User talk:IronChris/Archive1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions on my talk page. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on my current talk page. IronChris | (talk)

Contents

Welcome

Hello, IronChris/Archive1, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the Newcomers help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Kukini 04:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Feminism userboxes

OK Nicholas, I see that you also deleted the male supporter of feminism userbox. Thanks for backing up your position honestly. Really, I find that it is an interesting position that you have on userboxes. You believe that they are suceptible to promote inflammatory reactions or even POV bloc voting. Then why not delete all user boxes (I think this is your point of view)? Deleting only a few specific userboxes is not consistant with your anti-userbox policies in general and doesn't support your position.

I really don't understand why a userbox encouraging gender equality is more at risk of causing these kinds of reactions than any political (communist, anti-communist, anti-capitalist, republican, democrat, just to mention a few) or religious ones (catholic, pagan, creationist, anti-creationist, spaghetti-monster follower, etc.). Come on, there are even some promoting the consumption of drugs and alcohol! I don't see you (or anyone) deleting those. Personally, i think that any non-insulting userboxes should be allowed. But I can understand why some people might argue that userboxes promoting drugs, sex, alcohol, etc. are a risk, not only for the reasons you have stated, but, for example, in case young users of Wikipedia come across them.

So I think that until a decision has been taken on allowing or deleting all userboxes, you should let others decide what user boxes they want to use (again, unless they are directly insulting a minority, belief, political opinion, etc., even though I'm sure some of those exist). My point on that is that whether userboxes are allowed or not, nothing is stopping users to write the exact same thing as figures already in the userboxes on their page. The only difference is that it is faster to set up, nicer (little pictures, colours) and humourous. But this is getting into the whole dilemma about keeping or deleting userboxes.

If you think a feminist userbox is dangerous, tell me what you think about these : {{User Slut}}{{user antireligion}}{{user satanist}}{{user antitheist}}{{user antiatheism2}}{{user creationist}}{{user evol-0}}{{user flat earth}}{{user evol-X}}{{user religion flying spaghetti monster not really}}{{User All Drugs}}{{user Anarchist}}{{User conservative}}{{user Communist}}{{User conspiracy}}{{user No Marxism}}{{User beer respect}} (Added nowiki tags for brevity of message length --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 18:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC))

