User talk:Cyan/archive/1

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Thanks, mate for the advice. I'll take it. Susan is a legend at this stage. She, Lir, Vera and Dietary Fiber are all actually a guy called Adam, so I suppose they are our very own version of the Adam's Family. *smile*. Anyway, you are right. That is a better way to handle it. STÓD/ÉÍRE 06:52 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that typo on my user page. Not intrusive at all. And there I was before, wondering why such an important topic has no page! :-D --Menchi 23:43, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)


Re: your one-word change to DNA, I think the original "advantageous" is much better. "Beneficial" leads me to imagine an individual virus enjoying the implied benefit. Besides suggesting that viruses are conscious, which of course they aren't this connotation is wrong in a second way, because the benefit goes to the virus's lineage (by mutating it gets to avoid extinction) and not to any individual virus. 168... 02:15, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I just added a paper to the references for maxent, as I find it to be a great tutorial. Since this is my first edit to wikipedia, I am looking for suggestions on how to make the changes. :)

I was sad to see you withdraw your sysop application. Don't be put off by the fact you only had two people support you. This doesn't mean others don't. It may be that they don't know you as you don't edit in controversial areas. The fact that no-one voiced any opposition is a good thing. If you re-consider, let me know as I will gladly add my support again. Angela 20:03, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I, too, had figured that the dearth of supporters was due to lack of name recognition. (Maybe I should change my name to Arnold Schwarzenegger. ;-). It's no biggie for me, though. I'm not particularly emotionally attached to the idea of being an admin. (Secret confession: I was motivated by lust for power - the power to delete my own sub-pages, that is. Thanks for taking care of that, by the way.) Cyan 20:29, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Not enough support!? I was made an admin with the same amount of support back in April :). Your request has been up there for a while because developers are the only ones who can give users admin status (there are only a handful of developers; some aren't active). You'll be made a sysop in a day or two if you put your request back. -- Notheruser 20:05, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I got the idea somewhere that one needed four votes of confidence before one obtained admin status. Okay, back it goes. Cyan 20:29, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Nope, only two are needed. I think I only had two, although it's hard to tell because they were arguing over how long I'd been here in the middle of it all. Angela

Sysop status granted

Congratulations, you have just been made a sysop! You have volunteered for boring housekeeping activities which normal users sadly cannot participate in. Sysops basically can't do anything: They cannot delete pages arbitarily (only obvious junk like "jklasdfl,öasdf JOSH IS GAY"), they cannot protect pages in an edit war they are involved in, they cannot ban signed in users. What they can do is delete junk as it appears, ban anonymous vandals, remove pages that have been listed on Votes for deletion for more than a week, protect pages when asked to by other members, and help keep the few protected pages there are, among them the precious Main Page, up to date.

Note that almost everything you can do can be undone, so don't be too worried about making mistakes. You will find more information at Wikipedia:Administrators, please take a look before experimenting with your new powers. Drop me a message if there are any questions or if you want to stop being a sysop (could it be?). Have fun!—Eloquence 02:44, Aug 19, 2003 (UTC)


---

Given your conversation with User:JoeM you may be interested in helping improve common sense conservative. While it is unlikely to act as a true troll bridge, it might at least exploit the wealth of references and discussions we've had with him. Might as well get something out of it.

Thank you for your welcome and for your wise advice! Jecar.

You wrote on my talk page:

I have replied to your post on Wikipedia:Protected page. -- Cyan 20:14, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. And Congrats for your new sysop status! --Ann O'nyme 21:06, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

On behalf of all wikipedians who have ever had their searches clogged up by those damned things, thank you. - Efghij 01:18, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I rarely search, but thank you too. Nice user page, btw. Martin 13:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I will be. Because I voiced my opposition which I think means that:

"If no consensus can be reached, someone will remove the link from this page, and the page will not be deleted."

BL 12:31, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

erm, yeah - manually. I was bored. Angela 00:57, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

p.s - what I do when I'm really bored. Angela

I deleted Marion Woodman because "Marion Woodman an associate of Robert Bly." is not a meaningful article. If it doesn't have anything but external links an a bibliography, it doesn't deserve to be an article. Give us some susbtance. RickK 02:58, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

But, RickK, stubs are good.

