User talk:ChrisfromHouston

Welcome!

Hello, ChrisfromHouston, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you enjoy it here and decide to stay. Here is some information 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. Additionally, the sandbox is available if you wish to test your editing skills.

All in all, good luck, have fun, and be bold! SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TBF Avenger

Good work on the Paul Neman cite. However, no one had ever added the ref tags to the References that allows the sources to be listed. An article this long should have had more cites than this already anyway. There was another footnote already there, and that editor had not checked for the tags either. This is not your fault in any way; it's just a good idea to check when you add references to see that they'll display. On an article this size, they'll usually be there already.

The newer method for listing out the sources is to use the {{reflist}} tag. This is easier to remember than the old method, which was more complicated to type out. I've made minor edits in the article several times before, and never noticed the ref tag was missing then. I only found it because I wanted to read your souce in full (just for fun, not to double-check you!) Again, good job. - BillCJ 06:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback, Bill. I'm fairly new at this and the learning happens a lot quicker with good coaching. ChrisnHouston 22:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, adding content without citing a reliable source, as you did to Irrational number, is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are already familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources please take this opportunity to add your original reference to the article. Thank you. Besides the fact that your paragraph is unsourced, irrational numbers mean non-rational, simply, it doesn't mean they don't exist. And imaginary numbers don't exist -- but that doesn't mean they aren't useful. If you disagree, discuss on the talk, please. Gscshoyru 16:43, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on userpage

Just a quickie - I noticed that you left your message for User:Gscshoyru on that user's userpage, rather than their talk page, so I've taken the liberty of moving it over for you. Giles Bennett ^{(Talk, Contribs)} 19:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you fix this?

... I really hate this image's layout. Can you stack the two halves top-bottom instead of having them side-by-side? Foofighter20x (talk) 06:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very simple edit, Foo, that you can do with an app like MS Paint.

Step1 - Open in MS Paint.

Step2 - Select: Image > Attributes

Step3 - Double the image height

Step4 - Select All (CTRL-A)

Step5 - Paste

Step6 - Move pasted image to bottom half (centering the right map to the bottom)

Step7 - Do: Image > Attributes again

Step8 - Cut the image width in half

That's it.ChrisnHouston (talk) 07:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, you can use ImageMagick using the following commands:

convert 2004CampaignAttention.png -crop 50%x100%+0+0 lh.png
convert 2004CampaignAttention.png -crop 50%x100%+676+0 rh.png
montage lh.png rh.png -tile 1x2 2004CampaignAttention_new.png

More reliable and less "by eye" judgement needed. Faster, too, if you already have ImageMagick installed. Orpheus (talk) 21:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Thanks for the tip. ChrisnHouston (talk) 03:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Entebbe

Hi Chris. I just wanted to inform you about the changes I made to the Operation Entebbe article. Kind regards, Lourie Pieterse 18:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is very considerate of you to post this message. I would be interested to know your reason for removing the German flag. ChrisnHouston (talk) 15:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Global warming conspiracy theory

Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! In case you are not already aware, an article to which you have recently contributed, Global warming conspiracy theory, is on article probation. A detailed description of the terms of article probation may be found at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Also note that the terms of some article probations extend to related articles and their associated talk pages.

The above is a templated message. Please accept it as a routine friendly notice, not as a claim that there is any problem with your edits. Thank you. -- TS 03:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to hold off on the point that there is a standing claim that data has been manipulated, fine. But the other purpose of my edit was to eliminate the confusion in how the word 'theory' was being used. I went ahead and deleted it again in order to avoid that confusion. I can explain further if that does not make sense to you. --ChrisnHouston (talk) 20:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above is just a templated message to let everyone know that the editing environment around our climate change articles needs a little work. The discussion of your edit is at Talk:Global warming conspiracy theory#Is there some 'theory' theory we need to cover here?. Regards, - 2/0 (cont.) 09:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I just posted a more thorough explanation there, for whatever worth the community sees in that. --ChrisnHouston (talk) 18:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for December 22

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Bicentennial Man (film), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bicentennial (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Only now seeing this. And I looked back to find that GoingBatty had promptly fixed the problem. Thanks, GB.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 05:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Juan Pelota citation

Thanks for providing that. I had no idea that Armstrong's sense of humour was that good. He may need it over the next couple of years. HiLo48 (talk) 08:00, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your welcome. And yes, I agree, he will be needing a lot to get through these next years.