Please tell me why a feminist userbox is more divisive than any of the ones I have put as examples above. As I said earlier, I support userboxes, since nothing can stop users writing their content themselves. I just put these as examples of ones that I find way more divisive and often less justifiable than the ones you are attacking. Regards, IronChris 21:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear IronChris: Firstly, I'd like to thank you for taking the time and trouble to discuss this issue with me, and for explaining your rationale as to why you feel my actions were incorrect. I greatly appreciate your feedback as to my decision to delete those userboxes. I must sincerely apologise for not having replied to you personally about this matter; my workload has, alas, somewhat limited my time available for Wikipedia editing.
In your message above you raise some very pertinent and astute points about the deletions that I carried out (as User:Romarin likewise did) which I admit I had not considered specifically when I carried out the deletions. Allow me to respond to your points individually:
Why I have not deleted all userboxes - you are right, there is a certain pattern of thought that would dictate all userboxes should be deleted under such a rationale. However I believe there is a distinction to be made between userboxes which clearly promote a particular political or otherwise polemic POV; personally I see less concern with those userboxes that are not related to politics and ideology than those that are simply because of the fact that where less contention is present surrounding the issues, POV bloc voting would seem far less probable. Where contention is not held on issues, there is less motivation towards skewing Wikipedia process in order to achieve the outcomes of the viewpoint held - since the vested interest in doing so is far reduced. I would concede however that this does not mean there would be no interest in vote canvassing of this variety; it is my interest to reduce the amount of bloc voting where possible, but it would be quite unrealistic to expect the problem to be remedied by deleting all userboxes (since POV bloc voting definitely occurred before userboxes even existed, back in 2004 when I first joined Wikipedia and the only boxes available were those Babel boxes indicating one's spoken languages). It is my view that it is reasonable to permit people to use userboxes which are not liable to give rise towards campaign-type issues. Indeed, I see far less of a problem with people simply using raw userbox code on their pages versus a transcluded template without an associated category, even for contentious issues; this is because the bloc voting concerns would be greatly mitigated, although ideally I'd prefer Wikipedia to be free of advertisement of points of view completely. However I do have a specific concern with the transclusion of userbox templates where contentious POV issues are being expounded by those userboxes, due to the "What links here" and category bloc voting issues.
Why I considered a userbox that was "promoting gender equality" to be a risk, as you worded it - In fact, I do not have an issue with a userbox that promotes gender equality, as you will note by the fact that I deliberately have not deleted the {{User Gender Equality}} userbox. I don't think it is valid to consider the term "feminism" as synonymous with "gender equality" - feminism, as the term suggests, is clearly advocating discrimination in favour of women versus being in opposition to discrimination against either gender. Thus it is expounding a specific partisan point of view, often forcefully and emotively pressed in society, which I think must clearly fall under the T1 speedy deletion category of being divisive, the division being the advocation of discrimination in favour for a particular gender. I would treat a userbox in favour of masculism in an identical manner to one in favour of feminism - as in, I would speedy delete it. I doubt if such a userbox were to exist you would be likely to consider it as being in support of "gender equality". I expect that in response to such reasoning you would likely reply that I have misunderstood the feminist movement; if I may be so presumptious as to preempt that response, regardless of what the Wikipedia article - or any other source - defines feminism as, the intrinsic bias of feminism as being in specific support of discrimination for women's interests as opposed to equality for both genders is not removed regardless of the definition of the movement.
Regarding why other POV-related userboxes have not been deleted - it is more that I am yet to sort through the whole load of userboxes and determine which ones should be deleted, which would as I'm sure you can appreciate be a mammoth undertaking, especially since taking the decision to delete userboxes related to a particular subject should not be taken lightly. In response to the examples you gave, a number of those I would agree should indeed be deleted ({{user antireligion}}, {{user antitheist}}, {{user antiatheism2}}, {{User conspiracy}}, {{user evol-X}}) as they clearly propound a POV that is discriminatory towards other users, or otherwise inflammatory. As for the others, such as those relating to religious beliefs and sex, I would consider that since they are not directly propounding potential discrimination against Wikipedia users it would not be reasonable to speedy delete them, although the political and religious userboxes I would like to see deleted entirely (these could not, however, be speedy deleted, as they would not technically fall under the T1 criteria of being divisive or inflammatory).
I hope perhaps the above makes my rationale slightly clearer, perhaps, and that you might be able to better see why I made the decision to delete the feminist userboxes. If there's any way I can be of assistance, either in this matter or in the future, please do ask me, either on my talk page or via e-mail; I am at your service. All the best, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 19:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the very detailed answer. Indeed, you anticipated my response well, and make your points very clear, except for one. Does feminism favour one gender (women) over another (men) in your opinion, or just in the opinion of others?
Indeed you seem to be aware of the Wikipedia article (and maybe of other sources) on the feminist movement, and I expect you know as well as me that feminism strives to reach gender equality. I suspect that being a reasonable person, and aware of the situation in the world, you will concede that such a movement is necessary. I won't go through all of the countless examples of situations in which women are discriminated against (salary, finding a job, etc.) as this is not the place, and, again, I imagine that you are aware of them. In any case, you aren't aware of these facts or disagree with the definition of feminism as opposing gender discrimination, this would clearly mean that your deletion of the userboxes were motivated a personal POV.
But of course, I assume good faith on your part, and therefore I imagine that the justifications behind feminism aren't an issue, nor are you a victim of the prejudice that the aim of feminism is to favour women over men (for this to be even possible, equality would have to be reached first).
So let's move on to your argument that other people see feminism in this way, and that this is precisely why the userbox might appear as divisive and lead to POV bloc voting. It seems to me that deleting the userbox is acknowledging this prejudice. Using a satanist or pagan userbox is also a source of prejudice on the part of the opposers of such movements. Same for queer userboxes. Same for political userboxes. Once again, if you wanted to delete every userbox which could be a source of prejudice on the part of people who do not fully understand or who oppose such movements/beliefs, you would end up deleting all userboxes.
Like User:Romarin, I believe that this userbox is actually informative. People who have a prejudice on the feminist movement can click on the link and read about it. Just hushing a belief/movement on the grounds that it is controversial is a threat to diversity of thought, learning, open-mindedness and even individual freedom. As I said, other movements such as satanism or homosexuality have many deep-rooted prejudices working against them, and deleting access to them, indeed hiding them away will not solve the problem. By deleting these userboxes, I think that you are doing great disservice to the movement, to its followers and to the general public. If this line of thought was to be applied world-wide, we would have to hide homosexuality, religion, conflicts (etc.) from the TV news, internet, and streets to avoid controversy.
There will always be people who oppose movements/beliefs. Some people believe in modern geocentrism. I imagine that they oppose the belief of heliocentrism, and some of them are most probably biased against its supporters. This is most obviously not a reason to eliminate their userboxes. There are countless similar examples. Just because people oppose feminism (out of ignorance about the motivations of the movement or otherwise) doesn't seem to me to be enough to delete the userboxes. Regards, --IronChris 22:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Dear Ironchris: I've undeleted the feminist userboxes that I previously deleted, based on your explanations and that of others. Personally I dislike their presence on Wikipedia - I don't wish controversial POV userboxes to be present at all, in my opinion - but, as you say, there is potential scope for legitimate reasons for having the feminist userboxes, on the basis of there being encyclopaedic work on the subject of feminism. In the interests of following WP:AGF I should assume that the use of this userbox is to promote assistance in working on feminism-related areas of Wikipedia rather than on the basis of wishing to edit non-feminism articles with a feminist POV, or to bias deletion polls in favour of feminism. In addition I acknowledge that I also rather assumed poor faith of the feminist movement in general, which was perhaps rather unwarranted on my part. Thank you for your explanation to me in this matter, which has been of great help to me. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Hypocrite

Sorry I put this on the wrong page last time and I corrected what you said I was wrong about. Sorry again. :-)