Q: Why did you create List of heterosexuals not notable in connection with their heterosexuality? I'm having a hard time believing that it was created in good faith, by which I mean, for the purpose of improving the encyclopedia. (I want to be clear here: I am *not* accusing you of vandalism, nor am I hostile towards you personally.) -- Cyan 21:21, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

A: Consider (for simplicity) that there are four classes of people:

a) Homosexuals notable for their sexuality. b) Homosexuals not notable for their sexuality. c) Heterosexuals notable for their sexuality. d) Heterosexuals not notable for their sexuality.

Now consider the following:

1: There exists List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people. 2: Said list includes both people who are notable and not notable for their homosexuality. 3: As a result of (1) and (2), there exists a wikipedia page where classes (a) and (b) can be listed. 4: There exists List of heterosexuals. 5: Said list was considered suitable only for listing class (c). 6: This left no place for listing of class (d).

To avoid bias, and for consistency, Wikipedia should treat all people equally, no matter if they are an (a), (b), (c), or (d). Possible solutions to this are:

i) Leave (a) and (b) in List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people, leave (c) in List of heterosexuals, and leave (d) in List of heterosexuals not notable in connection with their heterosexuality.

ii) Leave (a) and (b) in List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people, combine (c) and (d) into List of heterosexuals.

iii) Delete List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people and List of heterosexuals.

Unacceptable solutions include any that provide preferential tolerance for either lists of homosexuals or lists of heterosexuals without allowing listing of both. -- BuddhaInside

I still have a hard time believing that you think that Wikipedia will be improved by a list for (d). A typical reader looking for information has no use for it, but its creation was guaranteed to start a furor among Wikipedia editors. Removing bias and improving consistency are reasonable goals, but you had not, at the time of my original query, defended the page on these grounds, or indeed, at all, so I remain unconvinced of your good faith. -- Cyan 23:15, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I believe that wikipedia best approaches its ideal if (a),(b),(c),(d) are all treated equally. To value any one of those four over the others is to inject a personal bias. Perhaps my method of expressing this belief leaves something to be desired, but that doesn't change my underlying goal. -BuddhaInside

Fair enough. -- Cyan 01:40, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In reviewing the above, I should add, a solution that treated (a) and (c) equally while also treating (b) and (d) equally would also be without bias. -BuddhaInside


Conversation moved to Wikipedia talk:Personal subpages to be deleted.

Cyan, glad to run into someone from McGill. Haven't been up to Montreal for a year. How's Thompson House? Many memories from there.

Then clearly you weren't drinking enough. ;-)

(cont'd) How about starting a metalist of Wikipedians from or at McGill University?

I'll do that.

(cont'd) Also, I borrowed and adapted your menu of frequent pages to put on my own user page. Hope you don't mind. It is a very handy list to have available. Congrats on your recent sysop status. — Alex756 02:27, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I, umm... totally stole that list from someone else's page (I don't remember who). Thank you for your congratulations (that goes for everyone else who congratulated me, as well). I'm still learning the ropes, that's for sure. -- Cyan 22:22, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Cyan, I hope you don't think I am being a 'dumn ass' in what I am doing on the VFD sub pages. This is not the first time that Erik has acted this way. He has in the past produced near Wiki World War when he unilaterally tore up an agreement reached with users over dates and decided to change everything to the way he wanted.

This is wrong. There was no such agreement.—Eloquence

All I am trying to do is tell him to discuss it with people before unilaterally changing from a system that works to one which he wants that doesn't. I don't mind reverting to that system. What I do mind is yet another of Erik's messianic methods of 'I decide the rules around here'. I have lost count of the number of people who when Erik does this just slink away embarrassed but too intimidated to say 'now hold on a minute.

Examples?—Eloquence

How dare you just ignore everyone else and do change things to your way'. We don't have a wiki God but Erik regularly acts as if he is it. So all I am doing is upholding a fundamental principle of behaviour which Erik regularly breaks.

Examples?—Eloquence

Please don't think I am being a dumn ass in doing so. But the more Erik gets away with such behaviour, and the more people though unhappy don't challenge him on it, the more he will think he can get away with it in the future. It took a virtual wiki world war and screams of anger from world users

ROTFL. The only one screaming were you, as you usually are.—Eloquence

.. to stop Erik doing what he wanted on dates. He really needs to stop playing God and start showing everyone else some respect. And unilaterally changing a working system because he wants is classic Erik at its worst. FearÉIREANN 04:22, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

As the edit war appears to be over, I will not respond point by point. Suffice it to say, as far as I could see, this was a pissing contest, plain and simple. Both of you are valued and experienced contributors, and neither of you were entirely right or wrong; so both of you should have known better than to screw around with a page that sees as much traffic as VfD does.

