User talk:Blotwell

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Hi Blotwell, and welcome to Wikipedia.

Thankyou for finding the time to sign up and contribute to our little project. If you're in doubt about anything, you might want to check out some of these pages:

It's also a good idea to sign the new user log and add a little about yourself.

When contributing to a talk page, you can sign your name by typing four tildes after your comments, like this: ~~~~. (Just so you know, some people won't pay attention to unsigned comments).

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me at my talk page, or at the Help desk or Village Pump.

Above all, make sure you be bold when contributing, and have fun!

Contents

[edit] Alea evangeli & Irides

You are correct. I cannot have it both ways. I removed the NOTES section of the article in addition to any mention of credit because of it's discussion concerning my research regarding the inability to discover existing rules pertaing to pieces mentioned in the original rules.

An example of a game that has not been published but has an article is *Star. This game is currently awaiting copyright and has not been manufactured. The difference between *Star and Irides is that the designer of *Star (Ea Ea) is a well respected game designer and the rules of the game are listed on his website.


[edit] Re: Amanda McKittrick Ros

Sorry, it looks like I was a bit rash in my rollback on that article. I've reverted to the original version. I stand by believing that it is POV, but it seems to deserve some mention. Since you are obviously much more knowledgable about this than I am, please rephrase it to show that it is somebody's opinion. For example, rather than "Her novels are characterised by turgid language and unsubtle alliteration. They were initially published privately", you should say something along the lines of "Critics such as A, B, and C have commented that...". I'm terribly sorry for simply reverting your changes, but I still believe they did not abide by Wikipedia's policy on writing at a neutral point of view. For the future, please make sure that you mention who said what when you add opinions like that. Thanks for your message. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|✍]] 03:01, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Honorific

Blotwell, I stand corrected. I actually am a native speaker/writer of Canadian English, and the -our endings are generally used. I confess that I had overlooked that the U was dropped in that form of the word, although I was aware that it is the common practice elsewhere. I think in fact we might approach someone that runs a bot to systematically root out this problem for at least the following words [1], perhaps you can think of others:

  • arbour - arborist, arboretum
  • clamour - clamorous
  • clangour - clangorous
  • colour - coloration
  • glamour - glamorous, glamorless, glamorize (-ise)
  • honour - honorary, honorarium, honorific
  • humour - humorist, humorous
  • labour - laborious
  • odour - odorous, odoriferous
  • rancour - rancorous
  • rigour - rigorous
  • tumour - tumorous

Cheers, Fawcett5 14:59, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Diapente

Sounds like you know a lot more about this subject than the average Wikipedians. Since none of all this tuning requires deletion, you can go ahead and do it. Good luck! Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 13:16 (UTC)

[edit] Hey stop deleting my sites and saying....

Hey stop deleting my sites and saying....They are spam I do alot of hard work writing those articles.

[edit] Pyramid of 35 spheres animation.gif

Hi! I like the animated pyramid you've made. However, the image size is quite large. Most animated gifs can be reduced in file size without signifcant reduction (sometimes improvement) in quality. This is best done with the raw full-color images but some reduction can be done with existing gifs. As a test (proof of concept) I ran your larger version through Jasc Animation Shop, first resizing with smart resize, and then using optomized-median-cut palette generation and nearest-color color reduction, resulting in a file less than half of the 160x120 you have [2]. This is because dithering is murder for animated gif sizes, as each frame is usually dithered separately, resulting in unneeded color shifts being stored/animated (most of the background of your image has no need to change, for example). If you still have full-color lossless images (BMP, PNG, TIF, etc) the filesize could possibly be reduced quite a bit more (factor of 2x to 4x at a guess). I offer my services if you wish, if ImageMagick won't do this.

Also, it is a good idea to put in some delay (50ms, or at least 10ms) between frames (yours are set to 0ms, which can have inconsistent and jittery results depending on system/browser load). Hope you're ok constructive criticism.

