User talk:Knowledge Seeker/Archive7

Hehe yes, I stalk many people. Actually I have my preferences set so that every page I edit automatically is added to my watchlist. I must have reverted vandalism on your user page or left you a message at some point. Actually come to think of it, it was probably when Ed Poor was trying to harass you and I was getting annoyed. Having this preference set is great, as I can keep track of pages I edit. It also means I can keep an eye on vandalism of the user pages of users I've talked to, as well as stay up on some happenings as well. But it also means that my watchlist slowly increases in size, and when I come to Wikipedia after a long time, especially after a 24+ hour shift, way too much has happened on my watchlist. So periodically I prune it...should probably do that soon! — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I started that a month or so ago, I think. I really dislike when people reply on their own talk page. I'm of the philosophy that if you want to leave me a message, leave it on my talk page; I have neither the time nor interest to hunt down replies. It comes down to courtesy, really. Though the page is on my watchlist, I don't always remember whom I've left messages for, and if there's another edit after their reply I might not see it. On the other hand, only placing messages the recipient's page has problems too with fragmenting the conversation—placing it in both places seems logical. Anyway, yes, Ed's comment was way over the top. It's a shame he was desysopped although I'm convinced it was a good decision and will lead to less stress for him and for everyone else. I'm sure he'll return with fresh views on how to tackle these matters, and I look forward to his return. Ed's problem is that he really wants what's best for Wikipedia and he's convinced that his ideas are what's best for Wikipedia. I don't think he really intends to act so inappropriately, but he's been here so long and invested so much into Wikipedia that he has some strong ideas about what's best (I have to admit, so do I, and they don't always concide with the community's ideas—though I try to keep that under control). When he returns hopefully we can do a better job of respecting all he's done for Wikipedia while gently steering him away from too much trouble. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmph. I don't think anyone's ever called my writing "cute" before. But I'm glad I was able to help, and let me know if you have any questions. May also give you a couple suggestions? One, to sign your name, you can use four tildes: ~~~~. Use that at the end of your statements on user talk pages like this one, or in discussions on the reference desk, and so on. Not only does that help people know who is saying what, but it also helps separate different writers—otherwise, the comments get kind of jumbled. Also, you should consider registering as a member—it's free and no personal information is required. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? for more information. It will make it easier for people to communicate with you and you can create a user page as you see fit. Wikipedia's a great place for those who love to learn! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem—I always look out for you! I don't know the whole situation, but do you think something shorter, like a week, might be sufficient? His edits seemed to be a mix of good and bad; maybe I could work with him to help him become productive. Again, I don't know his story, so I'll leave it to your judgment. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Your patience and tolerance are a credit. I am still hoping that he will be able to move on from this incident and concentrate on productive edits, although his recent comments are disappointing. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey—didn't realize you were back. It's nice to see you around again! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I hadn't been seeing you around like I used to, and it looks like you didn't make any edits for a couple months. Of course, I haven't been able to do much recent pages patrol, so I don't run into you tagging copyvios like I used to. Hey, has your signature always linked to Vague instead of your user page? I never noticed it before... — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think I can be of much use to you. I am not familiar with NCAE, but from reading the article, I don't think people here speak it. That being said, I have only lived in Minnesota for half a year, and then too I live in the southeast corner, an hour from the border, so perhaps I am not getting the "true" Minnesota accent. Sorry—wish I could help more! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Mike; I just dropped by to say that I agree with Nichalp that administrators should have their e-mail enabled. Especially if you block someone, that person should have a way of getting in touch with you. I understand that you already have your e-mail address displayed on your user page, but I still feel that the standard method be used, so that people can click "E-mail this user" or go to Special:Emailuser/Mike Rosoft. I guess I'm also a little confused why you wouldn't mind displaying it on your user page (in obfuscated form) and yet wouldn't want to set it in your preferences. Also, I feel that your message to Nichalp was a tad abrupt and seems out of character for you. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I thank you for reconsidering, although I don't believe that those without e-mail accounts will be able to e-mail you (unless they put a false address in, and even then they wouldn't be able to receive a reply. I'm a bit confused by your later comments on your RfA, though. Your comments there still sound to me like you're overreacting to a simple request. Especially when you complain about no one leaving a request on your talk page with an explanation, which I would think is how this conversation started. I understand that getting oppose votes can be stressful, but I don't really see anyone making demands of you. I don't have any desire to draw this matter out, but I'm just confused by this behavior from an otherwise great Wikipedian. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that your signature does not link to your user page, which I'm assuming is deliberate. I'd like to ask that you consider having at least one character link to your user page or talk page, or perhaps if you don't mind you could let me know why you don't wish to do so? Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I hope I didn't come across as being bossy. I understand your desire to avoid excessive conversation, although I still feel that one should have a link to some personal page, as you have done in your last message to me (although if you disagree, I am not going to cause any trouble for you or anything). Your other reason makes sense as well. Linking to your talk page seems to be a good way around that obstacle, or if you prefer you could link to a user subpage instead. Whatever you wish. Thanks for being receptive! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Is that the effect you wanted? You may need to play around with it some more. Let me know if I can help. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You're quite welcome; I'm always glad to help you out. Happy New Year to you as well! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, nice cleanup. The article was definitely a bit of an embarrassment before. It's such an important topic; I'm going to keep an eye out for more information to add later on. For the merge discussion, I would just leave a comment at the bottom like "Merge completed" or whatever you'd like, and sign it, that way it will be obvious that the matter is complete. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry—I'm glad you like it. I would try adding some of it in myself, but you'd probably be better than I. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Good! I'm glad you want to use it! I dislike fragmented conversations, and yet I want my messages to be on the recipient's talk page...and then I saw User:GordonWatts (currently inactive) mark his messages in blue and I liked it (I can't recall that he placed messages on the recipient's page as well, though). It makes it so much easier to follow matters later on. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello Knowledge Seeker/Archive7,