Both of you wrote words to the effect of, "since User:Unilateral is wrong about this policy and I am right, I am simply going to revert his edits." If either of you ever finds yourself writing this sort of thing again, this should be a signal for you to just stop what you are doing, and take it to the talk page.

In my opinion, the sooner this whole incident is forgotten, the better. -- Cyan 22:22, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I hope you weren't serious about not coming back if the VfD thing wasn't sorted. Angela 05:30, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

(I wrote, "If you dipshits aren't done by the time I wake up, I'm not coming back.") I was totally serious about it. But I sleep long and heavy, so the edit war would have had to go for 10 or 11 hours. I didn't really expect it to last that long, but if it had, I wouldn't want to be here anymore. -- Cyan 22:22, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I wonder what the record for an edit war is. This one was quite a few hours. Angela

I was confused too. Sorry, I meant to go back and try and fix it. Basically I messed it up because the temp page also had a talk page, so I wasn't sure where to move that talk page to and I think I might have mixed up the histories. If you can see a way of fixing it, please do.

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to pinch the design for the links you have at the top of this page. :)

Angela 01:45, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That makes sense. Even at 3.20am it makes sense. It must be good. Angela 02:22, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Talk page history

Do you think it's actually necessary? As far as I can tell the temp pages are no longer being worked on. Nothing has happened since August 20th, so I'm not sure I see the advantage in expecting Brion to do this. Would it not be best just to find the talk page for it and copy it onto the correct page with a note that the history is elsewhere instead? It seems a lot of work to do just to retain the correct history. Angela 06:17, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It's this one. Re Brion's workload: you could be right. I'm just anal retentive about this sort of thing. -- Cyan 06:37, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've just looked through the history and can't find any talk page history in there. Are you sure it is merged in there? I might be wrong as I'm not awake. Angela 06:22, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ok...one single edit? I really think that copying it to the appropriate place and attributing it in the edit summary would be fine. Talk pages are cut/pasted all the time (like when cleaning the village pump) and lose their history. I thought you meant there were months worth of discussions. Perhaps I'm being too blasé but I personally wouldn't bug the developers for this. Angela 06:57, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I did it the old-fashioned way. -- Cyan 13:20, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for sorting it out. Sorry to be such a nuisance and I hope I didn't appear too grumpy this morning. I have taken it off Brion's to-do list. Hope that's ok with you. I was thinking about the advice to give you about cleaning VfD, but after looking at Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Guidelines_for_admins, I think it is all covered there. I will certainly give you further advice if any comes to mind. Angela 18:23, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I watched while some .... inserted rubbish into brachiopod and then I tried to revert this, but found I didn't know how how to. I see you succeeded. How does one revert a page to a previous version? Thanks for your help. -- David Martland 06:09, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Thanks for comments about reversion - but it doesn't seem to work in current Wikipedia. Probably works OK for you as a sysop, but for the rest of us it seems that only editing the current page works. -- David Martland 13:19, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if had noticed the Move page request discussion on the Village pump. You seem to be becoming quite expert at handling these so I thought I woud refer the issue to you. :) good luck! Angela 13:48, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

Could a sysop move Web log to Weblog? See Talk:Web log for the discussion. --seav 11:04, Sep 6, 2003 (UTC)

Done. Stupidly I lost my head and lost the history of the talk page. I'll know better for next time. Pete 11:40, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The history isn't lost. It's still there. Should it be merged via the deletion/undeletion method? I would do it but I already messed up some of these recently so I'm avoiding them for now. Angela 18:14, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for sorting it. You're a star! Angela

What did you do?

[[_|This]] is a protected page. Protected even to me. Is it just my computer or does this page really exist? According to the history you created it.

I like the summary by the way. Excellent idea :)

Angela 22:00, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

How bizarre! I thought maybe it was my computer being odd. It shows up in recent changes as being called 19:19. Angela
I added some nowiki tags above, because that link was responsible for making this user page go blank. Like, completely blank, i.e. <html><body></body></html>. -- Tim Starling 03:02, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)

You forgot "or deleted" up top... or did you? :) Oh, and is one small better than two smalls? I think so - revert if you disagree. Martin 22:49, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nope, that was on purpose. -- Cyan 00:04, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)
One small's ok for now, but when you get lots of it two smalls is better as it takes up too much room. Angela

