User:E. Ripley/archive1

Welcome!

Hello, E. Ripley, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Cheers, Tewfik^Talk 20:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm always glad to say hi. If you need any help or have questions, feel free to approach me. Happy editing, Tewfik^Talk 20:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk page formatting

I'm not sure why you find the format hard to read, but that's the way talk pages are always set up. One person posts, and everyone who replies to him should be aligned at the same indent. Our comments will not be confused, because you signed after yours and I signed after mine. That's how discussion threads are formatted. Bullet points can be used for clarity, but your comments to Mmx1 should not be any more or less indented than mine. Kafziel 14:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The way I've seen it done primarily, people simply keep indenting as they go. First reply gets one, second gets two, etc. It's much easier to read that way. At any rate it's no big deal and I think handled adequately as it is now. Thanks. — ripley/talk 14:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The discussions you have participated in so far do that because the editors were replying to each other. If I was replying to your comment, mine would be indented under yours. But you and I were replying to the same person, so our comments should be at the same indent. That's how discussion threads are always formatted. It's not a big deal right now, but it becomes a big deal when you have twenty or thirty people participating in the discussion. Unnecessary indents (and backward indents like you have now) cause a great deal of confusion in more drawn-out discussions. Kafziel 14:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I guess I simply disagree with your opinions about what standard practices and best practices are as it regards this topic. I think it's best left that we agree to disagree at this point. But I do appreciate your taking the time to explain why you feel the way you do! — ripley/talk 16:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Listen, I'm not going to change it back (because the discussion has gone beyond that now), but it's not best left agreeing to disagree. I'm right, and I'm trying to help you so that in the future you will understand the proper way to format discussion threads. See this help page for an example of what I mean. "If a reply is made to a statement, one adds a colon to the number of colons used in the statement being replied to." That means that you were correct having only one colon before your reply (because the original statement had none), and I was also correct to have only one colon before mine. We were both replying to the same statement. This isn't a matter of opinion; I'm trying to help you avoid problems in the future. Kafziel 16:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the concern behind your messages, really, and I take no offense (and hope you'll take none with me), but I think in practice this is misguided. In practice, discussions do not proceed like this:

I have an opinion. (Person one)

I feel this way about #1's opinion. (Person two)

Well I feel this way about #1's opinion. (Person three)

And I feel like so about #1's opinion. (Person four)

The standard practice is to keep indenting even if everybody's technically answering the first person. Nobody can make heads nor tails out of the three new, discrete peoples' opinions if they all nest on the same line. — ripley/talk 16:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the example you gave there is exactly how discussions progress. If you look at my contribs you'll see I've made over a thousand posts to talk pages alone, and I know how it's done. I could give you countless examples if that's really necessary, but I've given you a link to an official page that explains the process. Three different opinions don't go "on the same line"; they each have their own line but are left-aligned at the same tab, and each one should be signed by the person who left it. That's how the different comments are distinguished, and that's why signing posts is important even for IP users. That's why some of us use the {{unsigned}} template when people forget to sign their posts.

As a simple example, the post you just placed on the USMC talk page is formatted such that it is replying to Mmx1's last comment. But Mmx1's comment didn't have anything to do with books; it was acknowledging the work I've done on Featured and Good Articles. So your reply to his comment doesn't make any sense. The bit about the books was a couple of colons ago, and your comment should have been lined up with that. Kafziel 16:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Again, in practice this is not how it's done (perhaps, if someone else nests further out then it makes it understandable for the next person to take it back a colon). My extra-nested comment makes perfect sense in context; it's not rendered unintelligible because it's not slotted in the place where you think it ought to be. Again, in practice your notion is misguided, in my opinion, though I appreciate the spirit behind your messages to me and wish you all the best. — ripley/talk 16:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC

And, again, in practice this is how it's done. Just look at the help page I linked to. You find the comment you want to reply to, add a colon to however many it already has, and begin.

A non-Wiki example: Have you ever used Microsoft Outlook? One person posts, and if you reply to that post your reply is slightly indented. If another person replies to that original post, their post is lined up with yours. Theirs is only indented further if they are replying to you, rather than to the original post.

Or think of it like the directory on Windows (when you right click on the "Start" button). Start out at the C: drive section. Within the C: drive and slightly indented are folders like "Documents and Settings", "Program Files", etc. Slightly indented further, because they're part of the Documents and Settings section, are the files that correspond to that. But "Program Files" is lined up with Documents and Settings, because it is not a subordinate topic. The indents show which files belong to which folder, just as indents here show which replies belong to which comment.

