User talk:Spiffy sperry

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[edit] Welcome

Welcome! (We can't say that loudly enough!)

Here are a few links you might find helpful:

You can sign your name on talk pages and votes by typing ~~~~; our software automatically converts it to your username and the date.

If you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page. Or, please come to the Wikipedia Boot Camp, 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.

We're so glad you're here! KHM03 12:15, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Hi, Spiffy sperry. Thanks for the edit! ;-) Nhprman 06:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Your welcome, Nhprman. (This was about the The 30x11 Calendar, which I got to while reading about he recent Leap second.) --Spiffy sperry 14:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Headings and TOC edit

On January 28, 2006, I noted on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (headings) that your edit seemed to conflict with other guidance. I was waiting for a response before just reverting. Could you let me know your view? Thanks. --TreyHarris 10:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Answered[1]. Thanks for your input. Feel free to tone down the "Avoid" statement, but please don't revert the whole thing. --Spiffy sperry 14:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spam

Thanks for getting rid of those spamversisements! Pseudomonas 15:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I must give credit to Marcika, who did the first rv on the Global Warming page, giving me the idea to rv the rest. I didn't rv the ones that already had comments. (The 25 offending links came from 58.7.114.188). --Spiffy sperry
It wasn't spam. It was a net.kook trap. More research, people.
Check the list against this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_controversial_issues and think about it a bit more.
Call it what you want, anon (see Spamvertising). It remains that the links added to the talk pages were to outdated mirrors (with horrible formatting) of the main article, as if this were something new to talk about. They didn't add to the discussion and were unnecessary. Your link to WP:LCI does not provide any insight. --Spiffy sperry 19:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It's no big deal, and it was a unspectacularly unsuccessful experiment (I am really crap at this), but ask yourself who runs that site? And wouldn't you rather have troublesome personalities on that site, rather than this one? And what sort of articles do troublesome personalites hang out on?

[edit] Realclimate

You're on realclimate too? LOL! How many ppl at realclimate are on wikipedia? __earth (Talk) 17:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The notable ones I've recognized (and remember) include Dr. Connolley, Dragons flight, Hans Erren, John A, Tim Lambert, and Lumidek. --Spiffy sperry 18:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Happy Earth Day! __earth (Talk) 16:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Saints Wikiproject

I noted that you have been contributing to articles about saints. I invite you to join the WikiProject Saints. You can sign up on the page and add the following userbox to your user page.

This user is a member of the Saints WikiProject.


I also invite you to join the discussion on prayers and infoboxes here: Prayers_are_NPOV.

Thanks! --evrik 19:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Zinn page

You moved material out of the article on Howard Zinn yet left no links to where readers can find these quotes. Given that a lot of people worked on this article over a long period, these edits were destructive. Would you please provide the links to where you moved the material. Thank you. Skywriter 09:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The edits were not destructive; the link you want was already on the page. At the bottom of the page, in the External Links section, there's a box that says "Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Howard Zinn". When I made my last changse to the Quotations section, there was also a box for Wikiquote at the top, basically requesting that the quotes be moved there. If the remaining quotations are going to stay in the Zinn article, then maybe the Wikiquote box in External Links section can be moved to the Quotations section. --Spiffy sperry 14:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
When people comment my edits to an obscure (to me) article, I like to record what brought me there. In this case, my father-in-law was borrowing a car which had a Howard Zinn bumber sticker, along with other bumper items that were not in line with his views. The idea of a preacher driving a car with a "Darwin fish" to church was amusing to me. --Spiffy sperry 22:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Major hurricanes in 2005

I have been reading the discussion in the 2005 Hurricane Season and I see you're a big contributor to the arguments. Can I have your take on this? Copy and pasted from my comment.

I haven't read through all that much, but in talks with a professor at Dalhousie University, it seems we are both under the impression that the number of Major Storms this year was 8. Now, I have done some research, and have found in the NHC's archives that they clearly state that Hurricane Beta is the 8th MAJOR STORM of the season.

