User talk:Rainbowpainter

Welcome!

Hello, Rainbowpainter, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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 have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dia Duit

Hi there! If you're ever short of a few subjects to do, we'd be more than happy to see you at Wikipedia:Irish Wikipedians' notice board. There's not that many of us, and we need all the help and opinions we can get. Cheers! Fergananim 21:31, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Term of art

Hi! No one is accusing you of being a puppet as the term is normally used. No one.

"Meat puppet" in the context of Wikipedia administration is a term of art with a specific objective definition not based on who you are as a human being, but the bevavior of the username as it relates to a specific conflict in question. The need for the term of art arises from the fact that any anonyomous person can get multiple user names, or get their friends to sign up, and claim broad support for a position. Since broad support for a position is used as a handly yet flawed piece of evidence for the reasonableness of a position, it is sometimes abused. Wikipedia is moving towards using good references as evidence rather than a show of hands, and this is a good thing. Using good references is especially important in the case of biographies of living persons. Angel insisted (correctly) on deleting content from a biography of a living person that was not referenced by a good source. all-in-all it was a stupid argument over whether a Ph.D. in a hard science subject was a "scientist" or not and how this applies (or not) to his current job promoting psuedo-science. Simply noting the verifyable facts as the article did last I looked at it is the proper handling of any encyclopedia article.

Anyway, please be aware that no one thinks you the human are a puppet. The terminology only applies as a term of art characterizing the nature of the edits made by this username. Cheers. WAS 4.250 12:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]