This user supports user Romarin deleting factual modifications by user billcica based on this user's own biased oppinion. This user has a box clearly stating his possition on feminism but still supports the removal of facts from women's rights and other related topics. This is biased and hypocritical and can't be allowed. The facts removed were said not "to be a reliable source of verifiable knowledge." While the lines deleted were clearly provable, verifiable facts. If Romarin had taken the time to look into these facts Romarin would have known not to use her own bias to delete important and often over looked facts. This user said the facts were deleted by Romarin because wikipedia.org doesn't include "points of view," while the facts Romarin chose to delete clearly show Romarin and this user's point of view. Romarin's imposing of hypocritical beliefs on all of the wikipedia members shouldn't be allowed. Ask user billcica if any of the facts this user deleted were untrue or "unverifiable." Make sure you get the truth from someone who knows and not from hypocrites.



Please do not vandalize my user page. If you have anything to say to me use my talk page, like everyone else. You state that I deleted your "factual" edits. I might point out that I deleted nothing of what you edited, other users did. Several other users actually, so this obviously isn't due to a personal bias of mine as you say. Myself and these other users just ensure that the policies of wikipedia are enforced. I see that I am not the only one to have deemed useful to write to you on your user page. For someone who has only been registered for 2 days that's quite something, don't you think?
My only modification of your contributions was the deletion of your Weekly Musician entry which was just an ad and has nothing to do in an encyclopedia, as I mentionned above.
It would also be good of you to sign your posts using four ~, and also make use of edit summaries to explain to others your modifications, as I stated above.
Indeed, I am a male supporter of feminism. That means that I support a movement that aims to promote equality between genders, though I gather that your own opinion on this question is quite different. Please note that unlike you, I do not let my personal opinions get in my way when I edit Wikipedia. I stick to the facts that you seem so dearly attached to. If in the future you do not want your edits deleted as POV make sure to cite your sources. In this manner no-one can remove your edits. However, opinions, and particular sexist, inflammatory or unjustified edits will be deleted on sight.
Again, a small note on blocking. I do not want to sound overly threatening, but personal attacks are a great way to be banned from Wikipedia. So please do not call me or anyone else a hypocrite, and assume good faith. Regards, --IronChris 23:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and need a little advice here

Hello Nicholas. Firstly I want to thank you for restoring the feminist userboxes. I know i'm a bit late at answering, sorry about that. Anyway, I'm glad we could reach an agreement on that.

Right now though I could use some help. A new user, Billcica, has been causing some trouble. He has only been registered for 2 days, and already made a number of unacceptable edits. If you look at his contributions, you'll see that he edited such pages as Feminism, Reproductive rights, Women's rights, Civil Rights Act of 1964, or Human rights, adding blatently POV and sexist comments such as :

"If women have the right to choose, shouldn't men also have the right to choose or at the very least a say in the out come of the women's decision?" ;

"Few people seem to notice but women have far more rights granted to them than men do in the United States. The women's rights movement has managed to push the government of the United States, as well as individual state governments, to pass laws granting rights and "extra" protections to women. These laws allow women to have the right to make decisions that men have no say in when the issues are in a man's life. They also increased the penalty for violence against women while leaving the penalty for violence against men the same. Making the women far more free and protected then the men of the United States." ;

"The right to choose is a right granted only to women while giving men no such right or any recoarse at all. See women's rights for more on rights granted to women and not to men", etc.

He also uploaded and used several copyrighted images, and created a page that I speedied, as it was just an ad for a website (Weekly Musician). Though I can understand that he is new and not aware of Wikipedia policies, he didn't stop at this. Myself, and, ironically, Romarin both wrote to him on his user page to give him some guidelines and explain to him why his modifications had been deleted by various people. In response to this, he wrote on our user pages (instead of the talk pages), calling us hypocrites, biased and narrow-minded, insisting that our reasons for deleting his modifications were not based on facts and just a product of our opinions (even though I deleted nothing, apart from the article I speedied, other people did that before me).

Once again I sent him a message on his talk page, asking him not to vandalize my page, assume good faith, and stop the personal attacks. I believe he did not even read my messages since just a few seconds after I posted my message he cleaned his talk page of all messages, including the welcoming message and the message from a bot asking him not to use copyrighted images!

Please tell me what you think should be done. For my part, repeated POV, sexist and inflammatory posts, vandalism of others' user pages, personal attacks, use of copyrighted material and obliviousness to messages and attempts at dialogue warrant a blockage. But I thought I'd ask you what to do, as you seem to know about this subject. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, --IronChris 23:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Some of his most recent additions were to delete parts of the messages on my talk page and do a collage of various sentences by User:Romarin on his talk page, belittling and making fun of her. This is insulting and should not be tolerated. --IronChris 00:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Dear Chris: Regarding the userboxes, you are most welcome; I am indebted to yourself and Romarin for explaining the finer points of the matter at play, and offer my sincerest apologies for any consternation I may have caused in deleting the userboxes. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties you've been having with this user; it does seem clear he has a rather anti-feministic POV, and has been editing quite unacceptably. The user's mangling of Romarin's comments on his talk pages, and the blanking of dialogue that he dislikes, does strike me as quite unacceptable; coupled with the POV editing, it makes his conduct quite inexcusable. I have blocked the user for forty-eight hours, restored the text of yourself and Romarin on his talk page, and left a message to him [1]. If he persists in his behaviour I will reblock and, should he continue further, will block him indefinitely as he is clearly making a negative contribution to the project. I will watch this user carefully, and deal with any of his behaviour as necessary. I hope this is of some assistance to you. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 01:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks and action taken on cleanup