You're welcome; congratulations on your promotion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Er, actually I said I wanted to prevent him from "posting increasingly inflammatory messages". [1] will give you an idea of where his messages were heading. Fortunately, he has moderated his tone, and I am confident he will be unblocked soon, even if he and I don't agree on everything. Incidentally, I noticed that your signature does not link to your user page, which I'm assuming is deliberate. I'd like to ask that you consider having at least one character link to your user page or talk page, or perhaps if you don't mind you could let me know why you don't wish to do so? Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Just wanted to say it always makes me smile to see your reversions pop up on my watchlist—I love your edit summaries and especially the "RVC" (it makes me laugh to read your explanation above). By the way, it may be time to archive your talk page, if you so desire. And if you ever need someone to move a page for you or create an article or something, just let me know. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I moved "United States Senate Pages" to United States Senate Page, and updated the links. Hope that's what you wanted. I'm sure it's frustrating, and I'm also sure you have your reasons. Let me know if you need anything else done; I'm happy to help. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you're right—you'll just have to make another edit and put a correction in the edit summary. Edit summaries can only be changed by a developer, and they probably wouldn't change it for these reasons. I've run into the problem before as well, but I'm sure you can find something else to change in the article. Good luck! — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that has a way of happening. It just means you're doing a good job. Wear it proud! — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[Regarding [2] — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)]

Why, thank you. I'll have to do some research to comment further on this matter—my knowledge of human embryology is fading; that of non-human embryology is even weaker. It's fascinating material though, and provides an amazing insight into how the same basic body plan can be modified to produce such a diverse array of life! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it is—which is why resources like Wikipedia are so great! I'll try to do some reading up on this stuff and see what I can do, when I have time. You know, I was not familiar with {{RRevised}}; I am not certain what effect it will have. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I definitely learned some new things reading your expanded article! I'll see if I can dig up some material. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome; glad to help! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that. Not really a next step; if he continues vandalizing he'll be blocked again. Looks like he stopped after being warned, but if he continues I or another administrator will block him. Let me know if you have any problems. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Just curious; what does "RBE" stand for? — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. But what's %8F?? — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm just full of interesting ideas. Though actually now that I look at it, I shouldn't have put that comment of mine first, since you really weren't responding to it. Anyway, thanks; I like how you come up with all these interesting edit summaries. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