Maybe that helped, or maybe it just made things even more confusing, but I don't know how else to explain it. This is just how it's done. Kafziel 16:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you again. I'm fully aware and comprehending of the way you think things work, though I appreciate the time you're taking. I simply disagree, and don't have much else to say. All the best — ripley/talk 16:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

American

I noticed that you recently added a link to American here. American is a disambiguation page as the phrase has many uses including a person from the Americas or the United States. In the future, could you link the term to one of the articles listed on the American disambiguation term, that would be great. As an example, if you're linking to something related to the United States, you would input [[United States|American]]. Thanks! --Bobblehead 07:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Cite

Aaaarrgggghh. I have no idea why I used cite not fact. Apparently a momentary lapse of reson. Sorry about that and thanks for fixing my error (and for notifying me that I made a rookie mistake, quite inexcusable too after 11,000+ edits). Jim62sch 19:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Why not ban 209.129.177.2 entirely

You only gave this guy a first warning, but he'd gotten a last warning earlier. I suggest this user be banned. User:Jchillerup

Report him at WP:AIV; I'd love to block him, but I'm not an administrator. — e. ripley\^talk 18:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

That's what I did, and you seemingly gave him another first warning...

I don't see that it matters very much, honestly -- a warning is a warning, as long as he's gotten at least one block warning then he can be blocked for continuing to vandalize. To the point, I use Lupin's antivandal program; it decides which test warnings to issue based on what's already on the talk page, as I understand it. Sorry if it didn't work properly somehow. — e. ripley\^talk 18:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

EVP

Hi, and appreciate your efforts in the article. I think what happened is that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Paranormal/Collaboration recruited the director of AAEVP, Tom Butler, as a subject matter expert, which appears to have created the potential for some significant POV-pushing in the article. LuckyLouie

For your info, if you weren't already aware of this paper: Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomenon, Barušs, I.

More: Turn Me On, Dead Man: Shermer on audio pareidolia in Scientific American. text. LuckyLouie 17:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I will recuse myself from participating in the article if it will help influence Davkal to cease his bad behavior. LuckyLouie 20:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Electronic voice phenomenon rewrite project

Hey, I noticed you were a frequent contributor to the Electronic voice phenomenon article and I thought I'd let you know that I'm proposing a rewrite project for the article. I thought you might be interested in contributing to it if you're still around. Currently the article seems to have numerous dispute problems including POV issues and I thought I could get it to at least a Good Article. You can see my proposal on it's talk page here Talk:Electronic voice phenomenon. There are a few questions I'd like you to answer first though. If you have any questions about it you can leave me a message. Thanks. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 00:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

RfC

Hi, you were helping in the University of Central Oklahoma RfC. Can you please add your 2 cents in on finding a resolution to the problem. I would do it my self but I figure it would be looked down upon. Thanks --CPacker ^{talk to me} 19:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident

I have nominated Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident (2nd nomination). Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Bibliography for Brinkley

I added a bibliography section to the John R. Brinkley article, with google books URLs so that readers can surf to the book they're interested in. Some, like the Lee biography published in 2002, allow a generous amount of access. I used the online Lee material to greatly expand the period of Brinkley's life leading up to and including the moment at age 29 when he got a medical degree. I'm backing out of the article now, as you've indicated interest in it, and I have some other fish to fry. Use some of the bibliography to get more details, and to bring more references to the article. Cheers! Binksternet (talk) 02:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Marble Hill