On 11 Apr 06, you had placed a cleanup tag on one of the pages I am steward of, genus Iphiclides. I have done the needful. Please do revisit the page. Thank you for drawing my attention to the issue. If you have any more comments, I would appreciate them. Regards, AshLin 04:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Trial template placement

  • Do place the template Arthropod talk on The List of Butterflies of India (Papilionidae). We'll see what the Tree of Life, Wikiproject Arthropod and the others are all about and then we will deliberate over going for it. At this point we're focussing on completing this Family and building it up to be a showcase.
  • We've recently recd some 20 photos or so and are writing articles and placing them on Wikimedia/Wikipedia as well. See Spot Swordtail. We hope to bring things upto at least that standard.
  • We have constraints -
    • Firstly, we're on a learning curve, we've just getting the hang of how to use wikimedia in an elementary way.
    • We've just begun networking to build up support, goodwill and espousal in the butterfly community of our cause. We're trying to synergise and excite the community. ** Wikimedia data on Papilionids is itself a great task to complete.
    • Larval Foodplants need specific wikis of their own. My father-in-law has promised to help.
    • Our references are quite few and quite old.
    • We're beginning to just about understand the category system too.
    • The butterfly community has ignorance and distrust of the internet mainly from copyright concerns for thier images. I wrote at least one e-mail a day educating on this issue, resolving doubts and requesting aid in form of images.

Visit us again in three months.Exciting times ahead. Regards, AshLin 18:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Metal Poll

Hello there. I am an overseer of your brain. I have come to tell you that the Wikimetal Project is holding a poll on the inclusion of certain genres on the heavy metal template and footer that goes onto metal related articles. This poll has a closing date, however, and so here i am, reminding you to vote if you want to, by pumping strange chemicals through your veins. Its hard work being a brain you know!

If you would like to help in this crucial part of the project, the page is here. No, thats not it? Oh my! I posted those pictures of myself, what a devil i am. No the actuall link is here on this link.

I guess ill see you at breakfest when you finally recover from Wikipedia. Bye for now body, your Brain 07:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Yo

It's 8 against 1, not 2 against 7. I wanted to delete faggoth, but every time I did it was reverted. So in the end, I just left it and decided that I don't want to start a revert war, see the Metal project talk page. Sorry for the misunderstanding bro. --Ryouga 20:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know what you mean. As for siding with Leyasu, let's just say we've agreed not to get into massive edit wars. Which is good, since I can't keep up with them. Anyway let's hope these messed up situations get cleared up soon. --Ryouga 23:57, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

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Chillin'

You're right about chilling, although as I pointed out somewhere else recently, my WP:CHILL essay is about not including new fads or topics which have not proved their lasting notability, rather than getting editors to take a breather. Of course, it could certainly be said that Kash needs to WP:CHILL until there is at least one notable Iranian metal band. If Kash doesn't want to collaborate we'll have to look at deletion for Iranian metal again because I really don't see anything notable there. Deizio 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a good chill out essay, maybe there's a gap in the market. As far as Metal in Islamic countries goes, I really don't think it's the way forward. It is intended as a compromise but has been rejected by Kash so it's not really a solution. There is also no connection between the regional scenes and it's ultimately a pretty arbitrary way to group various countries together, tantamount to "Metal in countries beginning with R" or "Metal in countries with female presidents". Imo we should keep the Iranian metal article policed to conform to WP style and policies (like keeping the external list of random bands out of it), and if no effort is made to prove the scene contains notable bands or the topic has received media coverage then there will be a case for AfD re-nomination in the future. The previous vote was not great as there were about 7 votes, very few metal fans contributed, and only inclusionists seemed to join in from the wider community. Deizio 10:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
PS your user page looks whakk on my screen, maybe a hangover from the server problems yesterday? Or maybe just me... Deizio 10:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Problem With Me

If you want to make comments like 'One Person AFDS' and other back handed statements regarding me, i suggest making your intentions towards me known clearly.

As for my work, if any of you would of asked what im aiming to accomplish, you would of been told.

I try to oversee everyone as much as possible, setting methodolicial and planned structures in place to come to fair and swift resoloutions to problems and issues, that dont compromise the neutrality or fairness of any article or subject. Sometimes i do not suceed or i balls it up.

Regharding the polls, i had moved it because closing the debates one by one could of been seen as vote logging (closing before others can vote in disfavour of the closuer) and because it was clogging up the talk page. It was moved to try to be cleaner and more accesable for all, and to keep things 100% fair for everyone.