The link can be found at

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al262005.discus.014.shtml?

and I would appreciate for someone to fix it.

Can you please take a quick look and see if I have any merit in pursuing this? Please comment on my talk page if possible.Sod Aries

(repeated at your talk page) I'm not sure why the above link says eighth. This official report from the end of the season says Beta is the seventh major storm. Indeed, I only count 7: Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Maria, Rita, Wilma, and Beta. --Spiffy sperry 13:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] They've killed the List of famous failures in science and engineering! You Bastards!!

Mmx1 is taking the fight that I have over the F-14 and F-111 to the failure page, and he has nominated them for deletion. The wiki-thugs are all voting to delete the page. Mmx1 has reversed the F-14 page to state that it is not, and has never been designed as a maneuverable air superiority fighter, and is not accepting any contrary citations up to and including a F-14 test pilot, Janes Defence, and Aviation Week. He is apparently taking revenge against other pages. Please go to the deletion page and tell the administrators what is going on. Look at the patterns of MMx. He regular accuses others of gross misinformation and summarily reverts most edits as a self-appointed judge of all truth, but in fact should not be allowed this leeway. --matador300 11:01, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] University of Illinois?

I see that you listed your self in the Wikipedians by alma mater: University of Illinois category. Did you mean to put yourself in the Wikipedians by alma mater: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign category? - Just checking.

— Mobius 02:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That explains why I was the only one in the category! I've moved myself to UIUC. I didn't find the UIUC category back in December 2005, because I was looking through the "alma mater: US" categroy, where it didn't appear until March 15. --Spiffy sperry 14:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Yea, it was until just a bit ago listed under under W in the category list. Now it's under I, where it should be — Mobius 15:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wegman

Thanks for at least correcting the description. I won't revert it out again, but I'll explain why I don't think it should be there: the problem is the bloat in the ext links section. Why should wegman be there but the far better NC report not? As a rough guideline, I suggest that if you want to add a new link, as you've done, you should remove an old one. William M. Connolley 16:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

After further review, I thought of moving the link for the Wegman report to Temperature record of the past 1000 years, and found it was already there, so I reverted it myself. --Spiffy sperry 17:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] yes :( ~ extra

Article Removal - + unsigned template, perhaps Sln3412 used an extra ~) Yeah, I must have. I try and sign everything. It looks like the date went in. I fixed it. Thanks!!! Sln3412 20:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signing vandal warnings

Hello! Please don't forget to sign your vandal warnings. This really helps when looking at their contributions compared to the time of the warnings. It is really easy to see when they have gone past a final warning when it has been signed, otherwise we have to go in to the history of the Talk page and it becomes quite a pain when there is a backlog on WP:AIV. Well done on catching them and keeping everyone informed, your efforts are much appreciated. Regards, (aeropagitica) 21:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for fixing user boxes

Thanks for fixing that user box on my page. :)

You're welcome, User:Will Pittenger, and thanks for hosting the St. Louis Cardinals userbox. --Spiffy sperry 12:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Cheers for fixing my userbox. I wouldn't have known otherwise.--Macca7174 14:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source for Sierra Leone and Lebanon ratifying Kyoto?

Re [2]: after a quick look at news.google, [3], [4], and [5] I can't find a source. Please add one at List of Kyoto Protocol signatories until kpstats.pdf is updated. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-09t12:51z

Sorry about the confusion. Sometimes, I use the link on List of Kyoto Protocol signatories (kpstats.pdf), sometimes I go directly to this UNFCCC site (2316.php) from my IE favorites folder. The latter has a link to this pdf that includes SL and Leb. I hadn't noticed it was different than kpstats.pdf (the format is identical, but the filename and location are different). I've included a link to 2316.php after kpstats.pdf. --Spiffy sperry 17:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Many thanks. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-13t20:41z

[edit] Wet scrubber article

The wet scrubber page is ready. Feel free to have a look at it. I don't know who included heat exchangers in the air pollution control technologies category? It should be removed. What do you think? The Vindictive 15:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

WS looks very good. There's rarely a new article that is as polished on it's first day. The "heat exchanger" is actually a piped link for "condenser", which is often used for VOC control. (I'll move it to that category in the list.) Sometimes the distinction between pollution control and product recovery is hard to make for these devices. Do you think we need a separate article for condenser, or even a new section within the heat exchanger article? --Spiffy sperry 16:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!!!! and happy holidays! -hotspot (come say hi) 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Air pollutant plan??