Thanks for the note re: Jethro -- it obviously wasn't a project that was near and dear to my heart, but I'm always glad to know I'm doing something to make Wikipedia slightly better than it was before. :) Happy editing, Jwrosenzweig 21:36, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nice work on your sub-page extermination campaign! Lots of tedious editing there, well done. Tannin

Hi Cyan, re your message on the VfD page page on having a central subpage on which records of delete debates are kept, I did that some days ago. It is a link from the VfD and I have been adding links to various /delete debates as they occur. I suppose the historian in me came out and I became concerned about our lack of archives on deletions where debates took place on talk pages that were then deleted with the original articles. Using a /delete page to debate articles means that it can be kept even when the original article and talk page was deleted. The page containing the delete debates archives is at Wikipedia:Archived delete debates and it can be found through a link on the VfD page. lol FearÉIREANN 23:19, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ahh! Thankyou! I had forgotten about it, and it's a project that I really ought to finish - the rough try-out at User:Tannin/Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy promised to morph into a really useful "translation" for those of us who are familiar with one taxonomical system and confused by the others. Tannin

If you put an NPOV dispute header on the top of a page, you're criticized for not explaining what the NPOV dispute is. RickK 00:51, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks :) I really appreciate it. Evil saltine 03:13, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I could not get to your talk page, it shows up blank from links. I had to go to my talk page and edit the URL to get here. Weird. Anyway, BuddhaInside is never going to leave that page alone. If we let him have the page to do with as he pleases he will just create a new controversy about another and if we try to fix the page he will edit war on it every day. He is a very clever fellow and I suspect he will dance gracefully between the rules for some time to come. Ark30inf 01:18, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

  • It is impossible for any one user to have an edit war. -BuddhaInside
    • Ah, you have decided to participate in discussions about yourself. We can move it to your talk page if you want.Ark30inf 22:47, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wow! How did you do that to your page? Good defence against vandals. Wish I could do that sometimes. :) Angela 01:39, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)

Bias? It is bias to have some pages where a 1000 hit google rule is in effect, and other pages where it is not. -BuddhaInside

True. But you say it like it's a bad thing. -- Cyan 02:36, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nah, I doubt it. But I think he's going to be banned soon. RickK 02:13, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't see "eliminating bias" as one of his bugaboos, I've spent half the afternoon eliminating bias introduced by him. - Hephaestos 02:29, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

re Main Page, scan Recent Changes - Hephaestos 03:03, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

BuddhaInside redirected his Talk page to the Main Page. RickK 03:05, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No, he didn't redirect his talk page to the main page, he moved the * main page. Angela

That edit just doesn't show up for me. I can see all the discussion about it though. -- Cyan 03:10, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ah, it was deleted. I see... AAAAAAAAAA!... <pant pant>... Okay, I'm better now. -- Cyan 03:12, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm not - still in shock! Angela

Brion or Tim will make it all better <sucks thumb>. -- Cyan 03:22, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It was all my fault though. Talk about putting ideas into his head. Nightmare. Angela 03:24, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. You are such an optimist! Angela 03:41, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Maybe it wasn't my fault then! Blame RickK instead. :) You were very right when you said "No, that sort of move gets tagged as vandalism. You'd probably be banned within 2 hours of someone telling Jimbo". As Buddha had read that, did he do it with the intention of being banned? He must have known that he would be. Strange. --Angela 20:59, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hey, why did you just delete my comment on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion regarding Wikipedia and Alexa? Was I not making a valid point? Even if it was the wrong page to put it on.... I put it there because if we are following the Alexa rule then Wikipedia should be deleted. Obviously it shouldn't... thus the rule is wrong. At least we should talk this somewhere? Just deleting it to try to hide the wrong policy is very bad. Fridge 23:33, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

^-^ remind you of anyone? Trying to prove a point on the VfD page and all that. Angela