You did good. So did he. I hope he rejoins Wikipedia with his new attitude. It's tough trying to help people adjust rather than outright blocking, and sometimes that's all you can do, but occasionally it works out—and I think that makes it worth it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, and thanks. I don't know why it didn't occur to me at the time but I was in such a hurry (on my way out the door, if I recall) that I didn't really have time to think. Anyway, thanks for catching that! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The editors who have joined the discussion after you asked me seem to be quite knowledgeable; certainly more knowledgeable than I. I'll add the page to my watchlist and keep an eye on it; I'll contribute if I think of something. Nice job spurring interest in this, by the way. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for posting it; I appreciate you letting me know. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well...I'd say I consider it more of a tongue-in-cheek story rather than a rigorous explanation. To be honest, I'm not even sure what a limbic gland is—a Google search only turned up two hits, neither of which was very helpful. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey Jasen, I sent you an e-mail a few days ago; did you get it? I guess not. Anyway, I saw that you nominated yourself for RfA. You're probably not currently ready for adminship, since while you do good work on Wikipedia you don't need administrative tools for it. Would you mind if I removed the entry for now? You can follow the suggestions already left there and reapply in the future. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry it didn't reach you. You're an excellent editor, of course. But voters on RfA tend to highly value being part of Wikipedia policy-type stuff, community action, and a demonstrable desire to accomplish tasks that can only be performed with administrative powers. The reason I suggest removal is because RfA can be quite toxic these days (if I weren't yet an administrator, I'm not sure I'd want to run anymore), especially if someone has been uncivil in the past or has made questionable edits or decisions. Sometimes editors (good editors who just wouldn't necessarily make good administrators) get so hurt/upset that they leave Wikipedia temporarily or permanently, and I wouldn't want to see that happen here. Now you don't have any misbehavior like that in your past as far as I've seen, which is why voters reacted as favorably as they did, but there's still no need to go through that unnecessarily. If you decide you'd like to seek adminship later on, they've left some great comments for you. And I'd of course be happy to help. Happy editing, and good work on all the Chicago-related material! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

While I disagree with Spawn Man's edit, I certainly wouldn't consider it vandalism. Perhaps you could find a less inflammatory word to use in your edit summary? Just a suggestion. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that has nothing to do with vandalism. In general, and on Wikipedia specifically, vandalism usually connotes a destructive intention. Accidentally breaking a car window with an errant baseball would not be vandalism, while smashing it with your bat would. While I agree that the source should not have been removed, it was clearly not vandalism—he wasn't deliberately trying to cause difficulties for Wikipedia, and implying that others have bad intentions is needlessly causes ill will. The first sentence of Wikipedia:Vandalism, which I have now properly sourced, summarizes nicely: "Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia." Keep up your good work referencing articles, but perhaps it can be done without antagonizing others, especially if their efforts are misguided. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[Regarding User talk:Knowledge Seeker/Archive7#More Roman Soldier]

You're welcome. I think we both agree that words are more powerful and more productive than blocks. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey Mr. Brenneman thanks for your message. Don't have time right now to post a longer message or examine issues more closely but I didn't intend to edit his user page, and I'm sorry. Will leave longer message for you and him later. Thanks — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Also I posted on WP:AN/I when I blocked if you unblock him please note there thanks — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to be nice; I think that's important. I recognize my block may have been controversial, but I think it is a bit over the top to characterize it as totally out of line. A user had been previously blocked for making an attack template. He agreed not to make any more templates referring to other editors, was unblocked, and promptly created another one. I hate to block people and you'll often find me arguing against others' blocks or spending large amounts of time attempting discussion with people to try to avoid their being blocked. Of course, recognizing the potentially controversial nature of the block, I promptly reported it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Attack templates, as is standard procedure inviting review and feedback when making questionable judgment calls. The response was largely favorable. The reason I used a short block is that it did not appear that discussion was accomplishing anything; he immediately returned to creating a template.

