocity. The apparent wind is what the windex on top of the mast shows. Because of this, people often talk about how close a boat can sail to the apparent wind. A good sloop can sail within 25 degrees of apparent wind. Perhaps an American Cup sloop can sail within 16 degrees, under the right conditions. Those figures might translate into 45 degrees and 36 degrees relative to the actual wind. Perhaps a better correction would be: ".. from an average of 25 degrees, [i]relative to apparent wind[/i], to as little as.."

Anyway, I was trying to be helpful.

No problem, in the future, please add summaries to your edits or make notes on the talk page so everyone can understand what you're doing. Also, consider making yourself a user name and sticking around... we can always use more help! --Dante 19:04 28 May 2003 (UTC)


Dante, what is going on with Alice in Chains (charming name for a band)? 152.163.252.167 puts in a line "On April 19, 2002, lead singer Layne Staley was found dead in his home.", and then you take it out again, repeated about a million times. Why? CGS 22:44 28 May 2003 (UTC).

152.163.xx.xx is Michael. I'm reverting any and all edits on sight. See User_talk:Michael/ban. --Dante Alighieri 22:47 28 May 2003 (UTC)
But this is legitimate content. Why waste time deleteting it even if he's banned? CGS 22:55 28 May 2003 (UTC).
This has been dealt with before, go over the logs of the Michael situation. The problem is that his "submissions" are plagued with INTENTIONAL inaccuracies. The fact that he occassionally submits accurate information is irrelevant. The only way to keep the bad stuff off is to keep it all off. --Dante Alighieri 23:16 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dante -- on a more pleasant note, can you point out that page to me? I couldn't find it by searching. Thanks! JHK

See your talk page. --Dante Alighieri 22:54 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi Dante,
Just out of curiousity, why remove italics from bullet lists? It's my understanding that film names are italicized per se, whether listed or in text. Not a big deal, just asking. -- Someone else 23:26 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, it appears I was wrong on that count. Oops. --Dante Alighieri 23:29 29 May 2003 (UTC)
Oh, good! I can save my being wrong for later, then<G> -- Someone else 23:30 29 May 2003 (UTC)

If they are taking applications for medieval pope, I'm shoving my way to the head of the line. Ideal job. Exodus was a bit different than most of the current fracas: not troll instigated! Ah, the good old days... -- Someone else 01:39 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Just wanted to thank you for all your help with User:Kils/User:Viking. It was certainly an unpleasant situation. MB 07:37 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Happy birthday, Dante.  ;D -- Zoe

Hmm, that's odd, the Dante Alighieri article gives May 14 as his birthday, but he also shows up on June 1, as Zoe indicated above. I would expect it's a depends-on-which-kind-of-calendar-you're-using kind of issue, most likely. -- John Owens 10:10 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Well, aside from the fact that my birthday is in March, Dante Alighieri seems to have no definitive birthday. The EB gives his bithdate circa May 15 - June 15 1265. He also died on September 13 or 14 in 1321. Any suggestions on how to handle this in the 'pedia? --Dante Alighieri 19:51 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The best way is to indicate uncertainty rather than give dates with false precision. In this case, we know (because Dante tells us so) that he was born in 1265 under the sign of Gemini: that means he could be born anywhere from May 21 - Jun 20 1265. I don't think there is any basis for a more specific date, but if there is, anyone who knows what it is can change what I'm about to do to his article<G> (It shouldn't be a Gregorian vs Julian question, since no one should be giving dates in the Gregorian calendar before it was introduced in 1582. Not that that always stops them...) -- Someone else 20:08 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I'm not going to change it until I can figure out what's going on with the 21-20 and 15-15 strangeness. Does this result from historical differences in the calculation of astrological signs? Can anyone confirm which 30 days (31?) were Gemini in 1265 (not 2003)? That being said, I'm removing his birthday from both May 14 and June 1. --Dante Alighieri 20:13 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Excellent point, the calendar change would certainly change the dates associated with astrological signs. Unfortunately I can't think of where to find an ephemeris for 1265! This would still only alter the range of possible days, it wouldn't really help narrow that range. -- Someone else 21:29 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
The passage of time shouldn't affect the dates of the astrological signs, since we're still using the signs today based on the dates of the Sun's position around 2,000 years ago, unless there was an intermediate time when they used the actual current astronomical position of the Sun. I'd guess that in much the same way, they would have ignored the error creeping in by having the 365.25 day years, and so they would have still been using May 21 - June 20. -- John Owens 21:37 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
So EB is wrong? I'm not terribly surprised, mind you, but that is what we've decided? --Dante Alighieri 21:50 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
You'll notice a lot of conditionals in my reply above, if you read attentively. I might even weaken one of them slightly.... -- John Owens 22:05 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

happy birthday from me too! And good luck for the cruise into the next year! from Uwe

--- Hallo Dante! Thank you for your kind words. I take all responsibility (as a good captain does) and stand behind and for my little warriors (worriers). Lets work together for a great future and a fine tool for the education for our offsprings and crew - The problem we have is not from the children (I raised two little vikings myself), you are right, they can take a lot and are not fragile to any content in wikipedia, the problem are the parents: if we endorse a tool like an encyclopedia online, the first thing some stupid parents do is to "cruise" for ugly content, and if they find just any they get angry at us and say: "see what a mean and useless media the web is". That happened to us with the clitoris image. I think this specific picture is not a good image, because it contains a message (given by the body language of the position of the fingers). Also it is dangerously near the possibility to be classified by some moralists as child pornography. It should be no problem to find a picture which is open without the need of fingers, maybe an older women who gave birth already, maybe one of the contributors board can donate one, to deliver the educational content. But to say also something positive (to follow the User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles of Jimbo Wales: the picture is much, much better arranged on the English page than on the German, where it "jumps" into the face of the arriving user. May I suggest that you contact one of the German sysops to change it to way as in the English version, one page behind a warning, maybe with a comment "Weiterreise am Besten zusammen mit Vater oder Mutter". Thank you for your offer and perspective of returning to the sysop status in a month; I felt very honored that I was once invited to be one, but I am quite happy with the status of retirement, and in the future I will only suggest and can always ask a younger sysops wether she can do the actual cutting - i will continue to add and move things around - good luck to your fine project

Uwe Kils 10:43 2 Jun 2003 (UTC) (in a hurry, have to run for faculty)

her is a little present - for your wife


image:albaa.jpg

My response to Wikipedia:Wikipedians by religion can be found at Wikipedia:Wikipedians by race. MB 22:00 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi there, I just want to tell you that i'm not Michael or the banned user. That's all I want to say. -- Eddie

Hi this is smith03 you block me, i think by mistake I have aol as well.

Sorry for anyone who got blocked who shouldn't be. It's tough work keeping Michael off the 'pedia. I'm unblocking all AOL IPs I've blocked. If you are still blocked, write back. --Dante Alighieri 20:09 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You know, I think Michael may have had a point there, with his "rule" #3, "Nothing I do shouldn't be reverted." How very true. -- John Owens 04:30 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've never made a bot. What gives you the impression I have? Yes I use AIM, I will use the wikipedia e-mail option to e-mail it to you (I'm not posting it on the wiki :)). I am looking to make some bots (I am actually planning on eventually making a wikipedia-bot API), so maybe we could work together? MB 21:00 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Indeed, so are you interested, or should I just forget about it? If you are interested, do you know Python (or are you willing to learn?) MB 21:06 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I don't know Python, but I am interested in learning. It's been one of those things that I was going to get around to at some time or other. Let's talk over AIM, it's faster. ;) Check here for my AIM name. --Dante Alighieri 21:10 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
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