User talk:JohnOwens/2003 May

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Thanks for the thanks :). -- Notheruser 22:30 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

Jeez. German I/idealism. What a question to ask as dawn breaks here. The answer is I dunno. It probably depends on the context, and not knowing much about the topic, I cannot answer. But in general, if it is a specific name of a specific movement, then it would be treated as a proper noun and given caps. If used generally and generically, it wouldn't. I am afraid I am too tired to think right now. ( I realised that when I sort of 'missed' a couple of songs of a CD that was playing. I found myself saying 'that's not number 3 on the running order and realising it had played 3 and 4 and was onto 5! I must have nodded off!!! ÉÍREman 04:57 May 2, 2003 (UTC)

Indeed, John. The power of convergent evolution is asonishing sometimes, and birds are a wonderful illustration of it. Consider the "robin redbreast". There is one in the US, one in Europe & UK, and one in Australia. All three are pudgy little things that sit on any convenient object (such as a fence post, or the handle of your spade if you are gardening), and keep a sharp eye out for tasty grubs. Here they are: American Robin, European Robin, and the Scarlet Robin of south-east Australia. Obviously, they are close relatives -- not!

The first two are both Turdidae species, but from different genera, and the Scarlet Robin is part of the Petroicidae - about as far away from the Turdidae as you can get and still be a passerine. Despite having the same shape, habits, diet, and even colour, it is more closely related to the jays and ravens than it is to the thrushes & chats. This sort of puzzle is one of the reasns why I love learning about birds so much.

Now, to business: I know very little about the American species. I'm afraid I wouldn't recognise any California Condor (never mind a juvenile), bar figuring out that it isn't any of the 25-odd raptors we have here in Australia. I'm just doing minor copyedit stuff on those pages at the moment. But I imagine that you are correct - it's a matter of using whichever pictures are available. Any time you want to add some of your expertise to the bird entries (or better yet, slip on over and sign up with Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds, you'll be more than welcome. With over 9000 species, there is no shortage of work to be done! Tannin

OK, now I'm puzzled. What's with the "no slash"? I thought you were supposed to always put slashes after external links? Some very rude contributor, no doubt the banned DK, used to go round adding them and saying "/ after the URL, damnit!". Usually I forget to add the slash, today I happened to remember. Tannin

Oh. Of course. I knew that - hell, I've made a living by knowing something about computers for more years than I care to admit to. Some serious brain-fade here: I was asking myself "what is the 'pedia rule for this?" and not knowing the answer when I should have asked myself "what is the Unix file-naming convention?" Now I feel stupid. :( Tannin
DK. Banned ex-user. (Or DW, or something. I always forget.) As in "Black Widow", and, of course, our dear friend "Olga". But maybe it was someone else. --T

Thanks for sorting "List of Furniture Designers" I didn't intend to ever get into lists, couldn't see the point of them but they are a way to introduce a number of related articles..Incidentally, I got there from the Woodworking page, its a fairly pathetic effort at the moment. Do you have any suggestions for a neat wiki-way to make it more usefulPing 08:19 May 2, 2003 (UTC)

Another occasion to head off possible queries before they're even asked: if you're here wondering why an edit diff show lots of paragraphs modified, but no visible difference between them, I usually take it upon myself to eliminate double spaces anywhere they crop up. HTML just ignores them anyway. Generally elsewhere, I'm the kind to make sure I put double spaces between every sentence, but here they're useless and a waste of space (no pun intended), unless you're going to go to the trouble of sticking a " " in as well.

Similarly, I might be removing extra newlines; again, there's very rarely any purpose to having more than one in a row. And if a page has one at the end of every 80 characters or less, I'll definitely undo that; I can tolerate one after every sentence or something like that, though. -- John Owens

Canada was deleted, maybe by 217.81.32.129 , pls stop them.

You write: Sorry about Joseph McCarthy, I meant to revert the anon contributor's edit, not yours. -- John Owens 22:46 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

Ah. OK, thanks. -- Evercat 22:58 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

Hi John Thank you for your help about Isfahan. It certainly looks better now. I realy like this encyclopedia; it is one of the first places I look up things! Carry on with the good work. Good Luck

John here is me again. What do you think about writing the alternative spell of Isfahan(which is Esfahan) in the 'Isfahan' Page as well as in the 'City of Isfahan'page which I have already done? If you think it is suitable pleaes do it yourself because I have to goto bed!! The reason is that both the city and the province have been spelt "Esfahan" and I think doing this would avoid confusion.

Note: Please don't' take offense when I swear at you...it's a nasty habit that I'm trying to get rid of.