Regarding Faggoth, i wasnt trying to dictate to anyone or impose my views over anyones. I was simply informing you all an AFD ruling stands, and if you lose the information you can and will be held accountable per the ruling. I was trying to save you all walking into a bear trap, by telling you it was there. However, what to do with it, less we cant lose the information, is find the right home for it. My current thoughts are of three possibilitys:

A) Gothic Metal B) Black Metal C) Heavy Metal Terms And Lingo

Regarding all else, being in allegiance with me could be considered a personal attack, and i request nicely that you dont make them, as i am working to benifit the whole community at the same time, wether that undermines come peoples decisions/opinions or not. Ley Shade 11:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Invertebrate stubs

I think it's safe to change the parent category for all the relevant categories under the Category:Invertebrate stubs hierarchy, as per your talk page queries. --TheParanoidOne 22:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Your removal of comment

You removed my comment instead of your own. -- - K a s h Talk | email 19:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyway its not important. It's the thought that counts ;) hehe. Thanks. -- - K a s h Talk | email 19:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure. So you a British aye? Queen's birthday and all that. Pretty cool. -- - K a s h Talk | email 20:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
That Unwikipedia is great! thanks for the link -- - K a s h Talk | email 19:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Categorisation discussion update

Hi ironcris Check out User_talk:AshLin/Categorisation#Viren.27s_thoughts_1 --Viren 10:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to Esperanza

Welcome, IronChris/Archive1, to Esperanza, the Wikipedia member association! As you might know, all the Esperanzians share one important goal: the success of this encyclopedia. Within that, we then attempt to strengthen the community bonds, and be the "approachable" side of the project. All of our ideals are held in the Charter, the governing document of the association.

Now that you are a member, you might be interested in some of our programs. A quite important program is the StressUnit, which seeks to support editors who have encountered any stress from their Wikipedia events, and are seeking to leave the project. So far, Esperanza can be credited with the support and retention of several users. We have a calendar of special events, member birthdays, and other holidays that you can add to and follow.

In addition to these projects, several more missions of Esperanza are in development, and are currently being created at Esperanza/Possibles.

I encourage you to take an active voice in the running of Esperanza. We have a small government system, headed by our Administrator general, Celestianpower, and guided by the Advisory Committee, JoanneB, Titoxd and FireFox. The April elections have begun.

If you have any other questions, concerns, comments, or general ideas, Esperanzian or otherwise, know that you can always contact me via email or talk page. Alternatively, you could communicate with fellow users via our IRC channel, #wikipedia-esperanza (which is also good for a fun chat or two :). If you're new to IRC, please see the IRC Tutorial, which was written by one of our members. I thank you for joining Esperanza, and look forward to working with you in making Wikipedia a better place to be!

Thanks! _-M o P-_ 23:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

SCOTW

You voted for Ammonia and this article is now the current Science Collaboration of the Week!
Please help to improve it to match the quality of an ideal Wikipedia science article.

Welcome to VandalProof!

Hi IronChris/Archive1, thank you for your interest in VandalProof and Congratulations! You are now one of our authorized users, so if you haven't already simply download VandalProof from our main page, install and you're ready to go!

If you have any problems please feel free to contact me or post a message on VandalProof's talk page. Once again congrats and welcome to our team! Fetofs Hello! 00:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, IronChris! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. AmiDaniel (Talk) 02:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems like there was a bit of an edit conflict with me and Fetofs there, sorry. Anyway you're on the list! lol. AmiDaniel (Talk) 02:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you so much for promptly reverting vandalism om my userpage. Bertilvidet 18:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

172.203.70.132

Hey, no problem about the revert - glad to do it. 172.203.70.132 is a troll trying to get a rise out of us. Ignore him and I'll bet he goes away. I'll be keeping an eye on his account when the block lifts though. Best, Gwernol 18:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure you will. Any chance of you guys learning to read? Thanks. Jimbo Wales 17:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

This comment was not added by User:Jimbo Wales but rather by User:172.141.31.118, who is a sock of the above mentioned vandal who seems to be upset at being blocked for vandalism. romarin[talk to her ] 17:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

thanks

cheers for your message - pleased to help where i can. I'm not so good with the arthropod taxonomies as it's not my field but should be able to make a decent contribution to other areas of the project especially structure/physiology and the molecular articles. thanks again for setting up the arthropods project - it was needed!! Goldfinger820 01:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Templates for deletion, April 30th.

Hey! Thanks for posting your comments on the current articles for deletion (incorrectly, as they original were located in TO BE DELETED without a debate) proposed for deletion by Myrtone. However, I think you may have added your two votes to the same debate. Perhaps it was a small error? All in all, thank you for supporting the two userboxes on wikipedia.

Sincerely, Logical2u 21:31, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Edit 21:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC) : You changed this mistake as I was writing this. Good job! Logical2u 21:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

"Safe vandalising"

I can't take credit for the idea, I think Master of Puppets had it on his page long before me. — nathanrdotcom (T • C • W) 23:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

COTW Project

You voted for Fauna (animals), this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. -Scottwiki 09:37, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll

Regarding the poll, I'd appreciate it if you'd cast an eye over the closures and endorse the results on the project talk page if you're happy with them. I think it turned out pretty well in the end and will help us to keep the template as simple as possible, even if Ley did manage to get Symphonic on there ;) Deizio 14:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

biobarnstar proposal

Hi IronChris,

thanks for you comments on the biobarnstar. You didn't like the 1st draft of the biobarnstar. Please make a suggestion what you would like to see & I'll try to incorporate it into the next draft.