Hi, I was wondering about your plan as to which cmpds qualify as air pollutants in your categorization efforts. In principle, thousands of volatile organic compound could be listed. But maybe you have a plan in mind? Or would care to share your ideas with the WE-chem group (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry) so that a group could discuss? Cheers and best wishes.--Smokefoot 20:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

In Category:Hazardous air pollutants, I'm just focussing on the "hazardous" chemicals listed by the U.S. EPA - see the list at NESHAP. (And more importantly, those also listed here as the top emissions.) The idea is similar in to the Category:Persistent organic pollutants, although with ~180 pages & subcategories instead of just 16. --Spiffy sperry 21:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page move debate opinions needed

Hi, user DIV (a chemical engineer), i.e. User talk:128.250.204.118, and myself (a chemical engineer) have been debating over the name of the Gibbs free energy article for seven months now. DIV is demanding that both the Gibbs free energy and Helmholtz free energy articles be moved to “Gibbs energy” and “Helmholtz energy” per IUPAC definitions, and is continuously rewriting all the related articles in Wikipedia on this view. According to my opinion, as well as others, e.g. 2002 encyclopedia Britannica, 2006 encyclopedia Encarta, 2004 Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry, 2005 Barnes & Noble’s The Essential Dictionary of Science, the 2004 McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Chemistry, Eric Weissteins World of Physics: Gibbs Free Energy, etc., Gibbs free energy and Helmholtz free energy are the most common usages. If you have an opinion on this issue could you please comment here. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 20:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kyoto protocol

OK, my entry needed editing, and you did it well, thank you :) but my entry was flippant, yes, also disrepectful, i agree, but POV? how is pointing the reader to misuse of statistics POV, and what about the offending work I was replying to which says "but the American "market-based approach" is gaining increased attention as a potentially promising response to global warming" based on unreferenced statements which contradict the references I gave, that sounds more like POV to me. regards sbandrews 00:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You didn't give any indication of why misuse of statistics is relevant. Which editor was misusing statistics, and how? From what's written in the new section, in 2004, US emissions were up and EU emissions were down from the chosen base year (immediately prior to this), while in 2007, the US trend was downard and the EU trend was upward. Both seem to be important points to me, to understand the big picture (e.g., where both will be by 2012). I didn't do anything about the market-based approach comment because the section was already tagged as lacking references. --Spiffy sperry 15:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The misuse of statistics is exactly what you have just repeated, using the figures from just one year (2007) as evidence of trend. The statistical significance of a sample of one point will be highly inaccurate and misleading compared to a change taken over 14 years, as a look at the year by year data will show. Further, the statistic of interest is how things have changed since Kyoto, not how things have changed in the last few years (i.e. since Katrina). However, I do agree that it is unfortunate that 1990 coincides with other large changes taking place in Europe, however on balance I would think that that is more than compensated by the increases in productivity since the former communist states embraced capitalism and democracy, although perhaps you have a reference that shows otherwise? sbandrews 16:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, here's a longer trend from one of your references:
"Greenhouse gases emissions in the EU‑15 have risen since 1999 and emission levels in 2004 were the highest since 1996." (Greenhouse gas emission trends and projections in Europe 2006, pg. 17)
How does that square with the the statistics you put in the article? --Spiffy sperry 17:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
well that's a good point, it pains me that even with all the talk and effort we have put into reductions we have achieved so little. Put the EU-15 number in the article. Regards sbandrews 18:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Small scientists