If that's the point he's making, I don't agree that he has much of a point. It is naive to assume that praise and criticism can be treated equally. If a discussion is taking place and after I comment someone writes "I complete agree with Knowledge Seeker; as always, he shows himself to be a clear-thinking, intelligent editor," no one would be upset, if one were to write "That's stupid, Knowledge Seeker is a something something something [insert insult of choice; I'm not good at those]," it would probably be removed and the editor censured. Administrator status is irrelevant, with the exception that it is more difficult to take action against an administrator, although an administrator is quite unlikely to create an attack template in the first place. One may set one's standard for inclusion at different thresholds: perhaps both support and oppose templates (for anything) are acceptable; perhaps both are not, but there is certainly a wide middle ground where supports are acceptable but opposes are not. In this I make no judgment about the suitability of the support template nor of Ms. Martin's candidacy; however, the oppose template is clearly inappropriate.

I don't think it's that hard to admit a mistake, and I've certainly admitted them on Wikipedia before. But I still think the block was appropriate. I dislike blocking in general and try to use it as a last resort; perhaps in this case I jumped too quickly to blocking without first engaging in discussion. I realize that it might have been better to try to talk to him further instead of blocking first. All I had to go on, aside from my instincts, were that he had created an attack template, had been blocked, had agreed to stop creating templates about other Wikipedians, was unblocked, and then resumed. To me, that shows that discussion is not achieving its intended goal. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the admonishment and if this user continues to engage in inappropriate behavior, I will certainly attempt to see if we can come to an agreement over what is acceptable on Wikipedia and what is not.

I'm not certain why you're asking me to think over how the edit to his user page looks, since it took place after my comment and block and I'd had no additional interaction with the user since then. If you simply were looking for outside opinion, it would probably be better to ask someone not directly involved with this editor.

Thank you for the feedback. I am always eager to know if other users feel I am doing a good job or a bad job as an administrator and editor, and how I can improve. I look forward to additional feedback from you in the future. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It's all right; I take no offense at your comment. You know, you're right: just because my actions are justifiable or logical doesn't mean that they were the best course possible. I agree that the timing of these events was unfortunate. Perhaps the situation can still be salvaged. I'll try to keep an eye on the situation and see if I can't contribute in a more constructive manner. Thanks for the advice. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I noticed you changed the formats for the years in Human. You may not realize this, but there has been considerable controversy in the past over whether to use BC/AD or BCE/CE, with impassioned arguments on both sides, leading at least once to a Request for arbitration. The current compromise treats the matter similar to American/British English spelling differences: use whichever is already established in the article or the article's author originally used. Hope this makes sense, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. It's probably not too useful to list arguments in favor or BC/AD here, since even were I to be convinced, I am just another editor with no special power to declare one way better than the other; the issue isn't actually all that important to me. I'm more interested in preventing edit wars and such. BC/BCE may or may not have been discussed specifically for the Human article—it's more of a Wikipedia-wide issue—so I am not sure if there is any mention in the article's discussion archives. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras has the current guidelines, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2 is a recent case regarding a user who was changing years from one format to the other. It's been discussed in other areas as well, although I can't recall offhand; asking one of the users active in that RFAr might be helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your question, Cookiecaper. It was actually a template I created myself, in a moment of lightheartedness. A few days later I regretted creating it, but by then a couple people had started to use it, so I hesitated to delete it; today I decided just to substitute it and delete it. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, you're welcome to recreate it if you like. The prohibition about not recreating deleted content would not apply. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh...good luck! You may also consider asking someone on the Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce to take a look at it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I recall reading it somewhere a long time ago, so I can't really take the credit. But I'm glad I could help! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered shortening your signature at all? It takes up five lines of text on my edit screen. And it includes two images, which are generally preferred not to be used in signatures. I'm not saying you have to change or anything; just thought I'd leave a suggestion. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry; I was not aware of the comment above when I left this message. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. Do you mean you considered changing it but decided not to? — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