Cheers! Splarka 23:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, if you can upload the 16 bit PNG frames (of both images, the 24 and 40 frame) to a web or ftp server temporarily (I think they'd be too big for my gmail, unless they were in chunks less than 5 megs each (splarka@gmail.com)) that'd be great. I can then compress several versions for you. 320x240 would be fine but if you want a bigger version of the 35-stack feel free (480x360, or maybe 640x480 (yikes, might take a while)). Just make sure they are lossless and undithered! Splarka 06:22, 5 August 2005 (UTC) (PS, you can reply here, I add talk pages to my watch list for a few months that I contribute to)
Whew, sorry for delay. Took me a while to get around to it. I don't know how you've got them distributed among commons. and en. and such, so I put them here for you temporarily (if you want to upload them). I notice you've already uploaded smaller versions, but using Jasc I was able to make them: 640x480 1.2 megs, 320x200 400k, and 160x120 140k (Update, I reduced them a bit more by locking most of the background: 640x480 1.06 megs, 320x200 380k, and 160x120 135k). They are named 35_160.gif, 35_320.gif and 35_640.gif, utilize as you wish! Splarka (rant) 23:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for helping out on the PlanetMath project

Hi Blotwell. Thanks for helping out on the PlanetMath project! A couple of things. Would you mind very much, going back and signing and time-stamping the updates you've made at PM-18: Category theory; homological algebra? See, for example, PM-01: History and biography for the established style. This will help other editors (even perhaps yourself ;-) reviewing these files in the future. Also you might want to add yourself to the list of project participants of both Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics, here and its subproject PlanetMath Exchange, here. Anyway welcome to the project and thanks for the help. Paul August ☎ 20:31, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Playing Cards

Hi Blotwell,

Noticed you decided to remove the Carta Mundi external link. At the same time, you did not go through the bother to remove Fournier and United States Playing Cards.

I've taken the liberty to add the link back in. Please be thorough in your revision.

Fyi, Carta Mundi plays a very important role in the history of playing cards in Europe, and all over the world. Do check the site, and see that it does add value to this wikipedia page.

Thx mate!

[edit] Last Poems

Hi thanks for the edits - you're quite right that the categories needed to go. I've taken the liberty of restoring the Shropshire Lad link as it's mentioned in the article. Feel free to remove it again if you feel it's inappropriate. Dlyons493 Talk 13:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Auk

I rolled back your last edit, but thought I should explain why. In 20 years of birdwatching, I have never heard or read of any auk species, let alone the whole family, referred to as N Hemisphere penguins, even informally, so if correct this sentence needs to be sourced.

The French bit I removed on the standard principle that Wikipedia is not a language dictionary. There is an understandable tendency for people to add the name of a bird etc in a language they know, but you end up with a polylingual dictionary article.

I appreciate that your changes were well-intentioned, which is why I thought you deserved an explanation for the rollback.jimfbleak 05:53, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree about "humour", I've chopped that - I think the penguin bit may be alreadt be at Great Auk, haven't checked yet. Jim

[edit] Image request for solenoid

Hi there! I'm intrigued by your image request for the solenoid page, but not sure exactly how the to torii are suppose to intersect. Is one completely inside the other, like a round, hollow tube, or do the two torii lie in different planes? —Jwanders 18:52, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Ahh, cool. I think I've got it, now. Turned out pretty well, too, if I do say so myself: check it out.

I did end up working out the equations in Maple, so if you'd prefer a different p-value, I can do that. And if you ever need anything else like this, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. —Jwanders 11:24, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Translation - Mechanical Puzzles

Hi !

I have responded to your translation request for de:Mechanische Geduldspiele -> Mechanical puzzles. It would be nice if you could give some feedback.