The picture was all in good fun, a satire against Fred's charges of "historical revisionism." Rather than reacting with anger or disdain, a little light satire can be a humorous way of getting a point across. 172

Thanks for fixing the alignment of my little parody. 172

Hi John, could you please take a look at Communist state. The page is about about a political science constitutional definition, which was created because some people (specifically Fred Bauder) insisted he didn't know what the political science term 'Communist state' meant (and spent time going to pages where it was used and removing it to replace it with 'authoritarian' which is not the term used by political scientists in the way he insists on using it). Fred Bauder has spent over twenty edits trying to add in stuff that is not linked to a political science definition but which is a general talk about the ills of communISM, which is no more relevant on that page that if one would put a discussion on a detailed discussion on a page on federal state that was just defining what a federal state is, not a discussion on America. (Or turning a page on the constitutional term Constitutional monarchy into a discussion of Prince Charles' sex life. Those sortd of stuff would belong on a different page perhaps linked to the main page).

I created a separate link for him to work on his stuff (which even he admitted is 'unbalanced'). RK has criticsed him. Tarquin had critised him. Tannin got involved in reverting Fred's constant POVing the article (which he has tried on other pages such as China). Now The Cunctator has started where Fred has left off, adding in Fred's stuff back into the main page by trying to merge both, bringing everything back to square one. Could you please take a look at the page. I am exhausted trying to tell Fred and The Cunctator that they are putting the stuff on the wrong page even if it was well written and not blatently POV. They won't pay any attention to what I say even though I am a political scientist and historian who specialises in defining constitutional structures, won't listen to 172 (who may hold some quite left wing views but is an acknowledged expert on the area), won't heed Tannin, Tarquin, RK or anyone else (most the people originally involved have just given up on the page in frustration at Fred's actions). And this isn't the first time Fred as POVed articles on the topic with Ronald Reagan-style 'evil empire' stuff (he produced similar edit wars elsewhere, while accusing everyone else of being like people who deny the Holocaust! I respect your opinion and would welcome your contribution. ÉÍREman 22:21 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

I noticed that we made a collision, however I see no reason to make your smaller image like mine, I like the diversity. However, feel free to if you want. ( skimpIzu ) on freenode ;-) user_talk:hfastedge

Thanks for cleaning up the Heinzendorf pages. -- Notheruser 20:49 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Oh my God. That bloody place is called Hyncice (see http://www.mendelu.cz/univerzita/mendel.eng.html ). What about another redirect? I'm sorry about all this even if it's not my fault. --KF 22:06 May 13, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for your message. So I moved that Czech village to the proper page -- at least that's what I hope. I just told you because I didn't want anyone, including myself, to make another mistake. KF 22:26 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Still rough around the edges at present, but I've revamped species and subspecies, John. See what you think! -- Tannin 15:32 14 May 2003 (UTC)

Danke für deien guten Rat. Ich werde es versuchen. Ik hab kein Linux sondern Windows XP aber ich denke ich weiss schon wie ich es mache. Du hast recht diese Infermation gehört auch auf 'm ru.wiki Jcwf /nl.wiki

Hi John. Wolfram can be very useful at times, I discovered it about six or seven years ago and thought it was great. As luck would have it, soon after that it was removed from the internet because (I think) someone was trying to sue them for breach of copyright over something. Thankfully it reappeared, though I have no idea what happened in the court case, if it ever went that far. They seem to be sticking more and more mathematica code into their articles though which annoys me slightly. I guess it's fair enough if Wolfram's paying for it all but I think it's all the more reason for us to make Wikipedia's maths section even better. Regards -- Ams80 21:52 16 May 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure it's 3.86e26W --PY

I think we just cncelled each other out on the Athina Roussel page. Danny

Thanks John. That's exactly what I wanted. Andrew User:Vanderesch

A serious security breech? Oh dear! All is lost! Panic! (Thanks for the chuckle, John.) :) Tannin

That's fine, perhaps something like the estimated power output of the universe would be the last example. --PY

On unilateralism: there's a reason the page is called "votes for deletion", not "votes for and against deletion", and it's not just brevity. There's no permanent harm when a page is not deleted (because it can always be deleted later), and there's the potential for it when a page is deleted, assuming all parties are being reasonable. At least that's my assumption. That said, there should be better mechanisms for handling the meta-content of articles. And I could be wrong. --The Cunctator

Noticed comment about gasoline (petrol) - us Brits probably don't mind that, but personally I hate calling the stuff gas, because it clearly isn't! -- David Martland 09:49 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Glad to see you get some of the spellings right, then! Pity about the "ise" words, tho'! Take care. -- David Martland 19:21 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi John, sorry, but "latent" is indeed spelled with an "e", not an "a". Please consult the dictionary for verification. Thanks for fixing my links and making them more usable.  ;-) ~dot

(edit): that's OK ... I'm not at that age either but I think being busy and involved with lots of different things creates the same effect! What I really miss is how I used to be able to sit and read for hours as a kid ... now it's like pulling teeth just to complete a chapter. Cheers ... ~the dot

Oops. I'd never even noticed the move page link before. No, I'm not an admin. Only been here a month. It seems longer. :-) Anyway, I'll bear it in mind next time, but I'll let you decide if it's worth doing what you suggest in this instance. Evercat 08:57 21 May 2003 (UTC)

John, I think Image:Ov10cdf.jpg should be deleted. I'm not sure of the ettiquette of doing it myself, although I assume that as a copyright infringement it doesn't need to go to Votes for Deletion. Do you want to swing the axe?