As always, thank you for your comments and support. I do agree with most of your points; I always try to convince vandals to stay and help us rather than block them outright. And I always favor trying to reform problem users. I'm a bit undecided on MSK's case, though. While she definitely made some valuable contributions, the wealth of her disruptive edits was a bit disturbing, she did seem to turn up an awful lot in controversial areas, and she managed to cause a decent amount of trouble while she was here. I'm not certain that she didn't enjoy stirring up controversy. That being said, I am only peripherally aware of her case, so I can't really properly evaluate the situation. I do agree with your WP:AN/I proposal, in principle; by that, I mean that I wouldn't object if someone were willing to take MSK under her wing and mentor, and keep an eye on her. Your suggestion is a good one, but I don't think I can be the one to do it. For one, I simply don't know enough about her case to be taking charge of a situation like this. Also, my recent attempts at "mentoring" problematic users have been somewhat disappointing; I've only made a couple breakthroughs. But the big problem is time: at this point in my career, my time is so limited that I can only accomplish a small fraction of what I want to on Wikipedia, and I'd rather spend more time on writing articles. I'll consider it over the next couple days; or perhaps you can find someone else willing to take on the task. I always hate to see Wikipedia lose contributors. — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Spum, it's nice to meet you. I'm always happy to see other health-care workers and friends contributing to Wikipedia. I see you've been around for a while, but if you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask. Also, you depending on what your areas of interest are, you may find Wikipedia:WikiProject Preclinical Medicine, Clinical medicine, Medicine, or the Medicine Collaboration of the Week interesting. Good luck with your training! — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder, too, if you'd considered removing the information about scientology from your user page. While I am not particularly a fan of scientology myself, I'm not certain that this user box will have its desired effect, and some would consider it to be in poor taste. Perhaps you'd consider writing about why you don't like it on your user page instead. Just a thought! — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

History of Earth is my new pet project. I've only written a couple sections so far, but if you have a chance, take a glance at it and let me know what you think on my talk page. Do you think this kind of article is appropriate for Wikipedia? — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback! Especially for examining it so closely. I still have quite a ways to go on it, obviously, but I thought it'd be a good idea to make sure someone else thought I was going in the right direction before I worked any more on it. You can take your time reviewing it; I'm going to be away the next few days and so probably won't make any progress on it until next week. I'd definitely like the picture—I love stuff like that! Feel free to include the lava rocks if you think it's appropriate; I'm trying to briefly summarize the current theories and obviously can't go into too much detail, but in areas with controversy or not much data, we should briefly mention the major possibilities. By the way, you can use <SPAN> (it's an inline element) instead of <DIV>, a block-level element. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Did you figure out who it was? — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Why did you remove my lowercasing of "User" and my removal of the apostrophe from "it's"? And with an edit summary of "rvv"? I don't wish to edit war, but ask you to restore the changes. Or at least explain why they were inappropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's fine; thanks for the apology. I thought perhaps you felt a sense of ownership of the template and didn't approve of anyone else modifying it or something. Maybe in the future when someone makes a change you don't like, you can just edit those changes out instead of reverting all the way back to a version before those edits. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Aw, thanks! Heh...for the most part, I've tried to stay out of the fair use controversy—I'm not sure I understand all the subtleties of it and I don't want to get too stressed =) That said, looking at the discussion, it looks like you have good support for your proposal—hope it works out! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Cooley, thanks for your inquiry. I'll take a look at your site in more detail later. I'm not sure if it will be appropriate for Wikipedia. There are many people who would like to have links to their sites from Wikipedia, so there typically is quite a high standard for sites to be in the external links section. Many editors believe that if an external site contains valuable information, then that information should be included on Wikipedia rather than listing the site as an external link. What I'd suggest is that you make this request on Talk:Prostate cancer. That way the editors who are active on the article can discuss it or explain why or why not the link should be included. How does that sound? Feel free to ask me if you have any questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your courtesy in in forming me, and for watching over Astronomy. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your question. No, it's not really a new standard. It was added to the MOS a little over a year ago. I brought it up on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles)#Italicize names of spacecraft? and a couple other editors I'd seen working on spacecraft articles. Based on recommendations from Chicago, a NASA style guide, and a couple other sources, after consultation with them I added a spacecraft example to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). Even more so than for titles of movies or books, they're inconsistently italicized on Wikipedia, although you'll usually see them italicized in featured articles or on the Main Page and such (I just did it for New Horizons, so that doesn't count). The reason I just did that one is that I was using WP:AWB to take all the articles that link to Apollo 11 and italicize its name in those articles. The process is semi-automated; there isn't an easy way to scan each article to see if any other spacecraft names are mentioned elsewhere in the article. I figured I'd get around to doing the other spacecraft later, but it probably makes sense for me to manually go through that article and italicize them—I'm sorry, I should have done that in the first place. Do you have any objections? — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I also discussed it at User talk:The Singing Badger#Italicization of spacecraft; I can't remember offhand with whom else I discussed it. Let me know if you disagree with my actions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I appreciate the feedback. I just went through Space exploration, and will continue to work on this. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Why did you leave this message? What was the problematic edit? And why did you use "rvv" (revert vandalism) as your edit summary? It doesn't appear that you reverted his talk page, but instead placed a new message. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your response! It's all right; it's easy to let a mistake slip through. I was just surprised because 68's a great vandal-fighter and I would be very surprised if he were to vandalize a page. I'm assuming you mistook him for someone else since I don't see any vandalism in his contributions. Keep up the good work, and just be sure you're leaving messages for the right people. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Achille, IRC logs should not be posted on Wikipedia without permission of all parties involved. You weren't very polite in that exchange, either. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC) from User talk:68.39.174.238#AlabamaStateCons in his own words