And it would be hilarious if Stephen Colbert or some other comedian would do a spot where an Apollo Conspiracy person comes on wearing a tin hat and says, "Well at least one Armstrong fessed up!"--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 20:49, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Given your username presumably telling us your home town, I can see possibly a special interest in that one. I'm a mature aged Australian who has actually visited Houston to see the Space Center. Fascinating. HiLo48 (talk) 05:56, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I love visiting Space Center Houston too. And maybe someday I can come down your way and visit The Dish!--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 06:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Request to add 112th Congress to Combined--Control of the House and Senate...

I added a section to the Commons talk page and wanted to let you know about it here too. Thanks, MarkWarren (talk) 19:54, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your post. It got me poking around and I was shocked with what I found! More in my reply to your Commons post...--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 09:12, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

November 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Oath of office of the President of the United States may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846311,00.html Time Magazine], Mar. 25, 1929]. Retrieved 2009-01-23.</ref>
600px|Map showing locations where the oath of office was first taken, marked with a green 'O'. (Locations where presidencies ended are marked with a red 'X'.]]

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 18:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Thanks BracketBot, I owe you a beer ...or perhaps a shot of WD-40.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 19:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring

Everyone disagrees with you on the talk page so now you are trying to edit war the change into the article? No cool. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:30, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 09:26, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you continue to edit war you may loss your ability to edit. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:27, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My position is explained in detail on that Talk page. Every time you sign, you ask people for the courtesy of replying at the appropriate location, yet the extent of your rebuttal to the many hours of effort I have been putting into that discussion have whittled down to your dismissive "not exactly" (direct quote, as I'm sure you recognized). So instead of replying with a persuasive logical argument, you've come here to post your threats. And, ironically, with your assessment of what is cool and what is not cool.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 09:31, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 2013

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 36 hours for edit warring, as you did at cancer. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. JFW | T@lk 22:16, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is evident you have a very different understanding of what the WP:Three_Revert_Rule is versus what it actually states.

Your action is akin to a cop who arrests someone on a whim, without telling that person precisely what they are being charged with. "You're breaking the law." Hmm, care to tell me what law? Perhaps you are not citing any specific policy because you can't.

And if you bothered to actually read the discussion in the Talk page of the article in question, you'd see that I posted a very strong argument that Wikipedia policy, on the whole, fits best with the actions I was taking.

So if Admins police us users, I am left wondering who polices the Admins. It is obviously not self-policing, or you would not have done what you did. (Or maybe you were acting on the authority of some obscure policy that I am not aware of.)

If you are not able to cite an actual violation, you have the obligation to unblock me. [emphasis added] If you fail to do so (either) then this "verdict" of arbitrary & capricious action and abuse of authority will stand.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 00:20, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just because someone gave you a tool, this does not mean that it is proper to use it whenever you feel like it...
(Iconic Pepper Spray Image)

We can imagine this cop is thinking to himself "...I'm not actually harming these people. The effects will wear off in ~36 hours." --ChrisfromHouston (talk) 00:29, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"I am Jacob de Wolff, a Dutch doctor..."

It would appear that what has happened here is that one doctor (Doctor James) went seeking assistance from another doctor to resolve the difficulty he was experiencing. I see no reason to doubt that either of you are actual doctors. So that leaves me perplexed as to why two very well educated people would resort to threats and violence (violate me) versus conforming to Wikipedia policy. When members of this community who are at the very top level of education choose such methods in lieu of putting effort toward a rational persuasive argument, then this is a very sad day in Wikipedia history indeed. The biggest irony is that the article in question here is about cancer. If anyone would be the voice of reason, presenting positions that are well supported by medical research, one might expect that it would be a medical doctor!

On a related note... Shortly after 1am today, I saw an ad placed on Wikipedia. First time ever. We had been promised that this would never happen. It was huge and graphic and unsightly - placed within the body of the article (on Constitutional monarchy). All of these years that I have been supporting Wikipedia with many many uncompensated hours of my time, and all of my financial donations... It is very sad to think that this may be the beginning of the end of Wikipedia.

People who state they are MD's acting like thugs. Jimmy posting grotesque ads.