Hi, John. Just loaded a new article on an Eagle. I previously uploaded a picture. All went OK except that within the article the picture doesn't appear although the link seems right. Could you once more help me out on that one. Thanls alot. Andrew

  • If you could handle that I would be very thankful. Although it certainly is time I have to start to read those manuals. Thanks Andrew Vanderesch
    • No John, not too small. It's perfect. In the mean time I also wrote to Jimfbleak as he is the main contructor of the page. But you solved everything wonderfully. Thanks and till soon.

The lovely Martha image is fixed, I hope. Pls retry, as both images worked in my browser. RobertKeller

Why was my article on Bonnie deleted? And why did you refer to me as a vandal? Is this how you treat all contributors to this site????? -posted anonymously by User:12.65.54.189

Your article on Bonnie was deleted because it was not in English. You were referred to as a vandal because of your vandalism of the mucous membrane article. Not all contributors to this site are treated this way, then again, not all are vandals. --Dante Alighieri 08:15 23 May 2003 (UTC)

I never said it was spelled right, just saying what the guy meant :). MB 20:21 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Or, for something more specialized, the PediaPediaPedia, the ultimate reference work on children's feet.... <G> -- Someone else 20:39 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Please, let's stop before someone mentions the dictionary of unwanted plants...the WeediaPedia... oops. Too late! -- Someone else 20:49 23 May 2003 (UTC)
P.S. or the compendium of laziness... the AcediaPedia.... -- Someone else

House party? ;) You should be whipped with a wet noodle! --Dante Alighieri 21:30 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Don't know how I missed that. Jimregan 14:28 24 May 2003 (UTC)

In Clovis I, I note you reinstated "Non-contemporary representation of Clovis I - King of France." Why? This label is illogical. How would one have a "contempory" representation of Clovis? Triton

I guess I must be dumb but I still don't understand what a Non-contemporary representation is? According to Webster's dic, you label the medal of Clovis as Non-Present Day representation. That still makes no sense. Please explain. Triton

Triton, I did that -- it basically meants that, although the coin says Clovis, Roy de France, the coin itself is not from the time of Clovis. So, it isn't contemporary to him. In fact, it's much later (the date is probably on the reverse, but there are other pointers too)
John, FYI, the French Monarchs page is protected, so that, even if you can change it, it's probably best to leave it till it's unprotected -- otherwise those without sysop privileges might feel that they are being treated unfairly. It's easy to get accused of abusing them. Cheers! JHK

Damn- I should have searched for Dead Parrot first! jimfbleak 16:21 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Doh! I am incredibly silly for putting all those songs in italics. Thanks for correcting me... I better go back and fix the other ones I did. -- Wapcaplet 19:34 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, I looked up "JohnOwen's Middlefinger" in a couple of my field guides, but I couldn't find it - probably a rather obscure species - so perhaps we could find a better-known example, preferably one with more feathers. :) What's the best-known very small bird in your part of the world? Tannin

Hey -- I found the passage Triton keeps harping about -- funny thing -- he kept saying I had said this about him -- it's as if he changed user names and forgot! Maybe he's MammaBEar, too -- the person who said that calling the heads side of a coin was derogatory or insulting or something like that!JHK

Hello John,

Can a administrator provide a babylon glossary by converting all the entries in wikipedia to the respective format ??

if that can be done...there will be big boost to wikipedia's popularity.

cheers kaysov

Thanks for the tip on "Show Preview" - Blind me didn't notice that option. Sorry for all the whacks I took to get things right. ReversionOne 22:23 29 May 2003 (UTC)

See talk:Waukesha, Wisconsin. Thanks! --RM

Hi John,

Michael is editing as 24.130.213.242, what's the policy on removing new articles he adds? Stay on These Roads is unrevertable. Cheers -- Ams80 22:23 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Why did you blank that perfectly good The Rescuers Down Under stub? A stub is better than nothing. LittleDan 22:31 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, it was correct this time. You shouldn't just go around blanket-reverting/blanking things. LittleDan 22:56 31 May 2003 (UTC)
I guess my sources must be wrong. And instead of just reverting and researching things for argument purposes, you should just change it to the correct thing. LittleDan 23:20 31 May 2003 (UTC)