If that is a thinly veiled attempt to accuse me of being someone I am not, then I invite you to say who you think I am and to make some attempt to substantiate that claim. To make the process less difficult, I am posting not logged in, so that you can see my IP address. If it is not such an attempt, then what is your point? The facts remain that i) the Alexa test is a flawed bodge, ii) policy pages are a waste of time. My point was deliberately put on VfD so that it would be seen by people for 7 days... except no... when someone, usually someone who spends hours building up their precious policies, just removes it straight away rather than fixing broken policies. Angela please do not engage in further personal attacks against me, respond to my points or not at all. Note that I am not trying to be disruptive. If I wanted to do that I could've simply re-introduced my point to the popular VfD page. 155.198.17.120 08:29, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting you were a particularly user, just drawing similarities between your approaches. It was a pointless thing to do and I apologise if it offended you. Angela 15:33, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Ok I just logged in to show that that IP = Fridge and then I saw I had a message from Cyan... and you said the discussion has been moved to Wikipedia_talk:Google_Test... sorry I missed that before... my point was not just being ignored and deleted like I thought so I will calm down now! (NB I am not someone who has been here before as Angela writes, my website briefly had an article here, and I was getting some referrers from that page and the VfD page so I came here to look) I found that the page deleted due to non-importance. I got annoyed because who was Wikipedia to judge who is important, but I realise the what you are doing is actually quite good. Sorry Cyan. Fridge 08:35, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I never said you had been here before. However, when your first, and at the time only, edits had been to VfD, people are likely to suspect you are not a newbie, in the same way that they did with the user to whom I was comparing you to above. However, as you have explained there is a good reason why VfD was the first page you came across as your website was receiving hits from the said page. Angela 15:33, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

At the time, it was the least egregious abuse of VfD going on. That edit war still pisses me off when I think of it. -- Cyan 00:53, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Don't let edit wars stress you out. They are generally very short lived. Angela 15:33, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! :) -- sugarfish 03:50, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I put two short paragraphs into the "Platonism" article, and under "Discuss this page" I describe my 50-year fight against it.jonhays 04:47, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)~

What you did for the Said article is good, I think. RickK 23:57, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Instructions for IE: "What links here", CTRL+F, "redirect", enter, enter, enter. Martin 16:50, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm beginning to discover that the reason so many of you couldn't understand the generative basis of "generatics" is the slant in some of your articles, of which I'll mention three -- one requiring some linkage. The notion of "recursion" is generative. But the Wikki article is mostly recursive function theory and recursive set theory, unknown to millions of students and mathematicians. It doesn't mention the successor function by which recursion of natural numbers is taught. I've taught that, while visiting many primary school classes, by the "begats" of the Second Chapter of Genesis in The Bible.

Another connection is the gnomon by which Pythagoras and The Pythagoreans generate number patterns, as I explain in "Figurate numbers", which Wikki didn't have. But the Wikki "Gnomon" didn't mention this until I inserted it with a reference.

A third matter is the generative spinoff in the "Generative grammar" of Noam Chomsky. Wikki couldn't find that. But I found in "Noam Chomsky" -- which writes mostly controversial comments on this man, rather than on his world renowned work in mathematical linguistics -- that Wikki has "Transformational-generative grammer". Try that in Google. Can't find any reference, even yours. I taught generative grammar for 30 years and have a dozen or more books on it, and had never before encountered the term, "Transformational-generative grammar". I suggest some sort of diverting link from "Generative grammar" to the Wikki article. But I don't know how to do it.jonhays 19:14, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for that deletion, you have a deal. I guess we are now officially part of the McGill cabal, eh? ;-). Alex756 23:58, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the info on diverting. But (without diversion) I must comment on your comment about my comment.

Ironic, bringing up math as a tool. My B.S. is in Physics from Columbia U., and I've taught many physics courses (including many labs). I was an Army Air Force weather observer and forecaster for 5 years before, during, and after American participation in WWII. (That's why I initiated the article "Sir Francis Beaufort" from the link in "Beaufort scale", to praise the magnificent Beaufort sea charts, still good after 200 years.) I retired from Naval Resarch Laboratory after 12 years as a mathematician and computer programmer (using Unix, C, AWK, and relational databases).

Ironic in that my complaints about those articles involved their LACK OF MATH TOOLS. The "Recusion" article mainly discusses Recursive Function Theory and Recursive Ser Theory, studied only by specialists in their doctoral years. The article lacks some of the most fundamental recursive tools, including some I've taught to grade school pupils.

The Noam Chomsky article excels in scandal-mongering, but I find EXPLANATION of no tool of mathematical linguistics, while promising this in the link to "Transformational-generative grammar", which resembles a English paper, and again lacks a single math tool. Yet such a pedestrian source as "Discrete Mathematics", by Seymour Lipschitz (in the Schaum's Outlines series) has a 37-page Ch. 13, "Languages, Grammars, Machines", material which I've taught many times, filled with those tools known as automata used by communication engineers who usually know their debt to Chomsky in developing this subject.

As to the "Gnomon" article, it did not state (until I put it in) that the Pythagoreans set forth gnomoons as tools for generating and understanding number patterns.