Thanks

ACH 22:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] boardgamegeek

Yep, not only did I notice about the discussion, i was one of the people who had replied about it :) - I have that page on my watchlist, but it's good to get the word out - so thanks. - Trysha (talk) 10:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] edits at war (card game)

How were my changes "spam"? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War_%28card_game%29&diff=next&oldid=32324349

I found the Player 1 / Player 2 discussion confusing, so I changed to two actual names. What's wrong with that? (perhaps you were editing an out-of-date version of the page?) -Grick(talk to me!) 22:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks ^^. -Grick(talk to me!) 01:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proof of e as a limit

Yesterday, you deleted the proof I had written and redirected the page to Characterizations of the exponential function. I don't think this redirect is the right thing to do. Could you go to Talk:Proof of e as a limit so we can resolve this issue? --ʀ6ʍɑʏ89 14:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you!

Thank you very much for your help Blotwell. Yes it was very useful. I was able to find the 'Frenel numbers' entry in MathWorld, which solved everything. thank you again!!!

I hereby award you this barnstar: Image:Barnstar_of_National_Merit.png for all your help.

129.97.252.63 03:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American English in/on thing

Re: this article. Myself being an Englishman and having lived in England all my life, I have NEVER heard "I live in Churchill Road". Please inform me as to how you know otherwise, yourself being an advanced user of American English and not a native like me. -- Boothman 09:16, 18 February 2006 (UTC).

Sorry about my presumption. I did these same searches, and my results seemed to favour "on" instead of "in". The BBC uses "on" ([3]), so I presume that is the standard British English convention. I honestly myself have never heard anyone say "I live in Churchill Street", and I should know as there is a Churchill Street about 50 yards from my house (conveniently up the hill, next to the church). -- Boothman 20:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3-torus

Hi! I just noticed your excellent animation of the pentatope and I was wondering if it would be possible for you to do something similar with a 3-torus. Not just out of curiosity, but it would be an interesting addition to the article as well. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 10:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-categorization as historical

Dear Blotwell. I see you are re-categorizing a number of articles from category:Board games to category:History of board games. For board games that are exclusively of historical interest, this makes sense. But for other games (and other game-related articles), I'm not so sure. Any comments? (Drop me a line on my talk page; I may not notice if you only answer here.) Yours sincerely, --Niels Ø 15:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Your message was so polite I didn't discover from it what your own opinions are. I've recategorized: three ancient board games whose rules are unknown, three nineteenth-century race games which are playable, but gosh, they're boring (comparable to snakes and ladders), and two others: The Landlord's Game and Cross and Circle game, both of which are also cross-categorized in other subcats of Category:Board games. Is there any particular one of these which you objected to?

My general object is to clear out Category:Board games into subcats since it was getting way too big. (Ultimately I'd like to have something like the German Wikipedia's de:Kategorie:Spielkategorie, where each game is multiply categorized.) For this reason I was being WP:BOLD with my changes on the assumption that a few things would be really too optimistic and get reverted. —Blotwell 15:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I understand your reasoning, and though I'm not familiar with the German categorizations, it sounds quite reasonable. I was mildly surprised by your re-categorizations of Game of the Goose and Cross and circle game, but in both cases, I can see some merit in your re-categorization. If it's work in progress, I'll check back later to see what I think of the completed work.--Niels Ø 15:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] looks like you're on a good path

Hi there. It looks like you're doing a lot to categorize big game categories like Puzzles and Board games. That's cool. One I might quibble with: Does Meta-puzzle belong in the new Category:Puzzlehunts? Certainly it's part of a puzzlehunt, but it's part of a lot of other puzzle things too. I created both the article and the category, so I'm hardly unbiased. Just something to consider. Keep up the good work!--Mike Selinker 12:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Putting it in both categories is great. Thanks!--Mike Selinker 02:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Decryption

Hi may I know how you did it that you decrypted the message on Wikipedia:Reference Desk/Micellanous? Just curious.

Hello could you tell me how you did that please? It is very important to me. Gilard 14:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Three links removed.