I don't see why 68's unwillingness to create an account should be frustrating to you. If he comes up often on your RC patrol, you should recognize him as a quality vandal fighter. Why do you feel he should have to answer your questions about why he does not wish to register? You cannot demand that he answer. Regarding IRC policy, please see m:IRC channels#Logging prohibition on #wikipedia and other channels, conveniently linked in a comment just below the Bishonen transcript (also, if I recall correctly, User:Njyoder's behavior in this matter was responsible for him losing a significant amount of credibility and respect on Wikipedia. Finally, please do not edit others' user pages against their wishes. 68 is perfectly capable of creating a user page if he so chooses. I hope I don't come across as hostile; I certainly don't mean to. You're doing great work fighting vandalism, and Wikipedia needs more editors like you. Just remember that we're all on the same side—you can direct your energies towards vandals, not fellow RC patrollers. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Mike, there is no need to place copies of my comments directly under them; I hope you don't mind if I remove them. Of course I will carefully read your comments, as I do to all, but I'm not sure this matter is so important as to merit extensive research. What does the adminship nomination have to do with anything? Did he even participate in it? Examining the deleted versions, I don't see any edits or acceptance by him; all I see is another user creating the nomination. Of course I would not support such a candidacy and would have removed it had I come across it; I'm not even certain that it is possible to give an anonymous IP address administrative rights in MediaWiki. But I fail to see the relevance to our discussion or how it excuses your rudeness. Especially since the timestamps seem to indicate that the page was created after our conversation. I don't understand how User:Essjay criticizing User:My Cat inn is relevant; I am not familiar with the latter user and had made no statements concerning him or his behavior. You can believe what you wish, although I don't believe Wikipedia is so tenuous that an anonymous user refusing to register can make it into a mockery. And your beliefs certainly don't make it appropriate to harrass other users. There is no rule on Wikipedia, implied or stated, that one should only edit anonymously if one does not intend to make many edits. There is no edit count beyond which one must register an account. I don't think it's productive to speculate on why different people support the continued ability of unregistered users to edit; I certainly don't accept your idiosyncratic interpretation. "I'm not 'John', whereever that came from" doesn't appear to be particularly uncivil to me, certainly no more uncivil than your remarks you posted in the IRC log. You're right; the policy I cited pertains to #wikipedia; if you feel comfortable exposing your behavior, you may repost them—of course, 68 is not obligated to keep them there. You are correct in that the IRC logs were intended to be used against Bishonen; however, they had the opposite effect of drawing in much more support for her and severely discrediting the poster.