Ironic in that the "Reference" of "Generistics" cites two math tools I created and put online. A calculator that inputs natural numbers and outputs the equivalent of positive and negative integers. Another calculator that inputs integers and outputs "fractions" or rational numbers. Here's my heuristic definition of mathematics. If a formulation can be written as a PROGRAM and EMBODIED in a device or computer simulation of one, then it unquestionablly is mathematics. The same inputs to my calculators always yield the same outputs. So I claim I'm doing math. Try to find a program online inputting postulates nnd outputting arithmetic or geometry or other math. It's been done in Artificial Ingelligence, but I doubt if you'd want to read through it.

In those comments to you, I was implicitly asking: "Does Wikkipedia have a double standard?"jonhays 02:10, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you. (As another instance of math tools, you may want to see the article I initiated on Burning parliament.) But I must again comment on your comment. You speak of work of "professional methematicians" -- implicitly leaving me out. On my side, I cited professional mathemticians Pythagoras, Bertrand Russell, William Rowan Hamilton, Leopold Kronecker, Morris Kline, Henri Poincaré, David Hilbert, C. G. J. Jacoby, Karl Weierstrass, Z. A. Melzak -- all ignored in discussing my case. As a variation on "guilt-by-association", this sounds like "guilt-by-ignored-association", which I suggest to be an instance of double standard.

I was forced onto the defensive on the day I joined Wikkipedia. Apart from a 2-line perfunctory "welcome", my Talk page immediately received a number of attacks, many of which I've deleted to make room for more attacks. (One remaining is at the page-top, from Annie Nonimus, a crack about my age.) My first editing act was to use a link already present in Francis I of France about the Battle of Pavia to put together (from a file I've had online for two years) an account of this famous Battle, filling in a hole in Wikkipedia. This immediately provoked a comment on my Talk page from Tarquin that this looked like "cut and paste" from various sources. I managed to satisfy him. But my integrity was out on the clothes-line. Can I ever hope to lower my drawbridge?jonhays 18:41, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Before I'd done any editing, only writing about my life and education on my Talk page, Wikkers were coming onto my Talk page and challenging statements I made about my life and education. The one about my age is the only one left, because overlooked. I suggest that a "welcome" should contain a warning to any newcomer to expect this fragging, and being judged guilty of copying until a defense can be made.jonhays 00:17, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Apologies for blanking the Hole album listing. Over zealous editing on my part. Secretlondon 07:20, Sep 30, 2003 (UTC)

In all the negativity on my Talk page, the only positive note I remember is from you -- about my plans for revising "Generatics", that it "sounds good". Thank you, thank you. I'm in the process of revising as I described. Cheers. jonhays 15:57, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the deletion. Much appreciated. Angela 20:56, Sep 30, 2003 (UTC)

It wasn't the "unencyclopedic" comments that upset me, it was Jake's attack on me for having put the snooker guy of VfD. I never heard of the guy, so sue me, but quit attacking me for it. It has happened on VfD before. RickK 02:40, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Amazing the things you learn in Wikipedia: Now you mention it, "steeper learning curve" does mean "easier to learn", in a mathematical graphing sense. Never thought of that before! Guess I'll stop using the phrase.

But this is a losing battle: Nobody *ever* uses it that way. It's always used in the sense that "steeper" means "harder to climb," which is a perfectly legitimate analogy and so isn't really wrong. Ah, well - I suppose if language was logical it would be less interesting. - DavidWBrooks 13:08, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tnx for the caps on Real number; i'm good at restoring them in letters on behalf of a group, where i expect to use "i" and edit it to "I", but in articles first person is un-ency'ic -- so i never considered the prospect of using first person, & if you'd asked whether i'd slipped into (lower-case) first-person inside quotes, i'd have answered, "No, why would i?" [blush]

Too many additional thoughts, on refs to "imaginary number" on Real number and other pages, to put them down quickly. But tnx for energizing my paltry imagination to the point where the existing text became plausible to me as well. Watch-list Talk:Real number if yr interest continues & eventually i'll say more, probably including links to changed pages, & maybe to a new article i'll link them to. -- Jerzy 23:20, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It seems like a neverending cycle. I also feel a little put out about the hypocrisy of leaving the Bush article but deleting the Clinton one. But adding new worthless lists in protest of that just continues the cycle.Ark30inf 00:22, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

He's just mad. It's the first time I've been accused of being a vandal on the mailing list. Angela

I'm not going to complain.Ark30inf 04:16, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Things I don't have to see argued over for a week.Ark30inf 04:34, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)