Best, Jasu 14:11, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza Newsletter, Issue #3

The Administrator Coaching program is a program aimed at preparing Wikipedians for Adminship or helping them understand the intricacies of Wikipedia better. Recently, changes have been made to the requirements of coachees. Please review them before requesting this service.
This would be something like the Welcoming Committee, but for people who have figured out the basics of editing articles; they're not newcomers any more, but they might want some help in learning new roles. Some might like suggestions about how to learn vandal patrol, or mentoring on taking an article to featured status, or guidance with a proposal they plan to make at the Village Pump, for example. In this way, Esperanza would help keep hope alive for Wikipedia because we would always be grooming the next generation of admins.
Stressbusters
The Stressbusters are a subset of Esperanza aiming to investigate the causes of stress. New eyes on the situation are always welcome!
Note from the editor
As always, MiszaBot handled this delivery. Thank you! Also, congratulations go to Pschemp, Titoxd and Freakofnurture for being elected in the last elections! An Esperanzial May to all of the readership!
  1. Posting logs of the Esperanza IRC channel are explicitly banned anywhere. Violation of this rule results in deletion and a ban from the channel.
  2. A disclaimer is going to be added to the Esperanza main page. We are humans and, as such, are imperfect.
  3. Various revisions have been made to the Code of Conduct. Please see them, as the proposal is ready to be ratified by the community and enacted. All members will members to have to re-confirm their membership after accepting the Code of Conduct.
  4. Referendums are to be held on whether terms of AC members should be lengthened and whether we should abolish votes full stop.
  5. Admin Coaching reform is agreed upon.
Signed...
Celestianpower, JoanneB, Titoxd, Pschemp and Freakofnurture
20:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Marijuana Wiki

Hi there,

I see that you are a pro-Cannabis Wikipedian so I hope this will be of some interest to you.

I've started a Marijuana wiki (aka The Sticky Wiki) which I think you might be interested in. I'm hoping you can help me get started with this project. Whereas lots of articles about weed get speedy-deleted on Wikipedia, they would be totally cool over at MarijuanaWiki. But really I want the site to be more of a marijuana community than merely an encyclopedia.

To give you an example, I want to have city guides about where to score, find pot-friendly cafes, marijuana events, and what represents a good price in that city. Etc. (You can check out the featured article: "Toronto" to see what I mean). I also want to have grow diaries and marijuana blogs. All in all, basically more communal than encyclopedic.

I am in need of admins/moderators, and people experienced with MediaWiki to help build policy, categories, and templates, etc. If you'd be interested in helping me with this project, the URL is MarijuanaWiki

Thanks for your time and consideration. Hope to see you there!

-- nsandwich 23:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

In reference to Bio-barnstar proposal: What is the next move?

There was much talk lately about the bio-barnstar proposal, but these past 5 days there hasn't been more said. What is next? What is there to be done? Can we move this foward...? It is the first time I involve myself in a barnstar proposal and I do not know what is the procedure. I seem to read there is quite a support for a bio-barnstar and a considerable preference for the second proposal... Please, could someone tell me what next? Thanks.--Francisco Valverde 17:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

  • User:LiquidGhoul seems to be on the job. Let's be patient and let him finish it off. Anyway, if in a few hours, it hasn't been done, I'll ask him... --Francisco Valverde 11:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Ollanta Humala

Yeah, I asked User:MONGO to undelete it. Admins really should be more careful in checking for page history when deleting pages. Do you know which admin deleted the page?--Jersey Devil 04:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Robert Wienand

hi -- I brought this page to AfD. thanks for your vigilance, but note that the rules for WP:PROD indicate that the tag may be removed by anyone, including the author, for any reason, or none at all, and the tag should not be reinstated. any dissent about deletion of prod'ed pages should go to AfD. thanks! bikeable (talk) 04:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

hi -- yes, if prod is removed, just bring it to AfD. it seems a bit silly, since even the author can remove prod with no reason, but it is still useful for easily deleting articles that are completely uncontested -- drive-by biographies of school friends, etc. Now I'm a little curious as to how many are actually deleted... looks like there are about 160 articles which are currently in their last couple days of prod before deletion, so if we're getting 80 or so through a day, that's decent, I guess. anyway, thanks! bikeable (talk) 04:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


Hi IronChris, I'm afraid I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to in my talk page. While a heavy user of Wikipedia, I'm a real novice when it comes to editing/starting articles and thus my changes are confined to minor grammatical corrections and the like proofreading. So in terms of your [edit] links, I don't quite know what you're referring to. As I peruse Wikipedia, if I spot a missing period, comma or inappropriate space, I hit "edit this page" and fire off the correction. 128.253.179.145

Quick Question for You

I will certainly consider your offer on being constructive with Wikipedia. I can definetly see how that would aide in the better common good of the online community and mankind as a whole. However, while I discuss this with my constituents, I have a quick question for you, and I am very serious and would appreciate an answer. How do you find these additions so darn fast and respond to them so darn fast? I mean, I JUST put that up there, and less than a minute later I see a response from you. Are you stalking my userpage or something, chief? (Marytrott 17:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC))


Chief? You there?