You're right that anonymous users may not create new pages, although this is a quite new change and 68 has had plenty of time to create a user page if he wished. Additionally he can request it be created or ask any one of numerous editors to create it for him. If someone has not created a user page, before you do the favor of creating it for him, consider asking him on his talk page first if he would like one—there may be a reason he never created one or had one created, and page creation is not an easily revertable action like other user page editing might be.

Why are you returning to the administrator issue? I don't believe I have ever said that I would support an adminship candidacy for 68. Anonymous users cannot be administrators; even if it were technically possible, it'd be incredibly dangerous. In fact, if he ever desires adminship, he may end up regretting the long delay in registering, since he'd have to build up a repuation as a logged-in user. I cannot understand why you are responding to my comments about your lack of politeness with arguments for why he should not be an administrator.

I'm not certain that there is any more to be gained from this discussion, as I've made the points I wished to make. I will be happy to continue it if you wish. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad I could help, although I don't understand what you mean about me pulling myself. If you have any more questions, let me know. Oh, I wanted to tell you, I love your user page! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me, Giovanni. It looks to me like the original dating system in the Early Christianity article was AD, so I think they'd be justified in keeping the article consistent with that, unless a consensus of editors decides that the other version would be more appropriate. I agree that there is no preferred Wikipedia dating system, but in this case, it looks like they were justified in their change. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding, or if you see any other inappropriate changes. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks for letting me know. Please let me know if you would prefer I not reply to these notification messages. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd been meaning to write an article like that for a long time, but it is an ambitious task. I'm pretty surprised actually that it hadn't been written before. There's not even a history section in Earth! I'll be adding that at some point. My goal with History of Earth is to provide a brief overview of the history of the planet, like history of the world. I don't want the article to get too long, so I'm trying to be succinct in each section and I'm not sure how many sections are optimal. I wasn't planning on going into too much detail in later evolution, since I can't really do it justice and it'd probably be better if someone wrote about it in more detail in a sub-article. What do you think? It's hard writing about eras when not much is known or there are several competing theory. What I'm trying to do is summarize the leading theory if there is one, or briefly mention the competing ideas if no theory is dominant. I haven't entirely planned out the rest of the article, but I'm thinking that I'll write the following sections:

• Colonization of land, (bacteria, plants, animals), including dominance of reptiles/dinosaurs, emergence of angiosperms, divergence of birds and mammals, and of course extinction. Maybe I should mention some of the other extinction events as well. Then the dominance of mammals. I'm not sure if I should keep this all in one section
• Origin of humanity. Brief mention of primate evolution and then discussion of human evolution. I don't want to go into too much detail because it's controversial, and because I don't want the article to become too biased towards humans—I'd rather emphasize the vast period of history before humans arose. Perhaps only two sentences on human history, with a reference to History of the world for further information.
• Spaceflight. A bit of a conceit, considering how much I'm condensing human history, and there were plenty of other major advances in human history. But as a history of the planet Earth, I think it's relevant to discuss the major step of some of a planet's inhabitants launching objects, and eventually themselves, off the planet. Perhaps it would start with a quick mention of the improvements or planetary travel (horse, car, airplane).

Anyway, that's the plan for now. What do you think? Any suggestions? After the preliminary writing is done, it's going to need a lot of polishing, and I want to carefully reference some of the assertions at some point. I'd like it to be a featured article eventually, but that's a very long way away. Please continue to help fix it up; I'll definitely need help, and assistance from a biologist will be very welcome. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about your reply. Have you considered leaving messages for users on their talk pages? I think it makes it easier to know when someone has something to say to them. Just a thought. But anyway, thanks for your insightful comments. I certainly do hope people (more knowledgeable than I) will split off subarticles from some or all of the sections. I am actually very surprised that there is no article or even section of an article on the formation of the Earth. That Earth includes neither a "History" section nor even a "Formation" section greatly surprised me, and is one of the reasons I wished to write this article. You're right about the arthropods, and anyway the bacteria are probably the dominant life forms on Earth anyway, depending how you define dominance. I'll rethink how I write that section. The recent sections I've written are going to need a lot of rewriting. In particular, History of Earth#Colonization of land has become quite long, and I haven't even finished it. Should I split it up? I'll probably have to, but I want to limit sections to major changes in Earth's history, not minor events like evolution of mammals or something. Maybe I'll finish writing the first draft of the article, then go back and work on these problematic sections.