I checked at Native Title - there is no overarching list of extant Native Title, just individual cases such as Mabo and Wik. To start a List of native title claims would be a big ask, although I suppose there's nothing stopping it from being kicked off and added to later. In fact I might have a go at that right now. Also, I suppose you're aware of Mifren threatening to revert again after his block is lifted. I've been involved in edit wars before, but I have to admit this is breaking new ground for me. Where does it go from here if his behaviour continues? I honestly hope a longer block is not the answer because he clearly does a fair bit of research on this and several other topics, but it's just so hard to work with him --Yeti Hunter (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Update: Started the page (see blue link above) - BIG project, but luckily all the info is on one convenient, reliable site. I think I'll leave it for more passionate editors to improve for now. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 06:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Yeti, thanks for the note. I did see his unblock request where he's continuing threats to edit war. I keep hoping we can find a way forward that satisfies him and also stays within the bounds of Wikipedia's policies, but we'll have to see. He did email me some information which I just posted about on the Marble Hill talk page; go have a look when you get a minute. I am somewhat encouraged by it. Thank you for creating that article, it could grow to contain some good information for the encyclopedia. I'll add it to my watchlist now. — e. ripley\^talk 13:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Is it equally conceivable to suggest as a natural justice right of reply that it hasn't been that easy to work with a wikiEditor who simply has in the past Marble Hill edit wikiwar originally cryptically undo or revert what has been contributed without article discussion let alone User Talk. Then pursued that activity through to other articles without really seeking to positively engage or involve other wikiEditors until a more clearly independent 3rd party of review is conducted here? It seems then that perhaps we are both ego-centric and need to seriously reconsider our posterity positions. I note though that neither wikiEditor has responded yet to what I thought at the time were some clear questions. I would genuinely appreciate acknowledgement or preferentially a considered response/s as all this does actually take consideration, time, effort etc which I really do not have much and imagine the same of yourselves? As a result of Emailing then speaking with the Kaurna Native Title Management Female Co-Chair last night, Kudnarto Joan Lamont Williams, expressed surprise in the difficulty in accepting Marble Hill Native Title. I know that Email was printed, read and may be tabled at the next Kaurna Native Title Management Committee Meeting. Not being Kaurna all I know is that they have a lot on their plate with many demands made of their consideration, time with minimal respect and resourcing by our dominant South Australian Anglo-European culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mifren (talk • contribs) 23:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're looking to have me address here. — e. ripley\^talk 03:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Adding Native Title again. Hopefully what I reponse wrote on the Discussion Page with help?Mifren (talk) 22:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC) Please respond to: Where is the proof of the "clear consensus"? What was there on the Marble Hill Article Discussion page has been removed. Also we really are only in a position to speak for ourselves and thus again there is no proof to the claim that "Those same three editors believe that the reference given for the more specific 2009 "claim" or "bill" or "sovereignty declaration" or whatever it is (ie, Mr Rossi's speech and Mifren's facebook page) is unreliable.'Again I repeat the questions, "Also that Consensus is no longer visible thus no longer clear on the Marble Hill Article Discussion page thus what is the basis for not restoring? Will perhaps meeting with FOI & Kaurna documentation will actually help "love to collaboratively complete the article"?'Mifren (talk) 00:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Ripley - the latest discussion seems to be happening on my talk.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 01:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Plus-size model: editor assistance

Thanks for your recent comments in section 32 on the discussion page of this article.

Actually, the issue was not the use of fat or overweight (although I do feel that fat is perjorative and needs to be scrubbed as it allows size prejudice to persist in sensitive articles), it was whether the definition of who wears plus-size clothing has a place the article to begin with. The article is about plus-size models; definitions pertaining to plus-size clothing should be made in that particular article. Accordingly, I have copied the references over to it. There is a redirect to plus-size clothing contained in the first sentence of this article, so a doubling-up of these references is redundant. This is what I wish to have addressed and resolved, as the editor is only arguing that the citations are valid and doesn't address discussion on applicability. Thanks 3RingCircus (talk) 04:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Can I draw your attention to Anon User/79.97.166.36's talk page for a moment? Specifically for bad conduct on this article, the User has been edit-blocked for edit-warring, for incivility and has had 2 declines for removal of the block. Because they are blocked, I feel that they are nuisancing the resolution process on the discussion page by rehashing old arguments, twisting my previous discussion comments to their own end, and they still fail to answer directly to the question of merit in regards to their edits to the article. Further, I believe this user will immediately start reverting their edits back into the article as soon as they are unblocked. Clearly other Wiki moderators have reviewed the situation and have decided that this User does not edit in good faith and is vandalizing the article. This article constantly has mischief makers editing in the word 'fat' for their own amusement. Anon does not answer the question of merit for their edits when asked directly, and seem hell-bent on 'winning'. I do not wish to drag this process out but I feel that the WP:EA process is not working at this point, and I am not well-versed enough in the various WP references to back myself up. How many rounds of EA are there before WP:DR should be entered into? 3RingCircus (talk) 22:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Nesting

Thanks for the heads up - and for clearing up my mess! ;-) Appreciate it. I guess I need to spend some time going through the tutorials when it comes to talk page discussion, replying etc - I'm quite new to it.