Hi, you removed some links I had added to articles and left a message about it in my User Talk section.

I have read the guidelines that you refer to, but for the following three cases I don't see why my links were not fit for the articles.

  • For the article about mnemonic, I added a link (http://mc.bigparadox.com/) to a site I made which teaches a technique and lets you practice it for memorizing a deck of cards, with the help of mnemonics. There are other links there of similar nature, like "Use mnemonics to learn English", etc. So what is wrong with my link?
  • For the article about recreational mathematics, I added a link (http://mathematics.bigparadox.com/) to a site I made with recreational mathematics, similar to the link to "Nick's Mathematical Puzzles". What is wrong with my link?
  • For the article about Mastermind (board game), I added a link (http://mathematics.bigparadox.com/?url=mastermind.asp) to an online mastermind game where you play against the computer and where the computer plays against you. The feature that the computer plays against you is very uncommon among the sites that have mastermind. It is quite unique. What is wrong with my link? It is similar to the site already linked to "Mastermind flash", but my one has that extra uncommon feature that the computer plays against you too.

If I were reading these articles and looked at those external links I would think them relevant and valuable for me.

I will add these three links again if I do not hear from you.

-- Big Paradox 21:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] O noes!

The Perl logo is evidently fair use... D:... 68.39.174.238 00:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming...

After reading your comment at 'poezja śpiewana' renaming vote, I wonder if you'd like to comment at Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary (move discussion).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Thudgame

Apologies if this is the wrong way to reply. I find the lack of a messaging system confusing. You wrote:

Hi, anonymous user.  Do you have an official source for your claim in Thud
that capturing dwarfs is optional?  Because I can't find anything to suggest so
in the official rules online.
—Blotwell 21:34, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Private email from Trevor Truran, also see the forum posts relating to this: http://forum.thudgame.com/viewtopic.php?t=51&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

In the main rules it states: "Capturing is not compulsory. [...] A troll can only be shoved to make a capture."

What that means is that a troll, when moving one square, may capture zero or more dwarfs. When shoving, it may capture one or more, but not zero. It nowhere says that all ajacent dwarfs involved must be captured.

I really, really would prefer this were not the case. However, it is, and I need to amend my thudgame.com code to cope with it, along with adding an ugly GUI modification to allow people to choose not to take all the dwarfs, and yet prevent them from selecting none of them if they were shoved.

Not that I, or anyone else, can see any situation where this would ever be a desirable course of action. But people have to be allowed to if they want, because the rules don't say that they can't.

Grrr.

- Dewi Morgan

[edit] Childrens comics for gcse exam

Another editor has added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Childrens comics for gcse exam, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at Talk:Childrens comics for gcse exam. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached.

This article was prodded in March and you removed the tag, replacing it with a merge tag. Nothing has been done to merge the page as you suggested and now it has been prodded again. ~ BigrTex 04:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Morabaraba

Dear Blotwell, You recently removed the link to http://www.oellermann.com/morabaraba from the article on that game, saying it was a vanity link. It isn't a vanity link; that page provides a printable board, discussion of strategy and the only downloadable Morabaraba computer programs for Windows and Linux. I have re-added the link (but left the name "Adam" out!) so that readers of the article will be able to find this content. I hope this is acceptable, and would be grateful for your advice if I've done something wrong - please leave me a note on my talk page.

Thanks! Adamoell 17:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category of "women writers" under review for reinstatement

Hi! I hope you will pardon this notice, but the category "women writers" was recently deleted and is now up for deletion review. I noticed that you commented on an earlier discussion about "women" as a qualifier in categories and thought that you might like to know about the current discussion. scribblingwoman 16:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Google Gulp

That was way back in June, the guideline has changed significantly since then. Feel free to revert my edit there if you see that WP:CAT-R allows this type of categorization now. Or you may leave a blurb at WT:CAT-R if you have any questions or concerns. Regards, Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)