Regarding nonscientific theories, in my opinion, the article should focus on scientific theories of Earth's history, similar to Origin of life (which is why, similar to that article, I specified in the introduction that this article discussed the leading scientific theories). Do you think that's all right? Even if we were to attempt to include religious explanations in the article, I'm not certain how it could be done. If one is to include specific religious events, it would get far too complicated to include all major religions, and it would become extremely complicated with conflicting stories being woven together. Even just focusing on Christianity (which I would disagree with), it's unclear how it could be incorporated. Could you maybe give an example of how this could be addressed?

I'll briefly mention some of the mass extinctions, and perhaps you could assist in writing more about them when I've made some more progress with the article. Do you really think that it was so serendipitous that life began? I used to think so, but the more I read the moreit seems more inevitable. That tends to be the flavor from what I have been reading, too. I think many scientists view the short time between Earth's formation and the origin of life (less than a billion years) as suggesting that life's beginning was not an unlikely event. The origin of complex life and intelligence may have been, though. Perhaps if our spaceflight technology ever advances that far, we will find many planets where simple life has evolved, but never find another intelligence. Mass extinctions, including the one driven by Homo sapiens, are quite destructive and wipe out many species, but don't really threaten life itself. Eukarya may be severely affected, but the Archae and Bacteria have survived quite hardily. I agree that humans are a threat to themselves and to a number of animal and plant species, but while we could easily make the planet uninhabitable for us, I doubt we could make it unhabitable for life. In fact, even if humans worked together, I wonder if we could wipe out all life on Earth. After we're gone, I'm sure prokaryotes will survive at least, and probably even animals like arthropods. This is all speculation, of course. You're right, genetic engineering should be mentioned as well. I'll figure out a way to work it in. I'll see what I can dig up on predator-prey as well.

I very much appreciate your assitance polishing the text. In fact, it's going to need more than a bit of polishing. As I said before, this is a very ambitious article for me—I usually write on very narrow topics. Overviews are tough, and I could easily write too much about something. I'll definitely need your help to remain concise and clear. It's going to need to go through several stages of improvement, but I intend to seek featured status for this article one day, no matter how much work it takes. I hope that some good subarticles will be written as well. Oh, by the way, if you have better suggestions for any of the pictures, please suggest them or change them. I'd like each section to have at least one picture but it's not always easy to find something appropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Nah, there's nothing to apologize about. I don't like fragmented conversations either. Some people leave a short notification message ("Replied on my talk page") kind of like you did, but I figure if you're going to do that you might as well just copy your whole reply. Anyway, everyone finds their own preferred style.

Water seems important, but I wonder if it's essential to life. Perhaps there are alternative biochemistries we haven't thought up yet. Really, all that's necessary is for some sort of self-replication to arise. Even if it were water based, even if ice sank, there are plenty of regions on Earth where water doesn't ever freeze. And I doubt the length of days or circadian rhythms are very important for many microscopic life forms. I do think these factors are important for Earth's large multicellular life, but not for life itself. Anyway, unless we find some more concrete information, I'll leave it out of the article for now. All right, I'll keep working on the land section, and we can trim/split it as necessary. Speaking of images, today's featured picture will be beautiful for the spaceflight section. Yeah, I'll try to recruit some people to help flesh out some of the details or write subarticles and such once I finish writing the skeleton—we'll definitely need help. I want to add something about the origin of sexual reproduction but I need to find more information, so I haven't written about it yet. I'm excited about the article too, and thanks to both of you for helping out! — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)