I am pondering whether this ban should be limited to 36 hours. Perhaps all of Wikipedia should be boycotted. So very sad, considering how this is my second favorite site on the web. It used to be a resounding first, but in recent years the quality of YouTube videos has been compelling and unseated Wikipedia. This was not a negative on Wikipedia in any sense. But today it sure is!--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Personal attacks will get you nowhere. I blocked you for disruptive editing. You have major issues with WP:TRUTH, WP:CONSENSUS and hopefully 36 hours will give you some time to decide on how you plan to engage with Wikipedia.

You are entirely within your right to boycot Wikipedia. JFW | T@lk 07:09, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Personal attack? That policy specifically states:

"...it is not a personal attack to question an editor ...about their possible conflict of interest on a specific article or topic." [my emphasis]

This is what you've been called out on in abusing your authority. It is apparent that you are siding with your professional allegiance over your duty to Wikipedia, specifically your duty to uphold Wikipedia policy. I have clearly stated my objections without issuing any insult or personal attack whatsoever. If your concern is that I have commented on you presenting yourself to be an MD, my comments toward that end are what are known as a rational critique. Your actions are being heavily critiqued, and absolutely none of it is personal. It is all focused on process. What is proper. And what is a huge breach of propriety. You had the option to recuse yourself from intervening with any admin action in this particular issue. You chose to not do that. You had the option to enter the discussion as a normal editor to support the position you are backing, given your apparent expertise. You chose to not do that. You had the option to apply admin intervention power in spite of the apparent conflict of interest, while providing specific justification for your action. You chose not to do that in your first post, and again your second post is lacking specificity.

Surely you have the ability to recognize the distinction between thoroughly articulated protest versus a personal attack.

And once again per my cop analogy, you are attempting to justify your actions with broad brushed strokes. You throw out a vague "WP:TRUTH", yet an exact quote from that policy is:

"Sources must also be appropriate, and must be used carefully, and must be balanced relative to other sources per Wikipedia's policy on due and undue weight."

If you looked at that Talk page, you can see that I am the one who backed up my position with reliable sources (scientific medical study). Absolutely no sources were offered in support of the status quo statement that I have been pushing to get fixed. All of this was clearly articulated over there. I have thoroughly rebutted accusations of violating WP:Consensus over in the Talk discussion as well. If you've actually read it, then you have seen how I have expressed these points in detail, and no one posted a valid counter-argument - that's no one, including you.

This is hardly a WP:TRUTH issue, as I am totally open to the possibility that such citations do actually exist. My point was, and remains, that I have yet to see them. That goes for you in your actions here as well as those over there in the article.

You persist in REFUSING to state in exact terms the justification for what you did. Notice how my rebuttals and my firm conclusion that your behavior is abusive is fully supported with exact quotes from these Wikipedia policies. Again, one possible explanation is that you are not capable of providing precise justification. Another would be that you're being too lazy to seek out the applicable specific policy content. You throw out the phrase "disruptive editing" without providing so much as a link, let alone a quote.

If I were an admin, a specific quote would be the bare minimum that I would provide each and every time I were to wield something like a block.

In classic Wikipedia parlance... {{citation needed}}

...speaking of which, it is a trivial matter to circumvent the actions of an admin who has abused their power. I have full access to Wikipedia editing. Before I resume editing, you have an opportunity to provide the specific rationale as I am insisting on. I am keeping an open mind to the possibility that your actions may have legitimate justification.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 13:19, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just visited your Talk page and observed the relationship you have established with James. This is evidence that weighs toward a substantiation of a conflict of interest. The relationship might be compared to that of a "hired gun".--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 13:31, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have not looked at Wikipedia policy as it pertains what is proper and what is improper for admins to do, but I would hope that it would stipulate that for an admin to properly implement a block, they would need to be entering their judgement as a disinterested party. (Similar to principles applied in jury selection.) So once again, the flag is raised regarding the question: Who polices the police? "The state issues me this can of mace, and my buddy wants me to spray that person over there..."--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 13:45, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Using multiple accounts

You created ChrisnHouston (talk · contribs) to be able to post on my talkpage to debate your block. This is a clear example of block evasion. This is your final warning. You will be banned from editing Wikipedia if you continue to edit disruptively or abuse multiple accounts. This also means that any further account your create will be blocked without further discussion. JFW | T@lk 11:20, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You operate under a very puzzling understanding of what constitutes abuse.

How does me posting a civil opinion on your Talk page constitute any violation of anything?

Very strange indeed.--ChrisfromHouston (talk) 18:38, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for disruptive editing, block evasion using multiple accounts. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. JFW | T@lk 19:13, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]