Thanks again Moondial (talk) 17:06, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

A little quick on the draw

The article was a half-hour old before you tagged it as an orphan. I was in the process of completing the article, and am going to link it to the Shirley Bassey discography. I've Got a Song for You--Nyctc7 (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Jamsai

Thanks! —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Free State of Galveston

Just wanted to take a second to tell you that I've been watching the development of Free State of Galveston and wanted to commend you on all your hard work. — e. ripley\talk 16:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I like finding subjects that most people don't know a lot about or that are poorly understood and explore them. Thankfully this article hasn't gotten attacked (yet) like some articles I've worked on. ;-)

BTW, if you want to review it or provide feedback, please feel free.

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the copyediting!!!

BTW, content-wise, does the article seem complete enough to you? There are some areas that I would ideally like to say more about but I don't have sources for them. Still, it seems (to me) that the information is reasonably complete for an encyclopedia article.

--Mcorazao (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Ostrava-City District

Hi, please be more careful with edits like this one. The fourth rule of AWB discourages edits like that since it wastes resources and clogs up watchlists. Thank you. --Iohannes Animosus (talk) 22:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for all the help with Free State.

For what it is worth I am still a little uncomfortable with the paragraph on racism but I don't feel like going back and forth on it. I guess we'll just see if anybody else has a POV concern or otherwise (in the worst case it is not essential to the article anyway so it can be taken out).

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Advice: Maceo articles

Hey,

I hope you don't mind my pestering you. Since you took a small interest in the article on the Maceos I was hoping for some advice. The standard for biographies is to have articles for each individual rather than a combined article like Sam and Rosario Maceo. I have created a Sam Maceo and a Rosario Maceo article. The three articles right now are a bit haphazard as I am trying to decide what to do. At first I thought of just making Sam and Rosario Maceo a sort of disambig which briefly mentions who they were and links to the main article. The thing about it is that if I move all of the content from this article to the separate articles then I presumably have a lot of redundancy between the articles. Sam and Rose's business affairs were generally closely tied. To the extent that their affairs were not tied the sources I have found generally do not distinguish much (i.e. it is hard to tell where one brother's affairs ended and the other's began).

I'm flip-flopping between the following options:

Allow the redundancy and make the Sam and Rosario Maceo article a simple disambig. Maybe this means that 2/3 of the two articles is the same.
Eliminating most of the discussion of their business affairs and keeping that in the Free State of Galveston article. Make S&RM a disambig. Two problems with that

Some of the detail on their business affairs is too much for the Free State article.
The sources don't provide a lot of detail on their personal lives. So the more business stuff I take out the less content there is overall.

Making S&RM an article about their business empire and have the other two articles focus on the unique things about their lives. Still suffers from a similar problem and, regardless seems illogical in terms of article naming.
Making S&RM a disambig, creating a new article on the Maceo business empire, and keeping the Sam article and the Rose article focused on their unique histories. Arguably the most logical choice except that creating yet another article on an increasingly obscure topic is questionable.

Anyway, if you have any interest or thoughts on this feel free to share.

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 20:32, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi there -- no trouble at all. I agree that it's not ideal to have an article about the two of them together. Instead, perhaps Maceo family? Then have the individual members be a redirect there. Of course you still have to sort out what logically belongs where between that and Free State, to try to reduce the possibility of redundancies. But from a process standpoint, I think that makes the most sense. — e. ripley\talk 00:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.

Ya, the thing with "Maceo family" is that not all of the family was equally involved in the empire so that becomes very ambiguous in terms of what should be discussed. I was thinking of an article called "Maceo syndicate" which is specific enough to have a reasonably defined scope. Same general idea, though. I just debate whether this is really notable enough to merit another article. More to the point, I don't know that there is enough in the sources to fill up a unique article that is not about the two brothers and is not about Galveston.

--Mcorazao (talk) 01:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. What I actually did today, for better or worse, was to make the S&RM a disambig, put most of the content on the syndicate in the article on Sam since he really was the businessman, and then kept the Rosario article simpler only discussing the syndicate briefly. The section on the syndicate in the Sam article is not enough to fill an article and I don't know that I can find a lot more detail. --Mcorazao (talk) 01:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

FYI: Free State of Galveston

FYI: I don't know if you had seen but I nominated the Free State of Galveston article for GA. If you have any suggestions of things that should be done to help it pass please feel free to share.

--Mcorazao (talk) 15:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident

The article Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

In an AfD over a year ago, consensus was that this didn't belong on Wikipedia, and perhaps a copy to Wikiquote was the way to go. Since it appears the material is not appropriate for Wikiquote, and it doesn't belong on Wikipedia, the only remaining solution is deletion.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Abductive (reasoning) 06:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)