Good catch [6]. It reminds me of the Bushism: "I understand small business growth. I was one." (He obviously meant to say that he understand small businessmen. A small businessman is a businessman who runs a business employing less than 100 people.) --Uncle Ed 21:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Raymond Arritt made the blunder here. I'm not sure he meant it, but I don't think he would have objected to his Freudian slip. --Spiffy sperry 22:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] St. Louis Cardinals project

Please accept this invite to join WikiProject St. Louis Cardinals, a project dedicated to improving the quality of St. Louis Cardinals related articles. Simply click here to accept!

[edit] Image:Christmas tree-7534301.jpg

Hello Spiffy sperry, an automated process has found an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, such as fair use. The image (Image:Christmas tree-7534301.jpg) was found at the following location: User talk:Spiffy sperry. This image or media will be removed per statement number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media will be replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg , so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. The image that was replaced will not be automatically deleted, but it could be deleted at a later date. Articles using the same image should not be affected by my edits. I ask you to please not re-add the image to your userpage and could consider finding a replacement image licensed under either the Creative Commons or GFDL license or released to the public domain. Please note that it is possible that the image on your page is included vie a template or usebox. In that case, please find a free image for the template or userbox. Thanks for your attention and cooperation. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 11:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Illinois Townships

I see you have found Wikipedia:WikiProject Illinois/Townships. Thanks for the assistance as you are going through the townships and getting that info fixed. A couple months back, City-data did not have info on any of them. I had to write them an e-mail with that list and tell them, they have since revamped their entire township area. If you have any questions, let me know. As far as what you have added to the Rockford Township, you will need to add a citation for that, I would just add city-data, or find it on the census website.--Kranar drogin 22:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. My new job deals heavily with townships, legal descriptions of land, and the like. I was having trouble making sense of some things, trying to cross-reference various maps, until I found the Illinois State Archives, with its maps that include township names AND township/range numbers. About the Rockford fact, I admit it was original research when I added it (the township's website isn't as bold as it could be), but I found a citation today. --Spiffy sperry 16:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I have fixed up the Rockford township page some. I think that this being the largest township in the state of Illinois, that it needs a bigger article. I will post that to one of the other Illinois people, and we can try and go for a DYK. There is going to have to be extensive change to the article. Might have to try and get some pics.--Kranar drogin 01:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey guy, are you going through all the townships in Illinois? If you are, could you start converting all the info boxes in there to the geobox as in this example Marion Township, Ogle County, Illinois. Let me know if that is what you are doing.--Kranar drogin 23:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Right now, I'm just using this at work to make a database of township information, only updating obvious errors as I come across them. If I update the infoboxes, I'll have to do it on my own time at home (which I don't get much of anymore). --Spiffy sperry 19:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed that you edited Salisbury Township, Sangamon County, Illinois as being defunct? I wonder how that got by the state of Illinois! Also, since you are working on the townships, does that mean you are doing precints too? I haven't gotten very far in their creation yet.--Kranar drogin 05:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll do what I can, but I'm not sure where to find the necessary data, like I've found for townships. Don't wait on me, though. --Spiffy sperry 04:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Illinois 2007 Census

The WikiProject Illinois 2007 membership census has concluded. If you did not add your name during the last week, you were declared "inactive" in the project, your name is still listed at The Participants Page. You can change your status by replacing {{member inactive}} with {{active}} in the table. Any members should also feel free to fill in any missing details on the list below.

IvoShandor 11:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Re: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed & Propaganda Categorization

Greetings Spiffy Sperry (& fellow UIUC alum),

I restored the propaganda category to this article. I tried sifting through the arguments being made, and found it very difficult. I went back to the category page, and saw its definition. I entered a new section on the article talk page. explaining what I saw. I wanted to come over and leave a note, rather than do so without comment. LonelyBeacon (talk) 06:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I responded at the article talk page. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 07:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)