Insect anatomy pages

Hi. I seem to have just effectively tripped over you while creating the "metathorax" page; I see from the little chunk you did that you were trying to add a few links and cross-referencing - it was not my intention to undo that, and please feel free to make such modifications now that I've finished the basic pages. Sorry about the mix-up —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dyanega (talk • contribs) .

Arthro-wiki

I wasn't aware there were separate "projects" of this sort - I've been focusing primarily on Hymenoptera, but also following where various links (or lacks thereof) take me, as in the case of the anatomy pages. Other than that, it's primarily the classification issues that I've been tracking, as I maintain one of the larger US insect collections, and I do all I can to stay on top of what's going on with higher classification of insects. When I've made changes, I've tried to bear in mind when it might be construed as a matter of preference, versus a matter of objectively necessary changes (e.g., virtually all Hymenopterists stopped using "Sphecoidea" once it was made clear that it was a paraphyletic group, and that Apoidea was the older alternative for the clade containing both bees and sphecoids). I expect I'll be making many such changes, but - again - please go ahead and tweak pages as you see fit to better integrate them; I'm not expending nearly the effort I could at making sure all terms that might need links are getting them, nor that the pages are all standardized regarding things like categories, stubs, references, external links, and so forth.

Peace, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dyanega (talk • contribs) .

Insect wiki stuff

Hi again. I'll keep all that in mind. In fact, I may take you up on the "tasklist" thingie. As for which collection I run, it's UC Riverside; at 3 million specimens, we rank around #10 in University-based collections, around #20 overall (in the US). If you just focus on Hymenoptera, however, we rank MUCH higher, probably around #5 or 6 overall. I'll see you around Dyanega 16:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

taxobox hierarchy problem

I edited a pair of fly pages today that dealt with Calyptratae (the tachinid page, and the Ormia ochracea page) - the accepted rank in the literature is "Subsection", but even entered as a "Section" the rank is reshuffled in the final page, so it magically appears below the genus level. Do you have any insight into how to override the default hierarchy, and make the ranks appear with the names (and in the order) EAXCTLY as specified in the taxobox?Dyanega 23:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. That did it.Dyanega 00:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

collapsing multiple pages into one page?

Sorry to bother you again, but... One of the obvious hassles that arises when classifications get reorganized is that often you get two or more taxa fused into one. Now, I can see that in many cases, it should be possible to retain outdated pages essentially intact by simply doing a "move", and (for example) changing a family-ranked page into a subfamily-ranked page. Then the history and everything is maintained, and all is well. But there can be times where the change in classification is not just a change in rank, but an actual fusion of two groups (this is most common at the generic level), *requiring* the text of two existing pages to be collapsed into a single page. Do you have ideas or pointers as to how to accomplish this without losing the "history" and everything that goes with the page being eliminated? Or is it simply unavoidable then, meaning the outdated page can then only persist as a redirect page (which *will* have the page's history intact)? Is that really the best one can do in these cases? I've already done this, but I'm just trying to be sure that there's not some trick I've missed that could work out a little better. Thanks, Dyanega 16:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that's basically what I suspected. Thanks. As for the pages you've done, they're mostly fine, but the Entognatha one needs some clarification, as it is an artificial (paraphyletic) taxon - and while you do state it, this needs to be emphasized a little more (i.e., explaining that having three Orders as the sister taxa to a Class doesn't work in the Wikipedian hierarchy). I'll see about tweaking it a little later on today.Dyanega 17:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes: A New Proposal

Hey, I've noticed that you've been active on the Userbox deletion page, either strongly FOR or AGAINST the use of the new T2 for deleting userboxes. I have noticed that most of the community is strong in their opinions on this issue; for that reason, I created my own proposal which attempts to create a middle ground for the two groups, and finally get this debate settled once and for all. I welcome your input into the proposal, as well as your (non-binding) vote on the straw poll. Thanks! // The True Sora 01:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

page cleanups

Hi. Thanks - I'll try to address the points you nade:

  • I do try to wikify; the Heleomyzid list was cut and pasted from its prior incarnation. I got lazy.
  • I'll try to use my judgment in the future, as to when a taxobox may be getting too big (e.g., the Cicada Killer Wasp page), but I think that visually, 10 lines of higher taxonomy seems to give a taxobox of a good size for an average-sized chunk of text. I'll try not to let them get unwieldy. The worst ones I've seen have gargantuan lists of subdivisions at the bottom (for example, compare the Orthoptera and Ensifera pages), but I'm sort of floating around troubleshooting at this point (fixes and gap-filling), and not worrying so much about standardization.
  • I'm not sure what you mean about the disambiguation page problem - can you point to an example?
  • The arthropod leg one looks fine, but I do see some needed changes in the wing - I'll go do that.

Peace, Dyanega 18:05, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support

Thanks. We are reassured by your support and grateful if you could join us in the WikiProject (at whatever level of activity you want to play at(its NOT work, is it)).

Secondly, we request help with Maguey worm and Saint francis satyr butterfly as these are taxonomically neglected and really are eyesores to the discerning user due to lack of this aspect.AshLin 19:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt help in regard of the two pages. Regards, AshLin 05:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I do however think you are wrong to assume you know what the reader wants or thinks. If there is another related article like Anglicanism the reader has gained something by realising there is a link, even if there is not a precise match, in my opinion.Don`t forget most readers are not British. Andycjp 22nd May 2006

Concordia University user boxes

Very nice -- thanks for creating them! -- Denstat 18:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair use

You seem to have more wiki-experience than I do. I'm pissed off with some zealots insisting with these copyright issues over some images I uploaded. They claim that an image of a book 50 years old and long out of print uploaded to wikipedia is infringing copyrights. Maybe technically yes, but don't you think it's a bit too much overzeal? It sounds like a lawyer's talk. How can we deal with this? Leave the entries naked, stripped of all useful and informative images? Vae victis 05:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah -- I also figured out that best thing to do in this case is to redraw, improve, adapt the picture and never tag it as a "fair use" because these are prone to be removed. This way I can label the picture as my own and put is as copyright free. I wish I had time for all of this. Not now, but later I'll be doing this just to see if these guys leave me alone. Vae victis 02:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Neurops

I see you recently asked about what to do with the Neuropteran higher classification - no neuropterists still consider either Raphidioptera or Megaloptera to be suborders - they are orders unto themselves. Give me a week or so and I'll fix that up.Dyanega 04:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

User Box for Project Lepidoptera

Dear IronChris, Will be moving from between cities in India so probably will come online day after. Need your help in two issues -

  • A userbox for Project Lepidoptera. Have asked Kugamazog on his talk page for Sphingid pictures.
  • A moth stub for use with moth articles.

They are not urgent but should be done soon. If you can't do them, no problems, then could you please log me on my talk page as to how you did the userbox for Arthropods? Regards, AshLin 06:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey dude, (waving both hands overhead energetically). You're with WPr Lepidoptera too! See your user page! I've got undeletable evidence! :) AshLin 16:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Concordia University

Sorry I lapsed on telling you about any move. I meant to, and it slipped my mind. I hope you understand, and if there is anything I can do, just let me know. Ian13/talk 15:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge process?

Hi. How does one go about merging? I notice that wireworm is a separate entry from click beetle, and that's really not appropriate. It's also probably not the only case where adult and larval versions of the same insect have different pages, so it'd be nice to know how one merges articles. Thanks, Dyanega 16:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

a heads up

Hi. I thought you might like to know; I've done a lot of work on the pages associated with the insect exoskeleton, chitin, and such, including a page on the physical gill. I also used two of the photos that Pollinator put up for me to ID to create a page for the Squash vine borer and the black soldier fly. Take a look. Peace, Dyanega 03:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

AID

 Thank you for your support of the Article Improvement Drive.
This week Recycling was selected to be improved to featured article status.
Hope you can help…

sawflies

Hi. I don't have much symphytan reference material for species-level IDs, but I do believe you've got the right genera, at least. As for expanding the species page, that's a tall order for most insects that aren't pests or taxonomic oddballs - there's just a lot of them that will stay stubby. You may have noticed that I've done all the Symphyta to at least family level now - I've been bouncing around a bit, but I'm cleaning up existing pages in combination with working top-down in various orders, and trying to make pages for photos I find on the Commons. I've made a LOT of new pages already. As for cameras, I still use a traditional one (a Canon AE-1). I dunno about the new stuff - but if you take photos, I'll ID 'em. Peace, Dyanega 15:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

A short Esperanzial update

As you may have gathered, discussions have been raging for about a week on the Esperanza talk page as to the future direction of Esperanza. Some of these are still ongoing and warrant more input (such as the idea to scrap the members list altogether). However, some decisions have been made and the charter has hence been amended. See what happened. Basically, the whole leadership has had a reshuffle, so please review the new, improved charter.

As a result, we are electing 4 people this month. They will replace JoanneB and Pschemp and form a new tranche A, serving until December. Elections will begin on 2006-07-02 and last until 2006-07-09. If you wish to run for a Council position, add your name to the list before 2006-07-02. For more details, see Wikipedia:Esperanza/June 2006 elections.

Thanks and kind, Esperanzial regards, —Celestianpower háblame 16:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

A wistful acceptance

Your point regarding Project Insecta ia wistfully accepted. One just felt that if that were around some more people would magically appear and tackle all those lovely neglected groups of insects. I agree that till more people appear who will need coordination, there is no point.

My son recently caught two Solifugids and we had a good look and photographs. I plan to slowly drift into this field too. Any pointers?

Regards, AshLin 17:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Sex magic

I think you're absolutely right, that IP is the same user. I went ahead and removed the template, since, as you pointed out, no explanation was actually given for it being there (except for the White Lodge propaganda, which isn't even an explanation). Thanks for the heads-up! I think we really need to keep our eyes on this one. romarin [talk ] 01:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for going ahead and deleting that material. I had meant to do it and kept forgetting... :-) romarin [talk ] 12:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)